ABSTRACT
William Cobbett's Tour in Scotland is very much a text written in shadow of the Reform Bill legislation of 1832. This chapter examines Cobbett's Tour in Scotland as part of this larger ideological resistance conflict in immediate post-Reform period, arguing that Cobbett uses his travels in Scotland to alert his traditional popular English audience of the very real material threats posed by economic agenda of Earl Grey's Whig Government, to reach out to Scottish reform allies in an effort, according to Cobbett's biographer Daniel Green in introduction to his modern edition of Cobbett's Scottish Tour, 'to do his ambition of creating a third force in British politics' realized, Cobbett hoped, in upcoming Reform parliament for which he would be returned, in December 1832, as a Radical MP for Oldham in Lancashire. This effort to unite reformers of both nations is also clear, of course, in the Tour's itinerary, linking both the Scottish Lowlands and the North of England.
