"The toast having been _opposed_, and that, too, in the extraordinary
manner we have witnessed, I will, at any rate, with your permission,
make a remark or two on that manner. If the person who has made the
opposition had been actuated by a spirit of fairness and justice, he
would not have confined himself to a detached sentence of the paper from
which he has read; but, would have taken the whole together; for, by
taking a particular sentence, and leaving out all the rest, what writing
is there that will not admit of a wicked interpretation? As to the
particular part which has been read, I should not, perhaps, if I had
seen it _in print_, and had had time to cool a little [it was in a
Register sent from Norfolk], have sent it forth in terms so very general
as to embrace all the farmers of this county; but, as to those of them
who put _the bell round the labourer's neck_, I beg leave to be now
repeating, in its severest sense, every word of the passage that has
been read.--Born in a farm-house, bred up at the plough-tail, with a
smock-frock on my back, taking great delight in all the pursuits of
farmers, liking their society, and having amongst them my most esteemed
friends, it is natural, that I should feel, and I do feel, uncommonly
anxious to prevent, as far as I am able, that total ruin which now
menaces them. But the labourer, was I to have no feeling for him? Was
not he my _countryman_ too? And was I not to feel indignation against
those farmers, who had had the hard-heartedness to put the bell round
his neck, and thus wantonly insult and degrade the class to whose toils
they owed their own ease? The statement of the fact was not mine; I read
it in the newspaper as having come from Mr. Ellman the younger; he, in a
very laudable manner, expressed his _horror_ at it; and was not I to
express _indignation_ at what Mr. Ellman felt horror? That Gentleman and
Mr. Webb Hall may monopolize all the wisdom in matters of political
economy; but are they, or rather is Mr. Ellman alone, to engross all the
feeling too? [It was here denied that Mr. Ellman had said the bell had
been put on by _farmers_.] Very well, then, the complained of passage
has been productive of benefit to the farmers of this county; for, as
the thing stood in the newspapers, the natural and unavoidable inference
was, that that atrocious, that inhuman act, was an act of Sussex
farmers."
_Brighton, Thursday, 10 Jan., 1822._
Lewes is in a valley of the _South Downs_, this town is at eight miles'
distance, to the south south-west or thereabouts. There is a great
extent of rich meadows above and below Lewes. The town itself is a
model of solidity and neatness. The buildings all substantial to the
very out-skirts; the pavements good and complete; the shops nice and
clean; the people well-dressed; and, though last not least, the girls
remarkably pretty, as, indeed, they are in most parts of Sussex; round
faces, features small, little hands and wrists, plump arms, and bright
eyes. The Sussex men, too, are remarkable for their good looks. A Mr.
Baxter, a stationer at Lewes, showed me a _farmer's account book_ which
is a very complete thing of the kind. The Inns are good at Lewes, the
people civil and not servile, and the charges really (considering the
taxes) far below what one could reasonably expect.--From Lewes to
Brighton the road winds along between the hills of the South Downs,
which, in this mild weather, are mostly beautifully green even at this
season, with flocks of sheep feeding on them.--Brighton itself lies in a
valley cut across at one end by the sea, and its extension, or _Wen_,
has swelled up the sides of the hills and has run some distance up the
valley.--The first thing you see in approaching Brighton from Lewes is a
splendid _horse-barrack_ on one side of the road, and a heap of low,
shabby, nasty houses, irregularly built, on the other side. This is
always the case where there is a barrack. How soon a Reformed Parliament
would make both disappear! Brighton is a very pleasant place. For a
_wen_ remarkably so. The _Kremlin_, the very name of which has so long
been a subject of laughter all over the country, lies in the gorge of
the valley, and amongst the old houses of the town. The grounds, which
cannot, I think, exceed a couple or three acres, are surrounded by a
wall neither lofty nor good-looking. Above this rise some trees, bad in
sorts, stunted in growth, and dirty with smoke. As to the "palace" as
the Brighton newspapers call it, the apartments appear to be all upon
the ground floor; and, when you see the thing from a distance, you think
you see a parcel of _cradle-spits_, of various dimensions, sticking up
out of the mouths of so many enormous squat decanters. Take a square
box, the sides of which are three feet and a half, and the height a foot
and a half. Take a large Norfolk-turnip, cut off the green of the
leaves, leave the stalks 9 inches long, tie these round with a string
three inches from the top, and put the turnip on the middle of the top
of the box. Then take four turnips of half the size, treat them in the
same way, and put them on the corners of the box. Then take a
considerable number of bulbs of the crown-imperial, the narcissus, the
hyacinth, the tulip, the crocus, and others; let the leaves of each have
sprouted to about an inch, more or less according to the size of the
bulb; put all these, pretty promiscuously, but pretty thickly, on the
top of the box. Then stand off and look at your architecture. There!
