The fact of the matter being that, in spite of all that could be said, Mr. Cobbett’s flight to America in 1817, was one of the cleverest and most spirited acts of his life. The decision of character, the singleness of purpose, and confidence in his own resources, displayed on this occasion, are almost unexampled. Hundreds of writers had expatriated themselves, before now; but where was the man to be found, who had done so with a view to a better fighting-ground? Political refugees were swarming throughout the Union, but they were beginning life anew; and who amongst them but had cast the dust of their native country from off their shoes--who but this one proclaimed, “England is my country, and to England I shall return,”--and lived to return and see his work accomplished? * * * * * The world, then, was looking for its weekly oracle (or weekly trash, or weekly venom, according to the point of view), upon Saturday, the 5th of April, 1817. Rumours had been afloat for several days that Cobbett was in Liverpool, on his way to America; and, upon the world going, with its twopences, to Catherine Street, Strand, rumour developed into certainty. The intending purchaser of a _Register_ received instead,-- “MR. COBBETT’S TAKING LEAVE OF HIS COUNTRYMEN.” As one more specimen of what Cobbett could say, when his heart was more than usually full of tender and earnest feeling, the reader will like to have presented here some portions:-- “My Beloved Countrymen,--Soon after this reaches your eyes, those of the writer will, possibly, have taken the last glimpse of the land that gave him birth, the land in which his parents lie buried, the land of which he has always been so proud; the land in which he leaves a people whom he shall, to his last breath, love and esteem beyond all the rest of mankind. “Every one, if he can do it without wrong to another, has a right to pursue the path to his own happiness; as my happiness, however, has long been inseparable from the hope of assisting in restoring the rights and liberties of my country, nothing could have induced me to quit that country, while there remained the smallest chance of my being able, by remaining, to continue to aid her cause. No such chance is now left. The laws which have just been passed, especially if we take into view the real objects of those laws, forbid us to entertain the idea, that it would be possible to write on political subjects according to the dictates of truth and reason, without drawing down upon our heads certain and swift destruction. It was well observed by Mr. Brougham, in a late debate, that every writer who opposes the present measures, ‘must now feel that he sits down to write with a halter about his neck,’ an observation the justice of which must be obvious to all the world.