Note 2 — Chapter XVIII · “COMPARED WITH DEFEATING ME, DEFEATING BUONAPARTE IS A MERE TRIFLE.”

On the previous 25th of October, the occasion of the King’s entering the fiftieth year of his reign, there had been great “rejoicings.” The Parliamentary Reformists, however, did not approve of it, holding that the prosperity of the country was a hypocritical and delusive cry. Mr. Cobbett boasted of his refusal to subscribe toward giving the twelve hundred thousand paupers “that rarity, that luxury, a bellyful,” and gave very good reasons for it. The Whig papers, too, heaped much derision upon the affair. One of the incidents of the day was a fellow sticking up a placard at Charing Cross, in these terms: “May God disperse the votaries of Cobbett, as the clouds of this day!”