That's "_a Kremlin_"! Only you must cut some church-looking windows in
the sides of the box. As to what you ought to put _into_ the box, that
is a subject far above my cut.--Brighton is naturally a place of resort
for _expectants_, and a shifty ugly-looking swarm is, of course,
assembled here. Some of the fellows, who had endeavoured to disturb our
harmony at the dinner at Lewes, were parading, amongst this swarm, on
the cliff. You may always know them by their lank jaws, the stiffeners
round their necks, their hidden or _no_ shirts, their stays, their false
shoulders, hips, and haunches, their half-whiskers, and by their skins,
colour of veal kidney-suet, warmed a little, and then powdered with
dirty dust.--These vermin excepted, the people at Brighton make a very
fine figure. The trades-people are very nice in all their concerns. The
houses are excellent, built chiefly with a blue or purple brick; and
bow-windows appear to be the general taste. I can easily believe this to
be a very healthy place: the open downs on the one side and the open sea
on the other. No inlet, cove, or river; and, of course, no swamps.--I
have spent this evening very pleasantly in a company of reformers, who,
though plain tradesmen and mechanics, know I am quite satisfied, more
about the questions that agitate the country, than any equal number of
Lords.
_Kensington, Friday, 11 January, 1822._
Came home by the way of Cuckfield, Worth, and Red-Hill, instead of by
Uckfield, Grinstead and Godstone, and got into the same road again at
Croydon. The roads being nearly parallel lines and at no great distance
from each other, the soil is nearly the same, with the exception of the
fine oak country between Godstone and Grinstead, which does not go so
far westward as my homeward bound road, where the land, opposite the
spot just spoken of, becomes more of a moor than a clay, and though
there are oaks, they are not nearly so fine as those on the other road.
The tops are flatter; the side _shoots_ are sometimes higher than the
middle shoot; a certain proof that the _tap-root_ has met with something
that it does not like.--I see (Jan. 15) that Mr. Curteis has thought it
necessary to state in the public papers, that _he_ had _nothing to do_
with my being at the dinner at Battle! Who the Devil thought he had?
Why, was it not an ordinary; and had I not as much right there as he? He
has said, too, that _he did not know_ that I was to be at the dinner.
How should he? Why was it necessary to apprise him of it any more than
the porter of the inn? He has said, that he did not hear of any
deputation to invite me to the dinner, and, "_upon inquiry_," cannot
find that there was any. Have I said that there was any invitation at
all? There was; but I have not said so. I went to the dinner for my
half-crown like another man, without knowing, or caring, who would be at
it. But, if Mr. Curteis thought it necessary to say so much, he might
have said a little more. He might have said, that he twice addressed
himself to me in a very peculiar manner, and that I never addressed
myself to him except in answer; and, if he had thought "_inquiry_"
necessary upon this subject also, he might have found that, though
always the first to speak or hold out the hand to a hard-fisted artisan
or labourer, I never did the same to a man of rank or riches in the
whole course of my life. Mr. Curteis might have said, too, that unless I
had gone to the dinner, the party would, according to appearances, have
been very _select_; that I found him at the head of one of the tables,
with less than thirty persons in the room; that the number swelled up to
about one hundred and thirty; that no person was at the other table;
that I took my seat at it; and that that table became almost immediately
crowded from one end to the other. To these Mr. Curteis, when his hand
was in, might have added, that he turned himself in his chair and
listened to my speech with the greatest attention; that he bade me, by
name, good night, when he retired; that he took not a man away with him;
and that the gentleman who was called on to replace him in the chair
(whose name I have forgotten) had got from his seat during the evening
to come and shake me by the hand. All these things Mr. Curteis might
have said; but the fact is, he has been bullied by the base newspapers,
and he has not been able to muster up courage to act the manly part, and
which, too, he would have found to be the _wise_ part in the end. When
he gave the toast "_more money and less taxes_," he turned himself
towards me, and said, "That is a toast that I am sure _you approve of_,
Mr. Cobbett." To which I answered, "It would be made good, Sir, if
