Rural Rides Read online

  Cobbett’s principal writings

  (including newspapers, journals and edited works)

  Place of publication is London unless otherwise stated

  Advice to Young Men and (Incidentally) to Young Women(1830).

  Cobbett’s Advice(1800).

  Cobbett’s Advice to the Chopsticks, two broadsides (1832).

  Cobbett’s Collective Commentaries (1822).

  Cobbett’s Evening Post (1820).

  Cobbett’s Manchester Lectures, in Support of his Fourteen Reform Propositions… (1832).

  Cobbett’s Parliamentary Debates (1804–12).

  Cobbett’s Parliamentary History of England (1804–12).

  Cobbett’s Sermons… (1821–2).

  Cottage Economy: Containing Information Relating to the Brewing of Beer, Making of Bread, Keeping of Cows… (1822).

  Eleven Lectures on the French and Belgian Revolutions… (1830).

  The Emigrant’s Guide; in Ten Letters… (1829).

  The English Gardener; or, A Treatise on the Situation, Soil, Enclosing and Laying-Out, of Kitchen Gardens… (1828).

  Essay on Sheep…, by R. R. Livingstone, edition by Cobbett (1811).

  French Grammar, Or, Plain Instruction for the Learning of French (1824).

  A Grammar of tie English Language… (New York, 1818).

  A History of the Last Hundred Days of English Freedom, ed. J. L. Hammond (1921), reprints from the Political Register of 1817.

  A History of the Protestant ‘Reformation’ in England and Ireland… (1824-7).

  History of the Regency and Reign of King George the Fourth… (1830–34).

  Horse-Hoeing Husbandry: Cobbett’s edition of Jethro Tull’s Horse-Hoeing Husbandry… (1731, 1822).

  Important Considerations for the People of this Kingdom… (1803).

  ‘The King against William Cobbett: trial of William Cobbett for publishing a seditious libel’ (1831), Reports of State Trials, ed. J. Macdonell, new ser. (1889), II (1823–31).

  Legacy to Labourers; Or, What is the Rights which Lords, Baronets and Squires have to the Lands of England? (1834).

  Legacy to Parsons; Or, Have the Clergy of the Established Church an Equitable Right to the Tithes…? (1835).

  A Letter to the King (1830).

  The Life and Adventures of Peter Porcupine, ed. G. D. H. Cole (1796, 1927).

  Mr Cobbett’s Taking Leave of his Countrymen (1817).

  Norfolk Yeoman’s Gazette (Norwich, 1823).

  Paper Against Gold and Gold Against Property… (1815, 1828).

  Political Censor (Philadelphia, 1796–7).

  Political Register: variously titled Cobbett’s Political Register, Cobbett’s Annual Register, Cobbett’s Weekly Political Register, Cobbett’s Weekly Register, 89 vols. (1802–35).

  Poor Man’s Friend, Or, A Defence of the Rights of Those who do the Work… (1826-7).

  The Porcupine (1800).

  Porcupine’s Gazette (Philadelphia, 1797–9).

  Porcupine’s Works; Containing Various Writings and Selections…, 12 vols. (1801).

  Prospectus of a New Daily Paper, to be Entitled The Porcupine (1800).

  Rural Rides in the Counties of Surrey, Kent, Sussex, Hampshire… (1830).

  The Rush-Light (London and New York, 1800).

  The Soldier’s Friend; Or, Considerations on the Late Pretended Augmentation of the Substance of Private Soldiers (1792).

  Tour in Scotland: And in the Four Northern Counties of England… (1833).

  A Treatise on Cobbett’s Corn… (1828).

  Treatise on the Culture and Management of Fruit Trees… by William Forsyth, edition by Cobbett (1802).

  Two-Penny Trash; Or, Politics for the Poor (1830–32).

  The Woodlands; Or, A Treatise on the Preparation of the Ground for Planting… (1828).

  A Year’s Residence in the United States of America… (New York, 1818–19).

