[3] “When I went as a candidate to Honiton, in the year 1806, I began by posting up a bill, having at the top of it this passage of Scripture, ‘Fire shall consume the tabernacles of bribery.’ After this I addressed myself to the people of the place, telling them how wicked and detestable it was to take bribes. Most of the corrupt villains laughed in my face, but some of the women actually cried out against me in the streets, as a man that had come to rob them of their blessing!” (Register, xlviii. 500.)

[4] The following advertisement, to the Electors of Westminster, was addressed to them in September, and appears in the Morning Post of the 19th:—

“Gentlemen,—Having, some time ago, publicly stated that, at the General Election then looked for, and in the case then supposed, it appeared to me that I ought to offer myself to you as a candidate; having now been informed that, in consequence of that statement, a very general expectation has been entertained that, upon this accidental occasion, I should so offer myself; and having, by many individuals of your respectable body, been pressingly urged to fulfil that expectation; thus situated, I think it my duty, first, explicitly to declare that, for the present, I relinquish the honour intended me, and for this sole reason, that at this time I find it would be next to impossible for me to devote myself wholly and exclusively to the discharge of the great duties which, by your suffrages, would necessarily be imposed; and, secondly, to warn you against the calamity, the shame, the deep disgrace, that await you and your country if, yielding to the venal solicitations of the stewards and butlers of noblemen, you condescend to become the menials of menials, the laquies of laquies,—and suffer the popular, the industrious, the enlightened and public-spirited city of Westminster, hitherto considered as the ever-burning lamp of the liberties of England, to be handed to-and-fro like a family borough. Confidently trusting that you will, with indignation, resent any project for thus extinguishing the fame of your city and degrading the character of her electors; confidently trusting that, when you consider that it is to you all other free cities and boroughs look for an example, you will tear in rags the gaudy livery now tendered for your backs; confidently trusting that, when the question is freedom or bondage, you will suspend all animosities and differences, and act with a degree of energy and unanimity that shall at once and for ever blast the hopes of all those who would make you the instruments of your country’s ruin; thus trusting, and with a mind full of gratitude for the goodwill which many of you have taken occasion to express towards myself,—I remain, &c., William Cobbett.”

Oddly enough, this advertisement precedes a highly abusive paragraph on “this low-bred man.” The Post was a good hater of the lower orders.

[5] In the end, Bradshaw and Cochrane were elected, and Mr. Robson found a seat as representative for Oakhampton.

[6] This is with reference to a glorious newspaper squabble, especially entertaining on account alike of the circumstances which aroused it and of the combatants engaged. The first attempt to defame the Princess of Wales had just been made, and the Morning Post took up the illustrious lady and the “infamous calumny” into its protecting breast. The fulsome style, and the dark insinuations conveyed, aroused Mr. Cobbett, and he, while asserting his indifference to the question until there was really some charge, on one side or the other, upon which to comment, wanted to know what the Post meant by stating that the Princess had been guilty of no levities, but such as no woman in the land was free from. Ever the champion of the sex, he begged for an explanation. Week after week the question was put, and reiterated with new zest. There was no answer; but only column after column of abuse upon the head of the “gross and abominable writer,” “this low-bred man,” this “modern Jack Cade,” &c. “This gross and abominable writer is exposed to the merited detestation of all classes, especially the more elevated, whom this writer has, in his revolutionary cant, described as the well-dressed rabble of the readers of the Morning Post. We hope the Attorney-General will look to this.” A very silly and abusive pamphlet followed, under the wing of the Post: “Strictures on Cobbett’s Unmanly Observations relative to the Delicate Investigation; and a Reply to the Answer to an Admonitory Letter to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, containing an Account of the True Cause why the Commissioners’ Report has not yet been Published, and many other Additional Facts, &c.” (London, 1806). Here is one of the additional facts:—“Vain, contemptible slanderer! where in all thy calumnious pages is one unanswerable argument.”