William Cobbett (1763-1838)

Controversial journalist/writer, politician and agriculturalist: devotee of Thomas Bewick. 
(Publishing Office for the Porcupine 3, Southampton Street 1800; Pall Mall 1801-03; Ratepayer 11, Pall Mall 1800-02; 11, Bolt Court, off Fleet St. in 1802). 

Illustration: St James's Palace and Pall Mall, Samuel Scott (c.1702–1772) (style of) Walker Art Gallery.

Avoiding indictment and imprisonment in England for his outspoken views on corruption within the army; with his wife Anne, William Cobbett hurriedly left for France in March 1792. The French Revolution and war the greater danger, the couple again set sail in September 1792, this time for America. 

Starting out uneventfully at Wilmington, a small port on the Delaware about 30 miles from Philadelphia. A move and new home in Philadelphia, the national capital; with the cream of the social and political elite to take on, set the scene for William Cobbett’s 1794 attack on scientist and democrat Joseph Priestley. Getting into his stride, in 1795 Cobbett published: A Bone to Gnaw for the Democrats, in which he took to task the pro-French Democratic Party. 

Opening his bookstore in 1796, at 25 North Second Street Philadelphia, (he was thereafter known as Peter Porcupine); Cobbett spent years hurling his printed invective in all directions, new world and old. A political storm followed, which the provocative displays in the bookshop window did nothing to lessen. Cobbett re-published violent loyalist literature and attacked establishment figures such as two of the signatories to the declaration of independence, Thomas McKean and Dr Benjamin Rush. 

Arrest, release, re-arrest in 1797 for attacking the Spanish King in the Porcupine Gazette; Cobbett got off by just one vote of the grand jury. In the end, his luck ran out. Chief Justice McKean and Rush finished him off to the tune of a $8,000 criminal libel judgement, making another quick departure necessary. 

Outside Philadelphia jurisdiction, he headed for New York. Hasty realisation of assets – probably including shop stock – without much thought to paying the $8,000 judgement; Cobbett, with wife Anne and children (Anne and William) left America sailing for England in 1800. Arriving, via Halifax on 11 June and Nova Scotia, the family landed at Falmouth, Cornwall; Cobbett a triumphantly received celebrity.

On his voyage home from America he had to hand volume one of A History of British Birds. We can speculate that the vignettes may have reminded him of home. They may have chimed with his own political concerns. 

 
Volume one was purchased by Lloyd Kenyon, 1^st Baron of Gredington. The hurried scrawl describes, William Cobbett’s own copy of:  Bewick’s History of British Land Birds 1797.

“Bought from WillᵐCobbett 

at his shop The Bible & Crown 

Pall Mall 1801

He brought this book with him 

from America when he came 

back to England and said

~Sir, the curse of rebellion 

still hangs over that divided 

country where their birds 

have no song & 

their flowers no fragrance”

Exactly why Kenyon wanted this ‘odd’ volume, and why Cobbett parted with it is not known, perhaps a souvenir of the notorious writer, or a reminder of recent events.

The Speeches of the Hon. Thomas Erskine, in the Court of King’s Bench, June 28 1797, before the Right Hon. Lloyd Lord Kenyon, and a special jury, on the trial the King versus Thomas Williams, for publishing the Age of Reason, written by Thomas Pain; together with Mr. Stewart Kyd’s reply, and Lord Kenyon’s charge to the jury. Philadelphia: printed for, and sold by William Cobbett […] 1797.

Note Cobbett was in Philadelphia when Bewick published volume one. The volume was probably sent to him soon after publication. The book is bound in full roan in the American fashion. Probably by a Philadelphia binder such as Phillip Limeburner, who is noted as binding 98 copies in sheep of G. W. Snyder’s, The Age of Reason unreasonable, published by William Cobbett 1798.

History of British Birds | Land Birds | The Figures Engraved on Wood by T. Bewick | Vol. 1 | […] | Land Birds | 1797 (but 1798). Thick paper, royal 8vo.

Lloyd Kenyon, first Baron Kenyon’s bookplate. Inscription by Kenyon. Signature of Margaret Emma Kenyon, daughter in law of Lloyd Kenyon. 

William Cobbett owned other books by Bewick: The Quadrupeds which were looked over by his children, and also the Fables. I would be interested to hear about any books, showing evidence of Cobbett’s ownership. So far, this seems to be the only example. 

During his ‘Rural Rides’ in 1832, he visited Newcastle-upon-Tyne and wrote:

‘a copy of the last performance of this so justly celebrated man … exhibiting a poor old horse just about to die, and preceded by an explanatory writing, which does as much honour to the heart of Bewick as the whole of his designs put together do to his genius. The sight of the picture, the reading of the preface to it, and the fact that it was the last effort of the man; altogether make it difficult to prevent tears from starting from the eyes of any one not uncommonly steeled with insensibility.’

Graham Carlisle