  Cobbett studies, bibliographies and published correspondence

  Place of publication is London unless otherwise stated

  Briggs, A., William Cobbett (1967).

  Burton, A., William Cobbett: Englishman (1997).

  Carlile, E. I., William Cobbett: A Study of his Life as Shown by his Writings (1904).

  Chesterton, G. K., William Cobbett (n.d., 1926).

  Clark, M., Peter Porcupine in America: The Career of William Cobbett 1762–1835 (Philadelphia, 1939).

  Cole, G. D. H., ‘Introduction’, Life and Adventures of Peter Porcupine (1927).

  —The Life of William Cobbett, third edn (1947).

  —(ed.), Letters from William Cobbett to Edward Thornton (1937).

  —and M. Cole (eds.), The Opinions of William Cobbett (1944).

  Derry, J., ‘William Cobbett: a sentimental Radical’, in J. Deny, The Radical Tradition: Tom Paine to Lloyd George (1967).

  Duff, G. (ed.), Letters of William Cobbett (Salzburg, 1974).

  Dyck, I., ‘From “Rabble” to “Chopsticks”: the radicalism of William Cobbett’, Albion 21:1 (Spring 1989).

  —William Cobbett and Rural Popular Culture (Cambridge, 1992).

  —‘William Cobbett and the rural Radical platform’, Social History, 18:2 (May 1993).

  Egerton, H., ‘A Scarce book’, National Review, 5 (1885).

  Foot, M., ‘A Radical spirit’, Observer, 4 September 1983.

  Gaines, P. W., ‘Two letters written by William Cobbett from America’, Yale University Library Gazette, 48, pt 1 (July 1973).

  —William Cobbett and the United States, 1792–1835 (Worcester, Mass., 1971).

  Gaskell, C. M., ‘William Cobbett’, Nineteenth Century, 19 (February 1886).

  Green, D., Great Cobbett: The Noblest Agitator (1983).

  [Hammond, J. L.],‘Cobbett’s Political Register’, Edinburgh Review, 206 (July 1907).

  Hazlitt, W., ‘Mr Cobbett’ (1821), in The Spirit of the Age, ed. E. D. MacKerness (1969).

  Heath, R., ‘A peasant politician: William Cobbett’ (1874), in R. Heath, The English Peasant (1893; East Ardsley, 1978).

  Himmelfarb, G., ‘William Cobbett’, in G. Himmelfarb, The Idea of Poverty: England in the Early Industrial Age (1984).

  —‘William Cobbett’, New Criterion, October 1982.

  Ingrams, R. (ed.), Cobbett’s Country Book (Newton Abbot, 1975).

  —‘The Pattern John Bull’, Spectator, 1 May 1982.

  Kebbel, T. E., ‘Cobbett’, Cornhill Magazine, 39 (April 1879).

  Keith, W. J., ‘William Cobbett’, in W. J. Keith, The Rural Tradition (Toronto, 1974).

  Knight, Denis (ed.), Cobbett in Ireland: A Warning to England (1984).

  L, ‘On maize or Indian corn — Mr Cobbett’s work’, Quarterly Review of Agriculture, 2 (1829).

  Lemrow, L., ‘William Cobbett’s journalism for the lower orders’, Victorian Periodicals Review, 15 (Spring 1982).

  Marx, K., letter to New York Daily Tribune, 22 July 1853.

  Massingham, H. J., The Wisdom of the Fields (1945).

  Melville, L., The Life and Letters of William Cobbett in England & America, 2 vols. (1913).

  Morton, J. B., ‘William Cobbett’, London Mercury, 20 (June 1929).

  Nattrass, L., William Cobbett: The Politics of Style (Cambridge, 1995).

  Osborne, J., William Cobbett: His Thought and his Times (New Brunswick, NJ, 1966).

  Pearl, M. L., William Cobbett: A Bibliographical Account of his Life and Times (1953, Westport, Conn., 1971).

