Note 71 — Chapter XI

I have already stated (ch. x. p. 111) that three members of the Thurtell family subscribed for Romantic Ballads. I should have hesitated to include John Thurtell among the subscribers, as he was hanged two years before the book was published, had I not the high authority of Mr. Walter Rye, but recently Mayor of Norwich, and the honoured author of a History of Norfolk Families and other works. Mr. Rye, to whom I owe much of the information concerning the Thurtells published here, tells me that there was only this one, 'J. Thurtell.' Borrow had doubtless been appealing for subscribers for a very long time. I cannot, however, accept Mr. Rye's suggestion to me that Borrow left Norwich because he was mixed up with Thurtell in ultra-Whig or Radical scrapes, the intimidation and 'cooping' of Tory voters being a characteristic of the elections of that day with the wilder spirits, of whom Thurtell was doubtless one. Borrow's sympathies were with the Tory party from his childhood up—following his father.