Editing William Cobbett (section)

==Later life (1819–1835)==
Cobbett's arrival came soon after the [[Peterloo Massacre]]. He joined with other [[Radicalism (historical)|radicals]] in attacks on the government and was charged with libel three times in the next couple of years.

Cobbett published on behalf of [[Caroline of Brunswick]] in her fight against the [[Pains and Penalties Bill 1820]]. His daughter Anne believed that he would have had fewer legal difficulties if he had stopped supporting Queen Caroline, but noted that they gained much needed source of income from supporting her. The family all expected notable rewards following the outcome of the trial being seen to be in Caroline's favour, however her death soon after meant that this did not happen to the expected degree.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Robins |first=Jane |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-c6W2dDkrLwC&dq=Anne+Cobbett&pg=PA164 |title=The Trial of Queen Caroline: The Scandalous Affair that Nearly Ended a Monarchy |date=2006-08-07 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-0-7432-5590-5 |language=en}}</ref>

[[Image:Batteuse 1881.jpg|300px|right|thumb|The introduction of horse-powered threshing machines to farms was one of the principal causes of the [[Swing Riots]] in 1830.]]
In 1820, he campaigned for Parliament in [[Coventry (UK Parliament constituency)|Coventry]], but finished last in the poll. That year he also founded a plant nursery at Kensington, where he grew many North American trees, such as the black locust ''(Robinia pseudoacacia)'', and with his son, a variety of maize he called "Cobbett's corn".<ref name="Clifford-Smith, S. 2008, pp. 4–6"/> This was a dwarf strain found in a French cottage garden, which turned out to grow well in England's shorter summer. To help sell the strain, he issued a book entitled ''A Treatise on Cobbett's Corn'' (1828).<ref name="Clifford-Smith, S. 2008, pp. 4–6"/> Meanwhile, he also wrote his popular ''[[Cottage Economy]]'' (1822), which taught cottagers some skills necessary for self-sufficiency, such as bread-making, beer-brewing and livestock farming.<ref name="Clifford-Smith, S. 2008, pp. 4–6"/>

===Advocacy for the English poor and working-class===
Not content to let information be brought to him for his newspaper, Cobbett did his own journalistic work – especially on his repeated theme of the plight of rural Englishmen. He began riding about the country observing events in towns and villages. ''[[Rural Rides]]'', a work for which Cobbett is still known, appeared first in serial form in the ''Political Register'' from 1822 to 1826, and then in book form in 1830. While writing it, Cobbett also produced ''The Woodlands'' (1825), a book on [[silviculture]].<ref name="Clifford-Smith, S. 2008, pp. 4–6"/>

In the first supplement to the ''Political Register'', Cobbett had defended the [[Atlantic slave trade|slave trade]] as necessary to British commerce.<ref name="Cole, p. 81"/> After the [[Slave Trade Act 1807]] prohibited slave trade, Cobbett wrote in the ''Register'' that "there is not a reflecting man in the kingdom that cares one straw about it."<ref>Cole, ''Life of William Cobbett'', p. 136.</ref> In the ''Register'' for 30 August 1823, Cobbett published his ''Letter to William Wilberforce'', an answer to Wilberforce's ''Appeal to the Religion, Justice and Humanity of the Inhabitants of the British Empire in Behalf of the Negro Slaves in the West Indies''.<ref name="Carroll">Nicole Carroll, 'William Wilberforce and William Cobbett: Reformers in Conflict in Early 19th-Century Britain', ''Voces Novae'', Vol. 2 , Article 9, p. 8.</ref> Here, he attacked Wilberforce's support for the [[Combination Act 1799|Combination Act]], which prohibited trade unions among British workers,<ref>Cole, ''Life of William Cobbett'', pp. 257–258.</ref> and said: "Never have you done one single act, in favour of those labourers, but many and many an act you have done against them."<ref name="Carroll"/> The ''Letter to Wilberforce'' was widely distributed in working class areas and gave an impetus to the Combination Act's repeal in 1824.<ref>Cole, ''Life of William Cobbett'', p. 258.</ref>

Cobbett contrasted the Evangelical reformers' campaign for the abolition of black slavery with their support for the "factory slavery" of British workers.<ref name="Cole259">Cole, ''Life of William Cobbett'', p. 259.</ref> He argued that black slaves were better fed, clothed and housed than British workers, and were better treated by their masters.<ref>Dyck, ''William Cobbett and Rural Popular Culture'', p. 35.</ref><ref>Cole, ''Life of William Cobbett'', pp. 259–260.</ref> He wrote: "Will not the care, will not the anxiety of a really humane Englishman be directed towards the Whites, instead of towards the Blacks, until, at any rate, the situation of the former be made to be ''as good'' as that of the latter?"<ref name="Cole259"/> In 1833, Cobbett voted for the [[Slavery Abolition Act 1833|abolition of slavery]] but in the ''Register'' he was still contrasting Parliament's concern for black slaves with their indifference to the sufferings of British "factory slaves".<ref>Cole, ''Life of William Cobbett'', p. 423.</ref>

