orking for my living,
you know."

Place, who really was a sound economist, is joined with Cobbett, because
they were together at one time, and because he was, in 1800, etc., a great
Radical. But for Cobbett he had a great contempt. He told me the following
story. He and others were advising with Cobbett about the defense he was to
make on a trial for seditious libel which was coming on. Said Place, "You
must put in the letters you have received from Ministers, members of the
Commons from the Speaker downwards, etc., about your Register, and their
wish to have subjects noted. You must then ask the jury whether a person so
addressed must be considered as a common sower of sedition, etc. You will
be acquitted; nay, if your intention should get about, very likely they
will manage to stop proceedings." Cobbett was too much disturbed to listen;
he walked about the room ejaculating "D---- the prison!" and the like. He
had not the sense to follow the advice, and was convicted.

Cobbett, to go on with the chain, was a political acrobat, ready for any
kind of posture. A friend of mine gave me several times an account of a
mission to him. A Tory member--those who know the old Tory world may look
for his initials in initials of two consecutive words of "Pay his money
with interest"--who was, of course, a political opponent, thought Cobbett
had been hardly used, and determined to subscribe handsomely towards the
expenses he was incurring as a candidate. My friend was commissioned to
hand over the money--a bag of sovereigns, that notes might not be traced.
He went into Cobbett's committee-room, told the patriot his errand, and put
the money on the table. "And to whom, sir, am I indebted?" said Cobbett.
"The donor," was the answer, "is Mr. Andrew Theophilus Smith," or some such
unlikely pair of baptismals. "Ah!" said Cobbett, "I have known Mr. A. T. S.
a long time! he was always a true friend of his country!" {201}

To return to Place. He is a noted instance of the advantage of our jury
system, which never asks a man's politics, etc. The late King of Hanover,
when Duke of Cumberland, being unpopular, was brought under unjust
suspicions by the suicide of his valet: he must have seduced the wife and
murdered the husband. The charges were as absurd as those brought against
the Englishman in the Frenchman's attempt at satirical verses upon him:

"The Englishman is a very bad man;
He drink the beer and he steal the can:
He kiss the