From the day that I first spoke to her I never had a thought of her ever being the wife of any other man, more than I had a thought of her being transformed into a chest of drawers; and I formed my resolution at once, to marry her as soon as we could get permission, and to get out of the army as soon as I could.  So that this matter was at once settled as firmly as if written in the book of fate.  At the end of about six months my regiment, and I along with it, were removed to Fredericton, a distance of a hundred miles up the river of St. John; and, which was worse, the artillery was expected to go off to England a year or two before our regiment!  The artillery went, and she along with them; and now it was that I acted a part becoming a real and sensible lover.  I was aware that, when she got to that gay place Woolwich, the house of her father and mother, necessarily visited by numerous people, not the most select, might become unpleasant to her, and I did not like, besides, that she should continue to work hard.  I had saved a hundred and fifty guineas, the earnings of my early hours, in writing for the paymaster, the quartermaster, and others, in addition to the savings of my own pay. I sent her all my money before she sailed, and wrote to her to beg of her, if she found her home uncomfortable, to hire a lodging with respectable people, and, at any rate, not to spare the money by any means, but to buy herself good clothes, and to live without hard work, until I arrived in England; and I, in order to induce her to lay out the money, told her that I should get plenty more before I came home.

As the malignity of the devil would have it, we were kept abroad two years longer than our time, Mr. Pitt (England not being so tame then as she is now[7]) having knocked up a dust with Spain about Nootka Sound.  Oh, how I cursed Nootka Sound, and poor bawling Pitt too, I am afraid!  At the end of four years, however, home I came, landed at Portsmouth, and got my discharge from the army by the great kindness of poor Lord Edward FitzGerald, who was then the major of my regiment.  I found my little girl a servant of all work (and hard work it was) at five pounds a year, in the house of a Captain Brisac; and, without hardly saying a word about the matter, she put into my hands the whole of my hundred and fifty guineas unbroken!

LIFE AT BOTLEY
[Sidenote:  William Cobbett]

But, to do the things I did, you must love home yourself.  To rear up children, in this manner, you must live with them; you must make them, too, feel by your conduct, that you prefer this to any other mode of passing your time.  All men cannot lead this sort of life, but many may; and all much more than many do.  My occupation, to be sure, was chiefly carried on at home; but I had always enough to do.  I never spent an idle week, or even day, in my whole life.  Yet I found time to talk with them, to walk, or ride, about with them; and, when forced to go from home, always took one or more with me.  You must be good-tempered, too, with them; they must like your company better than any other person’s; they must not wish you away, not fear your coming back, not look upon your departure as a holiday....