When I reached home I informed my family of what it was possible might happen, and this I did, not to alarm them, but to put them upon their guard, that they might not lose presence of mind in case of any nocturnal assault being made upon my house. In my own mind I had firmly settled how to act: if any messenger from the Secretary of State's office came to apprehend me in the _day time_, I should attend him very quietly and peaceably; but if any nocturnal visit was intended me by the officers of the ministers, I was determined to resist and to defend my house to the last moment; because by so doing they would leave themselves without the shadow of an excuse, as they always knew when and where I was to be found in the face of day. Desperate as this plan may appear in the eyes of many, it was that on which I was determined to act. I took with me every night into my bed-room a brace of loaded pistols, that never missed fire, and my double-barrelled gun, charged and fresh primed; and any number of men less than four would not have gained admittance alive into my house in the _night time_. I had violated no law, I had committed no breach of the peace, and I was resolved that I would maintain the right of an Englishman's house being his own castle, in spite of Seditious Meeting Bills, or the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. Fortunately, my coolness and determination were never put to the test. I, however, never went to bed for many weeks without expecting the enemy, and cautioning my family not to be alarmed in case of any nocturnal visit being paid me.
Mr. Cobbett's leave-taking address was published, in which he pretty clearly intimated what would be the fate of every man that remained in the country, who had been an active leader of the people in promoting petitions for Annual Parliaments, Universal Suffrage, and Vote by Ballot; and he avowed the dread of a dungeon to be the cause of his leaving the country! As he had never communicated the slightest hint to me of his intention, so he never made the slightest allusion to me in his leave-taking address, any more than as if he never had such a friend. This, at the moment, I considered as most unkind, unfeeling, and treacherous. But, upon reflection, I esteem it the highest compliment that he could have paid me; for it clearly proves that he knew the honesty of my nature too well, to expect that I should have ever sanctioned so dastardly, so thoroughly unmanly a proceeding as that of flying from my country, and abandoning the Reformers to the uncontrolled malice of their enemies, and that, too, at such a moment of difficulty and danger.