  Pell, A. J., ‘William Cobbett’, Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, 63 (1902).

  Phelps, H., ‘The Most English of Englishmen’, Cobbett’s New Register, 7:8 (October 1988).

  Reitzel, W. (ed.), The Progress of a Ploughboy to a Seat in Parliament (1933).

  Rogers, J. E. T., ‘William Cobbett’, in J. E. T. Rogers, Historical Gleanings (1869).

  Sambrook, J., William Cobbett (1973).

  Schweizer, K., and R. Klein, ‘The Progress of William Cobbett’, Durham University Jo
urnal, 81:2 (June 1989).

  —and J. Osborne, Cobbett in his Times (Leicester, 1990).

  Smith, E., William Cobbett: A Biography, 2 vols. (1879).

  Spater, G., William Cobbett: The Poor Man’s Friend, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1982).

  Stafford, W., ’Rural Rides, William Cobbett, 1830’, in W. Stafford, Socialism, Radicalism, and Nostalgia: Social Criticism in Britain, 1775–1830 (Cambridge, 1987).

  Stebbing, W., ‘William Cobbett’, Edinburgh Review, 149 (April 1879).

  Stephen, J. F., ‘Cobbett’s Political Works’, Saturday Review, 22:19 (1866).

  Stephen, L., ‘William Cobbett’, New Review, 9 (1893).

  Stevenson, J., ‘William Cobbett: Patriot or Briton?’, in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th Ser., vol. VI (1996).

  Sturt, G., ‘Seventy years ago’, Longman’s Magazine, 45 (February 1905).

  Taylor, A. J. P., ‘William Cobbett’, in A. J. P. Taylor, Essays in English History (1976).

  Thompson, E. P., ‘William Cobbett’, in E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (1963, Harmondsworth, 1968).

  Wells, R., ‘Mr William Cobbett, Captain Swing, and King William IV’, in Agricultural History Review, 45, part I (1997).

  Wiener, M., ‘The changing image of William Cobbett’, Journal of British Studies, 13:2 (May 1974).

  Williams, R., Cobbett (Oxford, 1983).

  —‘The Man who Shifted against the Tide,’ New Society, 60 (29 April 1982).

  Wilson, D., Paine and Cobbett: The Transatlantic Connection (Montreal and Kingston, 1988).

  —(ed.), Peter Porcupine in America: Pamphlets on Republicanism and Revolution (Ithaca, 1994).

  A NOTE ON THE TEXT

  Cobbett’s rural rides began to appear in his Political Register in 1821, and they first appeared in book form in 1830, published by Cobbett himself from his Fleet Street office. This original edition is followed here and generally conforms with G. D. H. Cole and Margaret Cole’s centenary edition, 3 volumes (London: Peter Davies, 1930). Included in the present text is the Petersfield to Kensington ride of November 1825 and part of the Kensington to East Everley ride of August 1826: both appeared in the Political Register and it is not clear why they were omitted from the 1830 edition. These rides warrant inclusion for the sake of continuity as well as for their perspectives on the lesser gentry, stock-jobbing, education and the landscapes of the Weald of Sussex and Surrey. As with the first Penguin edition of Rural Rides, ed. George Woodcock (1967), I have separated the Burghclere to East Everley ride of 1826 which in the 1830 edition was attached (presumably by mistake) to the Burghclere to Petersfield ride of 1825.

  Except where intelligibility would be sacrificed, I have maintained Cobbett’s idiosyncratic spelling, italics and use of capital letters in the manner of the Coles’ edition. House styling has been applied to quotation marks (singles, not doubles); en-dashes (not em); and no full stops after titles (e.g. Dr, Mr, Mrs).

  RURAL RIDES

  IN THE COUNTIES OF

  Surrey, Kent, Sussex, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Gloncestershire,

  Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Somersetshire,

  Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Essex, Suffolk,

  Norfolk, and Hertfordshire:

  WITH

  Economical and Political Observations relative to

  matters applicable to, and illustrated by, the State

  of those Counties respectively.

