'feelosophers'; he sneers at Adam Smith,[190] and Ricardo was to him
the incarnation of the stock-jobbing interest. Cobbett sympathised
instinctively with the doctrine of the French economists that
agriculture was the real source of all wealth. He nearly accepts a
phrase, erroneously attributed to Windham, 'Perish Commerce'; and he
argues that commerce was, in fact, of little use, and its monstrous
extension at the bottom of all our worst evils.[191] Nobody could be
more heartily opposed to the spirit which animated the political
economists and the whole class represented by them. At times he spoke
the language of modern Socialists. He defines Capital as 'money taken
from the labouring classes, which, being given to army tailors and
suchlike, enables them to keep foxhounds and trace their descent from
the Normans.'[192]

The most characteristic point of his speculations is his view of the
poor-laws. Nobody could speak with more good sense and feeling of the
demoralisation which they were actually producing, of the sapping of
the spirit of independence, and of all the devices by which the
agricultural labourer was losing the happiness enjoyed in early years.
But Cobbett's deduction from his principles is peculiar. 'Parson
Malthus' is perhaps the favourite object of his most virulent abuse.
'I have hated many men,' he says, 'but never any one so much as you,'
'I call you parson,' he explains, 'because that word includes
"boroughmonger" among other meanings, though no single word could be
sufficient.'[193] Cobbett rages against the phrase 'redundant
population.' There would be plenty for all if the borough-mongers and
stockjobbers could be annihilated, taxes abolished, and the debt
repudiated. The ordinary palliatives suggested were little to the
taste of this remarkable Radical. The man who approved bull-fighting
and supported the slave-trade naturally sneered at 'heddekashun,' and
thought savings-banks a mean device to interest the poor in the
keeping up of the funds. His remedy was always a sponge applied to the
debt, and the abolition of taxes.

This leads, however, to one remarkable conclusion. Cobbett's attack
upon the church establishment probably did more to cause alarm than
any writings of the day. For Paine's attacks upon its creed he cared
little enough. 'Your religion,' said a parson to him, 'seems to be
altogether political.' It might well be, was Cobbett's retort, since
his creed was made for him by act of