William Cobbett . Edward E. Smith
own omelettes, he will have his English served up fresh; no musty Addison nor dry Delolme for him; no stale oligarchical stuff, ready for hatching into villainy and oppression; but the sweet, new-laid principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity. Which principles, as exemplified in their latest fruits, Monsieur le Maître d’Anglais abhors, with all his heart and soul.
Accordingly, there forthwith appeared an anonymous pamphlet, under the title of “Observations on Priestley’s Emigration;” consisting of a review of the circumstances which had driven the Doctor from Birmingham, and eventually from England; and a running commentary upon the republican addresses which had been presented to him. The whole tenour of the tract, however, consisted in its expressed horror of the ruin and desolation which the theorists had brought upon France, and in pointing out what would be (in the mind of the writer) the logical result of the new ideas being disseminated in England. Priestley’s emigration, in point of fact, was made the peg on which to hang an anti-revolution tirade. Certain sound principles, however, were enunciated: an extract or two will serve to show this, and, by the felicitous terms in which they are conveyed, to display the wonderful command which Cobbett had already acquired over his native tongue.
“System-mongers are an unreasonable species of mortals; time, place, climate, nature itself, must give way. They must have the same governments in every quarter of the globe; when, perhaps, there are not two countries which can possibly admit of the same form of government at the same time. A thousand hidden causes, a thousand circumstances and unforeseen events, conspire to the forming of a government. It is always done by little and little. When completed, it presents nothing like a system; nothing like a thing composed, and written in a book. It is curious to hear people cite the American government as the summit of human perfection, while they decry the English; when it is absolutely nothing more than the government which the kings of England established here, with such little modifications as were necessary on account of the state of society and local circumstances. If, then, the Doctor is come here for a change of government and laws, he is the most disappointed of mortals. He will have the mortification to find in his ‘asylum’ the same laws as those from which he has fled, the same upright manner of administering them, the same punishment of the oppressor, and the same protection of the oppressed. In the courts of justice he will every day see precedents quoted from the English law-books; and (which to him may appear wonderful) we may venture to predict, that it will be very long before they will be supplanted by the bloody records of the revolutionary tribunal.”
“Even supposing his intended plan of improvement had been the best in the world, instead of the worst, the people of England had certainly a right to reject it. He claims as an indubitable right, the right of thinking for others, and yet he will not permit the people of England to think for themselves. … If the English choose to remain slaves, bigots, and idolaters, as the Doctor calls them, that was no business of his; he had nothing to do with them. He should have let them alone; and, perhaps in due time, the abuses of their government would have come to that ‘natural termination,’ which he trusts, ‘will guard against future abuses.’ But no, said the Doctor, I will reform you—I will enlighten you—I will make you free.—You shall not, say the people.—But I will! says the Doctor. By——, say the people, you shall not! ‘And when Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his ass, and arose, and gat him home to his house, to his city, and put his household in order, and hanged himself, and died, and was buried in the sepulchre of his father.’ ”
“I am one of those who wish to believe that foreigners come to this country from choice, and not from necessity. … The most numerous, as well as the most useful, are mechanics. Perhaps a cobbler, with his hammer and awls, is a more valuable acquisition than a dozen philosophi-theologi-politi-cal empirics, with all their boasted apparatus.”
Mr. Thomas Bradford was again his publisher. The circumstance is fully related in the American autobiography:—
“When the ‘Observations’ on the Emigration of this ‘martyr to the cause of liberty’ were ready for the press, I did not, at first, offer them to Mr. Bradford. I knew him to retain a rooted hatred against Great Britain, and concluded, that his principles would prevent him from being instrumental in the publication of anything that tended to unveil one of its most bitter enemies. I therefore addressed myself to Mr. Carey.[1] This was, to make use of a culinary figure, jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire. Mr. Carey received me as booksellers generally receive authors (I mean authors whom they hope to get but little by): he looked at the title from top to bottom, and then at me from head to foot.—‘No, my lad,’ says he, ‘I don’t think it will suit.’ ”—My lad! God in heaven forgive me! I believe that, at that moment, I wished for another yellow fever to strike the city; not to destroy the inhabitants, but to furnish me too with the subject of a pamphlet, that might make me rich. Mr. Carey has sold hundreds of the ‘Observations’ since that time, and therefore I dare say he highly approved of them, when he came to a perusal. At any rate, I must not forget to say, that he behaved honourably in the business; for, he promised not to make known the author, and he certainly kept his word, or the discovery would not have been reserved for the month of June, 1796. This circumstance, considering Mr. Carey’s politics, is greatly to his honour, and has almost wiped from my memory that contumelious ‘my lad.’
“From Mr. Carey I went to Mr. Bradford, and left the pamphlet for his perusal. The next day I went to him to know his determination. He hesitated, wanted to know if I could not make it a little more popular, adding that, unless I could, he feared that the publishing of it would endanger his windows. ‘More popular,’ I could not make it. I never was of an accommodating disposition in my life. The only alteration I would consent to was in the title. I had given the pamphlet the double title of ‘The Tartuffe Detected; or, Observations,’ &c. The former was suppressed, though, had I not been pretty certain that every press in the city was as little free as that to which I was sending it, the ‘Tartuffe Detected’ should have remained; for the person on whom it was bestowed merited it much better than the character so named by Molière.
“These difficulties, and these fears of the bookseller, at once opened my eyes with respect to the boasted liberty of the press. Because the laws of this country proclaim to the world, that every man may write and publish freely, and because I saw the newspapers filled with vaunts on the subject, I was fool enough to imagine that the press was really free for every one. I had not the least idea, that a man’s windows were in danger of being broken, if he published anything that was not popular. I did, indeed, see the words liberty and equality, the rights of man, the crimes of kings, and such like, in most of the booksellers’ windows; but I did not know that they were put there to save the glass, as a free republican Frenchman puts a cockade tricolor in his hat to save his head. I was ignorant of all these arcana of the liberty of the press.
“The work that it was feared would draw down punishment on the publisher, did not contain one untruth, one anarchical, indecent, immoral, or irreligious expression; and yet the bookseller feared for his windows! For what? Because it was not popular enough. A bookseller in a despotic state fears to publish a work that is ‘too popular,’ and one in a free state fears to publish a work that is not ‘popular enough.’ I leave it to the learned philosophers of the ‘Age of Reason’ to determine in which of these states there is the most liberty of the press; for, I must acknowledge, the point is too nice for me: fear is fear, whether inspired by a Sovereign Lord the King, or by a Sovereign People.
“The terms on which Mr. Bradford took the ‘Observations,’ were what booksellers call publishing it together. I beg the reader, if he foresees the possibility of his becoming an author, to recollect this phrase well. Publishing it together is thus managed: the bookseller takes the work, prints it, and defrays all expenses of paper, binding, &c. and the profits, if any, are divided between him and the author.—Long after the ‘Observations’ were sold off, Mr. Bradford rendered me an account (undoubtedly a very just one) of the sales. According to this account, my share of the profits (my share only) amounted to the enormous sum of one shilling and sevenpence halfpenny, currency of the State of Pennsylvania (or, about elevenpence