9 March: Boreham on William Cobbett

A Stormy Petrel
William Cobbett, whose birthday this is, was made to mount the whirlwind and to ride the storm. Mountainous in form and volcanic in temperament, he presents for our contemplation the most arresting combination of pugnacity and polish of which we have any record. Upon Cobbett's burly figure, resolute features and robust character, John Leech is said to have based his familiar delineation of John Bull. Throughout the whole of his tempestuous and colourful career, William Cobbett certainly exhibited the massive masculinity that we invariably associate with that traditional personage. He called a spade a spade, and did it in immaculate English. His penetrating thrusts brought upon his towering head the venomous maledictions of highly placed and influential foes; yet his transparent honesty of purpose and his downright goodness of heart compelled the admiration and affection of the very men who squirmed beneath his vigorous assaults.

In his championship of the common people, Cobbett knew what he was talking about. The grandson of a farm labourer and the son of a small farmer, he was compelled to earn his own living as soon as he was six. He was out in the fields before it was light every morning, and, at night, he could scarcely struggle home. It was then, after a scanty meal had been hurriedly swallowed, that the books were brought out, and, with the father as schoolmaster, the business of education tackled. When the boys fell asleep over their lessons, as they often did, they were sent off to bed in disgrace. Those, Cobbett said later, were happy days. But since it was not good that such exacting conditions should continue, he dedicated the best efforts of his life to their amelioration.

A Story Of Prisons' And Palaces
At the age of 17, Cobbett set out for London, arriving in the metropolis with exactly half a crown in his pocket. City life, however, was little to his taste. He decided to join the Marines; but, filling in the wrong form, was surprised to find himself a soldier of the King in the 54th Foot Regiment, under orders to sail for Canada. During his early years in the army, he devoted all his time and thought to the process of self-improvement. Unable to afford lamps or candles, he frequently read and wrote by firelight. He often had to study amidst the songs and shouts of the other members of his regiment. Yet no man in the barracks was more popular and everybody was sorry when he returned to England.

Cobbett plunged into the placidities of English life like a bull charging into a china shop. It soon became clear that, during years of intensive study, he had acquired a literary style that was the natural expression of his electric personality. He knew how to make every sentence sting. He called himself Peter Porcupine and the pseudonym was by no means misleading. His criticisms of 18th Century England were so caustic, and yet so tellingly phrased, that the entire populace was compelled to listen. Defying all the conventions, and cherishing a fine scorn of personal consequence, he soon found himself wading through seas of trouble. Mulcted in fines that involved him in bankruptcy, and flung into gaol for years at a stretch, he spent a large slice of his life in fleeing from England to America and then from America to England again. He was, however, no iconoclast. With prophetic eye he saw the things that needed doing and he was determined that they should be done. His stark sincerity attracted the ear of the King, whilst men like Pitt, Peel, and Windham were compelled to pay attention. He entered Parliament in 1830, and mellowing with the years, won for his cause a respect that, in his more violent days, had been denied him.

The Gentleness That Subsists With Force
For all his vehemence and bluster, there dwelt in Cobbett a surprising wealth of tenderness. His love story is as beautiful as any idyll. After three years of service with his regiment in Canada, he was out one Winter morning before break of day. In an outhouse that he passed, he saw a girl busy with the washing. The snow was deep on the ground; the cold was piercing; it was still dark; yet she sang at her suds. "That's the girl for me!" Cobbett said to himself. Observing her more carefully he recognised her as an artilleryman's daughter to whom he had been introduced a day or two earlier. Cultivating her closer acquaintance, two difficulties presented themselves. She was only 13, and her father's regiment had been ordered back to England. During the years that followed, he wrote her regularly, and, fearful lest she should ruin her beauty by too much toil, he sent her all the money he could scrape together, a hundred and fifty guineas in all.

When Cobbett himself returned to the Homeland a few years later he found her a maid-of-all-work, earning two shillings a week. She smilingly accepted his proposal of marriage, and, at the same time, handed him a parcel which contained the entire sum that he had sent her. To the end of his days he never tired of singing her praises as a wife and as a mother. Nor was his devotion merely a matter of words. In one of his essays he urges husbands to demonstrate their fondness for their wives, not by endearing epithets, but by real understanding and practical sympathy. When on one occasion, Mrs. Cobbett was in delicate health, and, because of the barking of dogs, found sleep elusive, Cobbett slipped quietly out of the house, and, barefooted, lest she should hear his steps, spent the night driving the dogs to a distance. Cobbett represents one of those gigantic and enigmatic figures that make up the piquant charm of history. He had great faults, but they were faults of the head, never of the heart. He loved the English people, the English language, and the English home and he will always be remembered as a strong man and a good one.

F W Boreham

Image: William Cobbett