“As to the public-robbers, one _must lose_ by a continuation of the warfare with them. It is impossible to answer fellows who, in their very signature, call ‘_Scoundrel_.’ Seriously to sit down to answer such fellows would be to degrade oneself in an obvious manner. That will never do. Besides, the thieves are beaten.…” Lose: indeed! the day had come, at last. On the very morrow of these swaggering lines being penned, the _Political Register_ had committed itself. As, when the heated pursuer, sure of his game as far as will, and equipment, are concerned, is brought to the ground by some mean and unconsidered obstacle: so this eager one, at the very heels of his adversaries, finds himself suddenly prostrate. And the now-exulting foe stands over him; while cries of _Habet! Habet!_ sound upon his ears. FOOTNOTES [1] This enterprise attracted the notice of the Surveyor to the Board of Agriculture:--“Mr. Cobbett has been most particularly fortunate in raising, chiefly from seed, a vast nursery of almost all the different sorts of forest trees known on the Atlantic side of the middle states of North America. The vast variety of strong and flourishing plants which his seed-bed of oaks exhibited in the course of the last summer bids fair to render his success on this occasion of much importance to our country,” &c., &c. _Vide_ Vancouver’s “Agricultural Survey of Hampshire,” 1808. [2] _I.e._ Henry Hunt, who had recently entered into public life, with an address to the electors of Wilts. This note (dated 10th April) got Mr. Cobbett into trouble many years after, when he had long forgotten this his first impression of Hunt, and dreamed not of the possibility of such old confidences ever seeing the light of day. [3] Mr. Howell was a barrister, and a very fair lawyer, but had no taste for practice at the bar. He pursued this task with the State Trials until his death in 1817, after which date it was carried on to completion by his son. It eventually reached thirty-four volumes in royal 8vo. The enterprise passed into the hands of Hansard, about the year 1810. [4] Peter Finnerty, whose name occurs several times in these pages, was an Irishman, and had been brought up as a printer. In consequence of a press prosecution in Dublin, he came and settled in London, when he became Parliamentary reporter on the _Morning Chronicle_, and a popular character in the journalistic world. He died in 1816, aged fifty-six, some time after the close of a term of imprisonment for “libel” in Lincoln jail. [5] The Hon. William Herbert, one of the candidates. He afterwards “took the pledge,” as far as regarded pensions and sinecures, but would not bind himself to decline the offer of _a place_. [6] Author of another attack on the Duke. [7] Cartwright.