It is not the greatness of a man's means that makes him independent, so much as the smallness of his wants.

While not a Catholic Cobbett at this time also took up the cause of Catholic Emancipation. 1834. On his release a dinner in London attended by 600 people was given in his honour presided over by Sir Francis Burdett who like Cobbett was a strong voice for parliamentary reform.

Through the seeming contradictions in Cobbett's life his opposition to authority stayed constant. He was also against the Corn Laws a tax on imported grain. Early in his career he was a loyalist supporter of King and Country: but later he joined and successfully publicised the radical movement which led to the Reform Bill of 1832 and to his winning the parliamentary seat of Oldham.