his old course, extending his influence by the publication of the
_Twopenny Trash_, which, not being periodical, escaped the newspaper
stamp tax. Meanwhile, however, he had contracted debts to the amount of
L34,000 (for it is said that, notwithstanding the aversion he publicly
expressed to paper currency, he had carried on his business by the aid
of accommodation bills to a very large amount); and early in 1817 he
fled to the United States. But his pen was as active as ever; from Long
Island his MS. for the _Register_ was regularly sent to England; and it
was here that he wrote his clear and interesting _English Grammar_, of
which 10,000 copies were sold in a month.

His return to England was accompanied by his weakest exhibition--the
exhuming and bringing over of the bones of Thomas Paine, whom he had
once heartily abused, but on whom he now wrote a panegyrical ode. Nobody
paid any attention to the affair; the relics he offered were not
purchased; and the bones were reinterred.

Cobbett's great aim was now to obtain a seat in the House of Commons. He
calmly suggested that his friends should assist him by raising the sum
of L5000; it would be much better, he said, than a meeting of 50,000
persons. He first offered himself for Coventry, but failed; in 1826 he
was by a large number of votes last of the candidates for Preston; and
in 1828 he could find no one to propose him for the office of common
councillor. In 1830, that year of revolutions, he was prosecuted for
inciting to rebellion, but the jury disagreed, and soon after, through
the influence of one of his admirers, Mr Fielden, who was himself a
candidate for Oldham, he was returned for that town. In the House his
speeches were listened to with amused attention. His position is
sufficiently marked by the sneer of Peel that he would attend to Mr
Cobbett's observations exactly as if they had been those of a
"respectable member"; and the only striking part of his career was his
absurd motion that the king should be prayed to remove Sir Robert Peel's
name from the list of the privy council, because of the change he had
proposed in the currency in 1819. In 1834 Cobbett was again member for
Oldham, but his health now began to give way, and in June 1835 he left
London for his farm, where he died on the 16th of that month.

Cobbett's account of his home-life makes him appear singularly happy;
his love and admiration of his wife never failed; and his education of
his chil