Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq., vol 3 | Page 7

family remained with him night and day. As I visited him a great deal, I
know how well he was at all times accommodated. When I knocked at
Mr. Newman's door, and asked for Mr. Cobbett, I was received with
attention by the servant, and introduced immediately; in fact, the
reception given by Mr. Newman's servants to Mr. Cobbett's visitors,
was much more respectful, and more attentive and accommodating,
than they ever experienced from the servants of Mr. Cobbett at his own

house; at least it always struck me so, as my friend Cobbett's servants
were not always the best mannered in the world, I mean his domestic
servants, those who were not under his management altogether, but
under the direction and management of the female part of his family. In
truth, I do not remember ever going to Mr. Cobbett's house twice
following, without seeing new faces, or rather new maid servants. Mrs.
Cobbett was, what was called amongst the gossips, very unfortunate in
getting maid servants; they seldom suited long together. But not so with
Mr. Cobbett; it was quite the reverse with him: his servants about his
farms always lived as long with him as they conducted themselves with
propriety; he was, indeed, what is called very lucky the choice of his
servants. For years and years, and years together, when I went to visit
him, I found the same faces, the same well-known names. The same
tenant occupied the same cottage; the same carter drove the same team;
the same ploughman held the same plough; the same thrasher occupied
the same barn; and the same shepherd attended the flock. The names of
Dean, Jurd, Coward, and Hurcot, and many others, were for a number
of years, as familiar to me as the names of my own servants. The
editors of the venal hireling press, and the enemies of Mr. Cobbett's
political writings, have always represented him as a bad master, and as
being capricious, cruel, and tyrannical amongst his servants and poorer
neighbours; and by means of as foul a conspiracy against him as ever
disgraced the age in which we live, or as ever disgraced the courts of
justice in any country. The calumny about Jesse Burgess was
propagated from one end of the land to the other, by the whole venal
press of the kingdom, sanctioned by the dastardly conduct of the
hireling barristers of the day, particularly by the infamous conduct of
Mr. Counsellor, now Judge Burrough. The whole of this was a base,
fraudulent, and infamous transaction. Mr. Cobbett has behaved very ill
to me ever since his return from America; his desertion of me at a time
of danger and difficulty, and his neglecting to aid me with his pen, in
the herculean task which I have had to perform in this bastile, must to
every liberal mind appear unpardonable. Such a struggle, and made by
a prisoner under such circumstances too, to detect, expose, and punish
fraud, cruelty, tyranny, and lust, perpetrated within the walls of an
English gaol, surely deserved the assistance of every enemy of
oppression.--Mr. Cobbett having failed to render me the slightest

assistance, and by his silence having even done every thing that lay in
his power to counteract my exertions, and to encourage my cowardly
and vindictive enemies to destroy me, it will not be imagined that I
shall write with any degree of undue partiality towards him, or that I
can be prejudiced so much in his favour as to exceed the bounds of
truth. But I have a duty to perform to myself, and a duty to perform to
the public, and no feeling of personal irritation on my part, arising from
neglect on his, shall induce me to withhold the truth. I most
unequivocally and most solemnly declare, from my own personal
knowledge, that Mr. Cobbett was one of the kindest, the best, and the
most considerate masters, that I ever knew in my life. His servants
were indeed obliged to work for their wages, as it was their duty to do;
but they always had an example of industry and sobriety set them by
their master; they were always treated with the greatest kindness by
him; they were well paid and well treated in every respect; and the best
proof, if any were wanting, after what I have said, that they were well
satisfied with their employer, is, that they all lived with him for very
long periods, and that those who left his service did so not in
consequence of any dislike to their MASTER, and were always anxious
to return to him.
While on the subject of servants, I may be allowed to say a word
respecting myself: I was never accused, even by the venal hirelings of
the press, of