  BY WILLIAM COBBETT.

  LONDON:

  PUBLISHED BT WILLIAM COBBETT, 183, FLEET STRRET.

  1830.

  RURAL RIDE OF A HUNDRED AND FOUR MILES,

  FROM KENSINGTON TO UPHUSBAND; INCLUDING A RUSTIC

  HARANGUE AT WINCHESTER AT A DINNER WITH THE

  FARMERS, ON THE 28TH SEPTEMBER

  Chilworth, near Guildford, Surrey, Wednesday, 25th Sept. 1822

  This morning I set off, in rather a drizzling rain, from Kensington, on horse-back, accompanied by my son James,1 with an intention of going to UPHUSBAND, near ANDOVER, which is situated in the North West corner of Hampshire. It is very true that I could have gone to Uphusband by travelling only about 66 miles, and in the space of about eight hours. But, my object was, not to see inns and turnpike-roads, but to see the country; to see die farmers at home, and to see die labourers in the fields; and to do this you must go either on foot or on horse-back. With a gig you cannot get about amongst bye-lanes and across fields, through bridle-ways and hunting-gates; and to tramp it is too slow, leaving the labour out of the question, and that is not a trifle.

  We went through the turnpike-gate at Kensington, and immediately turned down the lane to our left, proceeded on to Fulham, crossed Putney-bridge into Surrey, went over Barnes Common, and then, going on die upper side of Richmond, got again into Middlesex by crossing Richmond-bridge. All Middlesex is ugly, notwithstanding the millions upon millions which it is continually sucking up from the rest of the kingdom; and, though the Thames and its meadows now-and-then are seen from the road, the country is not less ugly from Richmond to Chertsey-bridge, through Twickenham, Hampton, Sunbury and Sheperton, than it is elsewhere. The soil is a gravel at bottom with a black loam at top near the Thames; further back it is a sort of spewy gravel; and the buildings consist generally of tax-eaters’ showy tea-garden-like boxes, and of shabby dwellings of labouring people, who, in this part of the country, look to be about half Saint Giles’s: dirty, and have every appearance of drinking gin.

  At Chertsey, where we came into Surrey again, there was a Fair for horses, cattle and pigs. I did not see any sheep. Every thing was exceedingly dull. Cart colts, two and three years old, were selling for less than a third of what they sold for in 1813. The cattle were of an inferior description to be sure; but the price was low almost beyond belief. Cows, which would have sold for 15l. in 1813, did not get buyers at 3l. I had not time to inquire much about the pigs, but a man told me that they were dirt-cheap. Near Chertsey is Saint Anne’s Hill and some other pretty spots. Upon being shown this hill I was put in mind of Mr Fox; and that brought into my head a grant that he obtained of Crown lands in this neighbourhood, in, I think, 1806. The Duke of York obtained, by Act of Parliament, a much larger grant of these lands, at Oatlands, in 1804, I think it was. But this was natural enough; this is what would surprize nobody. Mr Fox’s was another affair; and especially when taken into view with what I am now going to relate. In 1804 or 1805, FORDYCE, the late Duchess of Gordon’s brother, was Collector General (or had been) of taxes in Scotland, and owed a large arrear to the public. He was also Surveyor of Crown Lands. The then Opposition were for hauling him up. Pitt was again in power. Mr CREEVEY was to bring forward the motion in the House of Commons, and Mr Fox was to support it, and had actually spoken once or twice, in a preliminary way on the subject. Notice of the motion was regularly given; it was put off from time to time, and, at last, dropped, Mr Fox declining to support it. I have no books at hand; but the affair will be found recorded in the Register. It was not owing to Mr CREEVEY that the thing did not come on. I remember well that it was owing to Mr Fox. Other motives were stated; and those others might be the real motives; but, at any rate, the next year, or the year after, Mr Fox got transferred to him a part of that estate, which belongs to the public, and which was once so great, called the Crown Lands; and of these lands Fordyce long had been, and then was the Surveyor. Such are the facts: let the reader reason upon them and draw the conclusion.

