He started his political life as a Tory, but later became a radical; the change is reflected in Cobbett’s Political Register, a periodical that he founded in 1802 and continued for the rest of his life. Cobbett was one of the leaders of the campaign for political and social reform after 1815, although he had already spent two years in prison for his outspoken criticism of flogging in the army (1810–12).