COBBETT, William.

£200 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Proceedings of a General Court Martial One of two editions of 1809, the other published by J. Gold; this edition not in Pearl."Between 1785 and 1791, while stationed in New Brunswick [in the West Norfolk 54th foot regiment], Cobbett put his knowledge of English grammar and letters to good effect, quickly becoming clerk to his regiment and rising from the rank of corporal to sergeant-major. In his office as clerk Cobbett believed that he encountered instances of peculation by the officers of his regiment, and upon returning to England and receiving his military discharge in 1791, wrote an anonymous pamphlet entitled The Soldier's Friend (1792), a passionate indictment of the harsh treatment and poor pay of the common soldier. At the same time Cobbett attempted to launch a court martial against the offending officers, and when this threatened to rebound on Cobbett himself, he and his new wife, Nancy Anne Reid (1774-1848) - an English woman whom he had first met in New Brunswick and married at Woolwich on 5 February 1792 - fled to France for six months and subsequently to the United States, where they remained from 1792 to 1800" (ODNB). This account, published when Cobbett was a prominent political polemicist (and the year before he would be imprisoned for opposing the flogging of militiamen), publishes the proceedings of that court martial and the letters exchanged. It was, apparently, published without his consent to damage his reputation.

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