II
William Cobbett was born in the neighbourhood of Farnham, on the 9th of March, 1762. The remotest ancestor he had ever heard of was his grandfather, who had been a day labourer, and, according to the rustic habits of old times, worked with the same farmer from the day of his marriage to that of his death. The son, Cobbett’s parent, was a man superior to the generality of persons in his station of life. He could not only read and write, but he knew also a little mathematics; understood land surveying, was honest and industrious, and had thus risen from the position of labourer, a position in which he was born, to that of having labourers under him.
Cobbett’s boyhood, I may say his childhood, was passed in the fields: first he was seen frightening the birds from the turnips, then weeding wheat, then leading a horse at harrowing barley, finally joining the reapers at harvest, driving the team, and holding the plough. His literary instruction was small, and only such as he could acquire at home. It was shrewdly asked by Dr. Johnson, “What becomes of all the clever schoolboys?” In fact, many of the boys clever at school are not heard of afterwards, because if they are docile they are also timid, and attend to the routine of education less from the love of learning than the want of animal spirits. Cobbett was not a boy of this kind. At the age of sixteen he determined to go to sea, but could not get a captain to take him. At the age of seventeen he quitted his home (having already, when much younger, done so in search of adventures), and without communicating his design to any one, started, dressed in his Sunday clothes, for the great city of London. Here, owing to the kind exertions of a passenger in the coach in which this his first journey was made, he got engaged after some time and trouble as under-clerk to an attorney (Mr. Holland), in Gray’s Inn Lane.
It is natural enough that to a lad accustomed to fresh air, green fields, and out-of-door exercise, the close atmosphere, dull aspect, and sedentary position awaiting an attorney’s under-clerk at Gray’s Inn must have been hateful. But William Cobbett never once thought of escaping from what he called “an earthly hell” by a return to his home and friends. This would have been to confess himself beaten, which he never meant to be. On the contrary, rushing from one bold step to another still more so, he enlisted himself (1784) as a soldier in a regiment intended to serve in Nova Scotia. His father, though somewhat of his own stern and surly nature, begged, prayed, and remonstrated. But it was useless. The recruit, however, had some months to pass in England, since, peace having taken place, there was no hurry in sending off the troops. These months he spent in Chatham, storing his brains with the lore of a circulating library, and his heart with love-dreams of the librarian’s daughter.
To this period he owed what he always considered his most valuable acquisition, a knowledge of his native language; the assiduity with which he gave himself up to study, on this occasion, insured his success and evinced his character. He wrote out the whole of an English grammar two or three times; he got it by heart; he repeated it every morning and evening, and he imposed on himself the task of saying it over once every time that he mounted guard. “I learned grammar,” he himself says, “when I was a private soldier on the pay of sixpence a day. The edge of my berth, or that of the guard-bed, was my seat to study on; my knapsack was my book-case, a bit of board lying on my lap was my writing-table, and the task did not demand anything like a year of my life.” Such is will. In America, Cobbett remained as a soldier till the month of September, 1791, when his regiment was relieved and sent home. On the 19th of November, he obtained his discharge, after having served nearly eight years, never having once been disgraced, confined, or reprimanded, and having attained, owing to his zeal and intelligence, the rank of sergeant-major without having passed through the intermediate rank of sergeant.
The following was the order issued at Portsmouth on the day of his discharge:
“Portsmouth, 19th Dec. 1791.
“Sergeant-Major Cobbett having most pressingly applied for his discharge, at Major Lord Edward Fitzgerald’s request, General Frederick has ordered Major Lord Edward Fitzgerald to return the Sergeant-Major thanks for his behaviour and conduct during the time of his being in the regiment, and Major Lord Edward adds his most hearty thanks to those of the General.”