  This county of Surrey presents to the eye of the traveller a greater contrast than any other county in England. It has some of the very best and some of the worst lands, not only in England, but in the world. We were here upon those of the latter description. For five miles on the road towards Guildford the land is a rascally common covered with poor heath, except where the gravel is so near the top as not to suffer even the heath to grow. Here we enter the enclosed lands, which have the gravel at bottom, but a nice light, black mould at top; in which the trees grow very well. Through bye-lanes and bridle-w
ays we came out into the London road, between Ripley and Guildford, and immediately crossing that road, came on towards a village called Merrow. We came out into the road just mentioned, at the lodge-gates of a Mr Weston, whose mansion and estate have just passed (as to occupancy) into the hands of some new man. At Merrow, where we came into the Epsom road, we found, that Mr Webb Weston, whose mansion and park are a little further on towards London, had just walked out, and left it in possession of another new man. This gentleman told us, last year, at the Epsom Meeting, that he Was losing his incomes; and I told him how it was that he was losing it! He is said to be a very worthy man; very much respected; a very good landlord; but, I dare say, he is one of those who approved of yeomanry cavalry to keep down the ‘Jacobins and Levellers’; but, who, in fact, as I always told men of this description, have put down themselves and their landlords; for, without them this thing never could have been done. To ascribe the whole to contrivance would be to give to Pitt and his followers too much credit for profundity; but, if the knaves who assembled at the Crown and Anchor in the Strand, in 1793, to put down, by the means of prosecutions and spies, those whom they called ‘Republicans and Levellers’;2 if these knaves had said, ‘Let us go to work to induce the owners and occupiers of the land to convey their estates and their capital into our hands’, and if the Government had corresponded with them in views, the effect could not have been more complete than it has, thus far, been. The yeomanry actually, as to the effect, drew their swords to keep the reformers at bay, while the tax-eaters were taking away the estates and the capital. It was the sheep surrendering up the dogs into the hands of the wolves.

  Lord Onslow lives near Merrow. This is the man that was, for many years, so famous as a driver of four-in-hand. He used to be called Tommy Onslow. He has the character of being a very good landlord. I know he called me ‘a d—d Jacobin’ several years ago, only, I presume, because I was labouring to preserve to him the means of still driving four in hand, while he, and others like him, and their yeomanry cavalry, were working as hard to defeat my wishes and endeavours. They say here, that, some little time back, his Lordship, who has, at any rate, had the courage to retrench in all sorts of ways, was at Guildford in a gig with one horse, at the very moment, when Spicer, the Stock-broker, who was a Chairman of the Committee for prosecuting Lord Cochrane, and who lives at Esher, came rattling in with four horses and a couple of out-riders! They relate an observation made by his Lordship, which may, or may not, be true, and which therefore, I shall not repeat. But, my Lord, there is another sort of courage; courage other than that of retrenching, that would become you in the present emergency: I mean political courage; and, especially the courage of acknowledging your errors; confessing that you were wrong, when you called the reformers jacobins and levellers; the courage of now joining them in their efforts to save their country, to regain their freedom, and to preserve to you your estate, which is to be preserved, you will observe, by no other means than that of a Reform of the Parliament. It is now manifest, even to fools, that it has been by the instrumentality of a base and fraudulent paper-money, that loan-jobbers, stock-jobbers and Jews have got the estates into their hands. With what eagerness, in 1797, did the nobility, gentry and clergy, rush forward to give their sanction and their support to the system which then began, and which has finally produced what we now behold! They assembled in all the counties, and put forth declarations, that they would take the paper of the Bank, and that they would support the system. Upon this occasion the county of Surrey was the very first county; and, on the list of signatures, the very first name was Onslow! There may be sales and conveyances; there may be recoveries, deeds, and other parchments; but, this was the real transfer; this was the real signing away of the estates.