_members of Parliament would do their duty_."--I appeal to all the
gentlemen present for the truth of what I say. Perhaps Mr. Curteis, in
his heart, did not like to give my health. If that was the case, he
ought to have left the chair, and retired. _Straight forward_ is the
best course; and, see what difficulties Mr. Curteis has involved himself
in by not pursuing it! I have no doubt that he was agreeably surprised
when he saw and heard me. Why not _say_ then: "After all that has been
said about Cobbett, he is a devilish pleasant, frank, and clever fellow,
at any rate."--How much better this would have been, than to act the
part that Mr. Curteis has acted.----The Editors of the _Brighton
Chronicle and Lewes Express_ have, out of mere modesty, I dare say,
fallen a little into Mr. Curteis's strain. In closing their account (in
their paper of the 15th) of the Lewes Meeting, they say that I addressed
the company at some length, as reported in their Supplement published on
Thursday the 10th. And then they think it necessary to add: "For
OURSELVES, we can say, that we never saw Mr. Cobbett until the meeting
at Battle." Now, had it not been for pure maiden-like bashfulness, they
would, doubtless, have added, that when they did see me, they were
profuse in expressions of their gratitude to me for having merely _named
their paper_ in my Register a thing, which, as I told them, I myself had
forgotten. When, too, they were speaking, in reference to a speech made
in the Hall, of "one of the finest specimens of oratory that has ever
been given in any assembly," it was, without doubt, out of pure
compassion for the perverted taste of their Lewes readers, that they
suppressed the fact, that the agent of the paper at Lewes sent them
word, that it was useless for them to send any account of the meeting,
unless that account contained Mr. Cobbett's speech; that he, the agent,
could have sold a hundred papers that morning, if they had contained Mr.
Cobbett's speech; but could not sell one without it. I myself, by mere
accident, heard this message delivered to a third person by their agent
at Lewes. And, as I said before, it must have been pure tenderness
towards their readers that made the editors suppress a fact so injurious
to the reputation of those readers in point of _taste_! However, at
last, these editors seem to have triumphed over all feelings of this
sort; for, having printed off a placard, advertising their Supplement,
in which placard no mention was made of _me_, they, grown bold all of a
sudden, took a _painting brush_, and in large letters put into their
placard, "_Mr. Cobbett's Speech at Lewes_;" so that, at a little
distance, the placard seemed to relate to nothing else; and there was
"the finest specimen of oratory" left to find its way into the world
under the auspices of my rustic harangue. Good God! What will this world
come to! We shall, by-and-bye, have to laugh at the workings of envy in
the very worms that we breed in our bodies!--The fast-sinking Old Times
news-paper, its cat-and-dog opponent the New Times, the Courier, and the
Whig-Lawyer Tramper, called the "Traveller;" the fellows who conduct
these vehicles; these wretched fellows, their very livers burning with
envy, have hasted to inform their readers, that "they have authority to
state that Lord Ashburnham and Mr. Fuller were not present at the dinner
at Battle where Cobbett's health was drunk." These fellows have now
"authority" to state, that there were no two men who dined at Battle,
that I should not prefer as companions to Lord Ashburnham and Mr.
Fuller, commonly called "Jack Fuller," seeing that I am no admirer of
_lofty reserve_, and that, of all things on earth, I abhor a head like a
drum, all noise and emptiness. These scribes have also "authority" to
state, that they amuse me and the public too by declining rapidly in
their sale from their exclusion of my country lectures, which have only
begun. In addition to this The Tramper editor has "authority" to state,
that one of his papers of 5th Jan. has been sent to the Register-office
by post, with these words written on it: "This scoundrel paper has taken
no notice of Mr. Cobbett's speech." All these papers have "authority" to
state beforehand, that they will insert no account of what shall take
place, within these three or four weeks, at _Huntingdon_, at _Lynn_, at
_Chichester_, and other places where I intend to be. And, lastly, the
editors have full "authority" to state, that they may employ, without
let or molestation of any sort, either private or public, the price of
the last number that they shall sell in the purchase of hemp or
ratsbane, as the sure means of a happy deliverance from their present
state of torment.