William Cobbett - United States: 1817–1819

United States: 1817–1819

Following the passage of the Power of Imprisonment Bill in 1817, and fearing arrest for his arguably seditious writings, he fled to the United States. On Wednesday 27 March 1817, at Liverpool, he embarked on board the ship Importer, D. Ogden master, bound for New York, accompanied by his two eldest sons, William and John.

For two years, Cobbett lived on a farm in Long Island where he wrote Grammar of the English Language and with the help of William Benbow, a friend in London, continued to publish the Political Register. He also wrote The American Gardener (1821), which was one of the earliest books on horticulture published in the United States.

Cobbett also closely observed drinking habits in the United States. In 1819, he stated "Americans preserve their gravity and quietness and good-humour even in their drink." He believed it "far better for them to be as noisy and quarrelsome as the English drunkards; for then the odiousness of the vice would be more visible, and the vice itself might become less frequent."

A plan to return to England with the remains of the British radical pamphleteer and revolutionary Thomas Paine (died 1809) for a proper burial led to the ultimate loss of Paine's remains. The plan was to remove Paine's remains from his New Rochelle, New York farm and give Paine a heroic reburial on his native soil, but the bones were still among Cobbett's effects when he died over 20 years later. There is no confirmed story about what happened to them after that, although down the years various people have claimed to own parts of Paine's remains such as his skull and right hand.

Cobbett arrived back at Liverpool by ship in November 1819.