Editing William Cobbett (section)

===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>