Essential Writings Volume 3 by William Cobbett

Author:William Cobbett [Cobbett, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783849651787
Google: QXrBzQEACAAJ
Amazon: B07BL51DV8
Goodreads: 39402446
Publisher: Jazzybee Verlag
Published: 2018-01-15T08:37:00+00:00

TO THE INDEPENDENT PEOPLE OF HAMPSHIRE.

(Political Register, July, 1809.)

“What mighty contests rise from trivial things!”

Pope.

William Cobbett

26th July, 1809

Botley

LETTER VI.

The Pauper’s Action.

Gentlemen,

In the poem, from which my motto is taken, you will, I dare say, recollect, that the poet records the important consequences that resulted from a gentleman’s cutting off a lock of a lady’s hair. Disproportioned as those consequences were to their cause, they are, I think, surpassed, in that respect, by the consequences, which have resulted from the running away of a carter-boy from my service, which act has produced, probably, a greater noise and bustle, and excited more curiosity and more interest in this county, than any act or event that has taken place within the long reign of the present king; that is to say, almost half a century. Notwithstanding this, however, I should not, in this elaborate manner, have addressed you upon the subject, had the noise and bustle been confined within the county. My intention was merely to have contradicted, in the county papers, the falsehoods, which had been spread abroad. But, perceiving that the Trial, which took place at Winchester, last week, relative to this affair, has been made, in the London ministerial prints, a subject of vast importance, the groundwork of new calumnies, and the intended means of injuring that great public cause, in the supporting of which our enemies know me to be instrumental to the utmost of my power: perceiving this, I think it necessary to enter fully into the subject in my own work, in order that the refutation may circulate as widely as the charge; that it may even go beyond it, and that, in countries where an English ministerial paper is never seen, the character of such publications may be made known.

Those amongst you, gentlemen, who were at Winchester during the last week, and who, of course, heard the universal buz, saw the knots of people, in all parts, laying their heads together, and who, at last, saw the court crammed even to suffocation; and all this on account of a thing the most trifling, that the law can, when administered by a judge, possibly take notice of, and that, in spite of all that could be done by all the machinations of all the parties, high and low, concerned in the scheme, obtained from me damages to the amount of only three pounds, six shillings, and eightpence; you, who were eye-witnesses of the scene, and who had the means of hearing, from my neighbours, the real state of the facts, and the real motives of the action; you must have ceased to feel any surprise whatever on the subject; but, to those, who were not at Winchester; to those whom the story has reached only through the newspapers, it must seem utterly astonishing, that all this outcry should have been made, that all this interest should have been excited, by an act, the commission of which should call for damages to the amount of only one-third part of ten pounds.

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