COBBETT, WILLIAM
William Cobbett (March 9, 1763–June 16, 1835) spent
most of his writing career in England, but his talent for
searing invective was on display in the United States from
1794 to 1800. He was an extremely prolific polemicist who
responded to English corruption, the French Revolution,
and American democratic politics by idealizing the traditional values and hierarchical order he associated with his
youth in rural England. An egotistical social conservative
with racist, sexist, and ultra-patriotic views, Cobbett could
be acerbic with his enemies, but he drew attention to political excesses and individual hypocrisy. He was widely read
in America and Britain even though he offended many with
his scurrility and had contempt for the idea of the sovereignty of the people.
Cobbett was born in Farnham, Surrey, where his father
was a small farmer and innkeeper. Although later proud of
having a simple country upbringing where God and king
were paramount, he left for tedious office work with a London attorney and then joined the army. Stationed in Nova
Scotia and New Brunswick, Cobbett taught himself writing,
grammar, and other subjects. He used administrative skills
to rise in rank to sergeant major in his regiment, but was disgusted with embezzlement by officers. He left the military
and prepared evidence to use against four of them in England. Obstructed in court and intimidated by officials, he fled
to revolutionary France and then America, but not before
writing The Soldier’s Friend (1792), an anonymous pamphlet
detailing abuses and cover-ups in the British military.
Arriving in the United States upset enough to seem
sympathetic to republicanism, Cobbett was soon so angry
about avaricious Americans, critical British émigrés, and
accounts of turmoil in France that he became a journalistic
defender of his native country. Starting in 1794, he wrote a
steady stream of pamphlets that heaped contempt on Paineites [supporters of Thomas Paine] and Jeffersonians. He
opened a store in Philadelphia that sold office supplies,
lottery tickets, and his own works. From 1797 to 1799 he
published Porcupine’s Gazette, a daily newspaper that did
battle with Benjamin Franklin Bache and other journalists
who backed Thomas Jefferson, sympathized with change in
France, and attacked Federalists. Contending that America
was on the brink of French-inspired moral and political
anarchy, Cobbett supported passage of the Sedition Act of
1798 and urged a military alliance with Britain.
As a journalist, Cobbett disdained fears of subscriber
reaction and professions of impartiality. He was, however,
subjected to threats and legal actions. After losing a financially ruinous libel suit brought by Dr. Benjamin Rush, he
returned to England in 1800. Over the next thirty-five years
Cobbett founded a number of periodicals and maintained
his prodigious journalistic productivity despite occasional
problems with the law that included two years in prison for
protesting flogging in the military. His writings identified
with the common people and appreciated the pre-industrial world of old England. His works included proposals
for political reform and the celebrated Rural Rides (1830).
Elected to Parliament in 1832, he had a heart attack during
a debate in 1835 and died several weeks later.
Further Reading
Cobbett, William. Peter Porcupine in America: Pamphlets of
Republicanism and Revolution, ed. David A. Wilson. Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press, 1994.
Durey, Michael. Transatlantic Radicals and the Early American
Republic. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1997.
List, Karen K. “The Role of William Cobbett in Philadelphia’s
Party Press, 1794–1799,” Journalism Monographs, no. 82,
May 1983.
Nattrass, Leonora. William Cobbett: The Politics of Style. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Smith, Jeffery A. Franklin and Bache: Envisioning the Enlightened Republic. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
Spater, George. William Cobbett: The Poor Man’s Friend. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
Jeffrey A. Smith