Justin Croft Antiquarian Books : COBBETT, William. - Cobbett’s paper against gold: containing the history and mystery of the Bank of England, the funds, the debt, the sinki...

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COBBETT, William. Cobbett’s paper against gold: containing the history and mystery of the Bank of England, the funds, the debt, the sinking fund, the bank stoppage, the lowering and raising of the value of paper-money; and shewing, that taxation, pauperism, poverty, misery and crimes have all increased, and ever must increase, with a funding system. No.1[-15]. [London]: W. Molineux, [1817.]

15 parts bound together, 8vo (218 × 128 mm), numbered in columns, 470, plus engraved portrait. Some browning and spotting throughout. Later 19th-century plum half morocco, joints and extremities worn. A good copy.

First published in the Political Register 1810-15; then in two vols in 1815; then in parts (as here) in 1817. At the opening of the nineteenth-century Cobbett “became increasingly obsessed with financial issues, especially the national debt and the government's increasing reliance upon paper money. He opposed these trends for the rest of his days, regularly decrying government debts and paper currencies in his writings, notably in his Paper Against Gold (1815). By the early 1820s Cobbett was convinced that the debt was too large ever to be paid off, and accordingly vowed to roast himself on a gridiron if the government could restore payment in specie without defaulting on the debt (henceforth Cobbett and his critics included sketches of gridirons in their writings and cartoons)” (Oxford DNB).

Goldsmiths’ 21803; Kress B.6891.

£200.00