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A Year's Residence in the United States of America Vol 3
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DEDICATION TO TIMOTHY BROWN, ESQ.
OF PECKHAM LODGE, SURREY.

North Hempstead, Long Island,
10 Dec. 1818.

MY DEAR SIR,

THE little volume here presented to the public, consists, as you will perceive, for the greater and most valuable part, of travelling notes, made by our friend HULME, whom I had the honour to introduce to you in 1816, and with whom you were so much pleased.

His activity, which nothing can benumb, his zeal against the twin monster, tyranny and priest-craft, which nothing can cool, and his desire to assist in providing a place of retreat for the oppressed, which nothing but success in the accomplishment can satisfy; these have induced him to employ almost the whole of his time here in various ways all tending to the same point.

The Boroughmongers have agents and spies all over the inhabited globe. Here they can not sell blood: they can only collect information and calumniate the people of both countries. These vermin our friend firks out (as the Hampshire people call it); and they hate him as rats hate a terrier.

Amongst his other labours, he has performed a very laborious journey to the Western Countries, and has been as far as the Colony of our friend BIRKBECK. This journey has produced a JOURNAL; and this Journal, along with the rest of the volume, I dedicate to you, in testimony of my constant remembrance of the many, many happy hours I have spent with you, and of the numerous acts of kindness, which I have received at your hands. You were one of those, who sought acquaintance with me, when I was shut up in a felon's jail for two years for having expressed my indignation at seeing Englishmen flogged, in the heart of England, under a guard of German bayonets and sabres, and when I had on my head a thousand pounds fine and seven years' recognizances. You, at the end of the two years, took me from the prison, in your carriage, home to your house. You and our kind friend, WALKER, are, even yet, held in bonds for my good behaviour, the seven years not being expired. All these things are written in the very core of my heart; and when I act as if I had forgotten any one of them, may no name on earth be so much detested and despised as that of

Your faithful friend,

And most obedient servant,

WM. COBBETT.


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