Here, then, is a distinct disavowal: a circumstance that is calculated to worry the impartial biographer, anxious to be fair toward a good (though sometimes ill-advised) man; the reason for its being a disturbing factor lying in this, that the _Soldiers’ Friend_ is enumerated, on two distinct occasions during the closing years of Cobbett’s life, among the writings by which he had helped to benefit his fellow-men. Let us have his own words (June, 1832):-- “The very first thing I ever wrote for the press in my life was a little pamphlet entitled the _Soldiers’ Friend_, which was written immediately after I quitted the army in 1791, or early in 1792. I gave it in manuscript to Captain Thomas Morrice (the brother of that Captain Morrice who was a great companion of the Prince of Wales); and by him it was taken to Mr. Ridgway, who then lived in King Street, St. James’s Square, and Mr. Ridgway (the same who now lives in Piccadilly) published it. I do not know that I ever possessed the pamphlet, except for a week or two, after it was published, &c., &c.” Now these two statements cannot, on a superficial reading, be easily reconciled; and they form, together, an instance which may be eagerly seized upon, on the part of those who would continue to represent Cobbett as a man who would wilfully utter contradictory things. But, upon examining the matter somewhat more closely, we know, even better than Cobbett himself, something of the actual circumstances. In the first place, the great probability is that Cobbett was not the _originator_ of the pamphlet; that this Captain Thomas Morrice, or somebody else (still more interested in awakening the public mind on army-frauds) had instigated him to put his ideas upon paper. The speech of the Secretary-at-War, above referred to, occurs in a debate upon the army estimates, on the 15th February, 1792--a debate in which Mr. Fox, among others, took part; and the item of an additional allowance to the soldiers was that which was the immediate inspiration of the pamphlet; besides being, in all likelihood, productive of some little excitement in military circles generally.[6] Secondly, it will be observed that the sting of the charge against Cobbett lay in this: that he had been instrumental in spreading sedition in the naval and military services. Now, this was totally false. It _is_ a fact that the “Soldiers’ Friend” was afterwards circulated largely, and provoked antagonism; but of this Cobbett knew nothing, and could not know anything, for he had long been safe in Philadelphia, far away from English domestic politics, and much more concerned in earning his bread-and-cheese by hard work, than in spreading the principles of the French Revolution. Those who made it their business to circulate clever and spicy pamphlets, saw the merit of this one, and reprinted it for their own objects.