phlet_, while he alluded to it under
that name even at other times; and his whole work was imbued even more
deeply than that of Defoe with the pamphlet character. I have selected
two examples from the critical time when he was still exasperated by
his imprisonment, and stung into fresh efforts by debt and the
prospect of fresh difficulties. They exhibit in the most striking form
all Cobbett's pet hatreds--of the unreformed Parliament, of paper
money, of political economy, of potatoes, and of many other things.
The first is the _Register_ of 2d November 1816, the first number of
the cheapened form, which was sold at twopence, and so acquired the
name of 'Twopenny Trash,' from a phrase of, as some say, Canning's,
others Castlereagh's. The second is an early number of the papers
written from America. They will, with the notes, explain themselves._)

LETTER TO THE JOURNEYMEN AND LABOURERS OF ENGLAND, WALES, SCOTLAND,
AND IRELAND, ON THE CAUSE OF THEIR PRESENT MISERIES; ON THE MEASURES
WHICH HAVE PRODUCED THAT CAUSE; ON THE REMEDIES WHICH SOME FOOLISH AND
SOME CRUEL AND INSOLENT MEN HAVE PROPOSED; AND ON THE LINE OF CONDUCT
WHICH JOURNEYMEN AND LABOURERS OUGHT TO PURSUE, IN ORDER TO OBTAIN
EFFECTUAL RELIEF, AND TO ASSIST IN PROMOTING THE TRANQUILLITY AND
RESTORING THE HAPPINESS OF THEIR COUNTRY.

Friends And Fellow-countrymen--Whatever the pride of rank, of riches,
or of scholarship may have induced some men to believe, or to affect
to believe, the real strength and all the resources of a country ever
have sprung and ever must spring from the _labour_ of its people; and
hence it is that this nation, which is so small in numbers and so poor
in climate and soil compared with many others, has, for many ages,
been the most powerful nation in the world: it is the most
industrious, the most laborious, and, therefore, the most powerful.
Elegant dresses, superb furniture, stately buildings, fine roads and
canals, fleet horses and carriages, numerous and stout ships,
warehouses teeming with goods; all these, and many other objects that
fall under our view, are so many marks of national wealth and
resources. But all these spring from _labour_. Without the journeyman
and the labourer none of them could exist; without the assistance of
their hands the country would be a wilderness, hardly worth the notice
of an invader.

As it is the labour of those who toil which makes a country abound in
resources, so it is the same class of men,