As few began the world so I multiplied, I’ve gratitude to all my friends, who’ve supplied. Plain at twenty-one, I did begin, Which in my manuscript was seen, Tho’ years at school with arithmeterians, Who wrote well, but they are no grammarians, Tho’ I did not know the use of grammar I was well supported by my hammer. I sticked to my King, leather and tools; And for order wrote a set of shop rules. It’s not what work is brought for to be only done, Every think that’s necessary, buckle or tongue; For instance, a saddle is brought to stuff, that’s all, A stirrup-bar is wanted to prevent a fall; All your work must be done well, not like fools, For if it breaks on the road, there’s no tools. Working with the hands only is but part, The head’s the essential to make work smart. Be John Bulls, true to your country and Church, Always tell the truth and don’t never lurch. John Cooke’s saddlery was better than his grammar and his orthography, and his faults in these latter particulars called down upon him the scorn of Andrew Brice, the printer and publisher of a weekly paper. Cooke was a strong loyalist, and Brice was touched with republican ideas. “Brice,” says Cooke, “posted me about the streets with halfpenny papers; and the poor hawkers got many pence through me; but all that he could do or say was to degrade my orthography; but to lessen my loyalty or character he could not; from his art or out of burlesque he said my letters were after the manner of Junius, and at the same time said I was of Grub-street. I winked at all this, whilst the people read my bulletins. I confess I did not know Junius’s Letters or Grub-street then, but I know them now. At the attack and at different times he wanted to run aground my loyal advertisements; but, poor man, he ran himself aground dead.” The bulletins and advertisements animadverted upon by Brice were handbills issued by Cooke opposing the republican inflammatory pamphlets that were put in circulation, as also bulletins of the news with comments of his own which he pasted up outside his shop. There was at the time a noisy party in England in favour of Bonaparte, and this was the Radical and Republican party. Cooke was taunted by these as a bull-calf. He replied that he gloried in the name of John Bull. “Even when the friends of one of the candidates at the recent general election at Exeter came to solicit my vote (I thank God I vote for six members) I told them that I would not vote for a man of such principles if they would give me £500. When I came to give my vote at the Guildhall, Mr. Sergeant Pell rose up out of fancy or fun, and said to me, Are you not a Frenchman? I said, A Frenchman! No, sir, I am a true John Bull. He said, Of the calf kind. I said, It must be a calf before it’s a bull. The Sergeant sat down.”