===Catholic emancipation===
Although not a Catholic,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hanink |first=James G |date=November 2005 |title=William Cobbett. By G. K. Chesterton. Review |journal=[[New Oxford Review]] |volume=LXXII |issue=10 |url=http://www.newoxfordreview.org/briefly.jsp?did=1105-briefly |access-date=30 March 2009 |archive-date=4 May 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080504010749/http://www.newoxfordreview.org/briefly.jsp?did=1105-briefly |url-status=dead }}</ref> Cobbett at this time also advocated the cause of [[Catholic Emancipation]]. Between 1824 and 1826, he published his ''History of the Protestant Reformation'', a broadside against the traditional [[Protestant]] historical narrative of the reformation, stressing the lengthy and often bloody persecutions of Catholics in Britain and Ireland. Catholics were still forbidden at that time to enter certain professions or become members of Parliament. Although the law was no longer enforced, it was officially still a crime to attend Mass or build a Catholic church. Although Wilberforce also worked and spoke against discrimination against Catholics, Cobbett resumed his strident opposition to the noted reformer, particularly after Wilberforce in 1823 published his ''Appeal in Behalf of the Negro Slaves in the West Indies.''<ref>{{Cite book |first=Eric |last=Metaxas |author-link=Eric Metaxas |year=2007 |title=Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery |url=https://archive.org/details/amazinggrace00meta |url-access=registration |pages=[https://archive.org/details/amazinggrace00meta/page/264 264–265]|publisher=HarperCollins |isbn=9780061173882 }}</ref> Wilberforce, long suffering from ill health, retired the next year.

[[File:John Doyle 1833 MPs.JPG|200px|right|thumb|William Cobbett (left foreground), [[John Gully]] (middle) and [[Joseph Pease (railway pioneer)|Joseph Pease]] (right) (the first Quaker elected to Parliament) arriving at Westminster, during March 1833. Sketch by [[John Doyle (Irish artist)|John Doyle]].]]
In 1829, Cobbett published ''Advice To Young Men'', in which he criticised ''[[An Essay on the Principle of Population]]'' by the Reverend [[Thomas Robert Malthus]]. That year he also published ''The English Gardener'', which he later updated and expanded. This book has been compared favourably with other contemporary garden tomes, such as [[John Claudius Loudon]]'s ''Encyclopædia of Gardening''.<ref name="Clifford-Smith, S. 2008, pp. 4-6">Clifford-Smith, S., "William Cobbett: cottager's friend", ''Australian Garden History'', 19 (5), 2008, pp. 4–6.</ref>

Cobbett continued to publish controversial content in his ''Weekly Political Register'' and was charged in July 1831 with [[seditious libel]] for a pamphlet entitled ''Rural War'', endorsing the Captain [[Swing Riots]], in which rioters were smashing farm machinery and burning haystacks. Cobbett successfully conducted his own defence.<ref>[[John Macdonell (judge)|Macdonell, John]] (ed.) (1888). ''[[State Trials]]'' (New Series), [https://archive.org/details/reportsstatetri00commgoog/page/n407/mode/1up Vol. II, col. 789.]</ref>

===Member of Parliament===
Cobbett still sought to be elected to the House of Commons. He was defeated in [[Preston (UK Parliament constituency)|Preston]] in 1826 and in Manchester in 1832, but after the passage of the [[Reform Act 1832]], Cobbett won the seat of [[Oldham (UK Parliament constituency)|Oldham]].

In Parliament, Cobbett concentrated his energies on attacking corruption in government and the [[Poor Law Amendment Act 1834|1834 Poor Law]]. He believed that the poor had a right to a share in the community's wealth and that the [[Act for the Relief of the Poor 1601|Old Poor Law]] was the last remaining right that English workers possessed, and which set them apart from other countries which had no such provision.<ref>{{cite book |last=Green |first=Daniel |date=1983 |title=Great Cobbett: The Noblest Agitator |location=London |publisher=Hodder and Stoughton |pages=458–459 |isbn=9780340223789}}</ref><ref name=idyck>{{cite book |last=Dyck |first=Ian |author-link=Ian Dyck |date=1992 |title=William Cobbett and Rural Popular Culture |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |pages=208–209 |isbn=9780521413947}}</ref> Because the New Poor Law deprived the people of this right to relief, Cobbett believed that the social contract was broken and that therefore the duty of allegiance was dissolved.{{r|idyck|p=208}} A week before his death, he wrote to a friend: "[B]efore the passing of the Poor-Law Bill, I wished to avoid [a] convulsive termination. I now do not wish it to be avoided."{{r|idyck|p=208}}

During later life, [[Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay|Thomas Macaulay]], a fellow [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|MP]], remarked that Cobbett's faculties were impaired by age. From 1831 until his death, Cobbett managed a farm named Ash in the village of [[Normandy, Surrey]], a few miles from his birthplace at [[Farnham]]. Cobbett died there after a brief illness in June 1835 and was buried in the churchyard of [[St Andrew's Church, Farnham]].