Note 14 — Chapter VIII · “WHEN I LEFT THEM, I CERTAINLY DID SHAKE THE DUST OFF MY SHOES.”

A copy of the original circular has fallen into the hands of the present writer. It is dated Feb. 5th, 1799. The volumes were expected to reach sixteen in number, and the price (to subscribers) was to be twenty dollars, or four and a half guineas. The following extracts from this prospectus will give some idea of the extent to which Cobbett’s writings had been already circulated:—

“Of each pamphlet, published under my assumed name of Peter Porcupine, about six thousand copies, upon an average, have been printed and sold in America. The sale of those which have been honoured by a republication in England has probably been much greater. All of them, I believe, have passed through three or four, and some, in an abridged state, have attained to ten, twelve, and even seventeen editions.… As to the Gazette, such has been the increasing demand for it that, though for a long time I laid by a hundred files for sale, I can at this moment make up but three complete for the first year. Thus situated, the orders which I have received from all parts for complete sets of the pamphlets and complete files of the paper have been a mortification to me rather than a pleasure,” &c.