In the hope which Cobbett now indulged, of arresting, if possible, the enormous growth of the public debt, he began to advocate a union of the two opposition parties. We find him, then, about this time, obliged to defend himself from the charge of supporting Mr. Fox, whose “seditious ravings” it had once been “impossible to hear without indignation.” And the charge would naturally be indefensible on the part of a hireling. But the C. J. Fox that was now praised was not the C. J. Fox who once coquetted with Jacobins. In Cobbett’s eyes, Jacobinism was now dead and buried. The risk of anarchy had departed from British shores. The peace of Amiens had proved a failure; and the Whigs, who had opposed that treaty from one point of view, were beginning to coalesce with the Windhamites, who had opposed it from another. For some time past there had been hopes of a union of all the great men of the country, in a strong, “broad-bottom’d” administration, as the only means of restoring public confidence. So, although Mr. Cobbett is ready to admit the claim of the heaven-born minister to a place among the great, he now declines any longer to support him, as hitherto. Not only that: he proceeds to instruct Mr. Pitt on the causes of his failure as a statesman. Rather cool, this, for the _quondam_ ploughboy! But he must needs prove that Mr. Pitt has deserted his principles, in order to justify his own new position. As to the charge of versatility, he thinks that “inconsistency” means “the difference between profession and practice.” The best exposition of this “difference” is found in an article of the _Register_, toward the close of the year 1805:--