English to some refugees from France. Now
and again he went backward and forward between America and England, but
it was in Philadelphia that he was first known as a writer. Under the
signature of Peter Porcupine he published the "Porcupine Papers," which
were chiefly made up of sarcastic and vehement attacks upon public men.
Cobbett had begun as a sort of Tory, or, at all events, as a professed
enemy of all Radical agitators, but he gradually became a Radical
agitator himself, and when he finally settled in England he soon began
to be recognized as one of the most powerful {156} advocates of the
Radical cause in or out of Parliament. He wrote a strong, simple
Anglo-Saxon style, and indeed it is not too much to say that, after
Swift himself, no man ever wrote clearer English prose than that of
William Cobbett. He had tried to get into Parliament twice without
success; but at last he succeeded in obtaining a seat as the
representative of the borough of Oldham, a place which he represented
until the time of his death, and which was represented by members of
his family in the memory of the present generation. He had started a
paper called _The Weekly Political Register_, and in this he championed
the Radical cause with an energy and ability which made him one of the
most conspicuous men of the time.

[Sidenote: 1831--The prosecution of Cobbett]

Lord Grey's Government was probably not very anxious to prosecute
Cobbett, if a prosecution could have been avoided, but it was feared,
perhaps, by the members of the Cabinet that some of his writings would
be used by the opponents of reform as an illustration of the principles
on which reform was founded, and the practices which it would encourage
if the Government failed to take some decided action. It was therefore
decided to institute the prosecution for the article which had been
published in the previous December. The Guildhall, where the case was
to be tried, was crowded to excess, and the prisoner was loudly
applauded when he stood in the court. He was one of the heroes of the
hour with large numbers of the people everywhere, and the court would
have been crowded this day in any case; but additional interest was
given to the sitting by the fact that Cobbett had summoned for
witnesses for his defence Lord Grey, Lord Brougham, Lord Althorp, and
Lord Durham. The summoning of these witnesses was one of Cobbett's
original and audacious strokes of humor and of cleverne