(whose daughter he then courted, and has since married) was judge. This request being refused by the Federal government, another prosecution was set on foot; and though all the new libels that were picked out were published previous to the commencement of the first prosecution, yet the State government of Pennsylvania carried on the new prosecution, and preferred a bill of indictment against me at the last court of Oyer and Terminer; the fate of which bill and all the circumstances attending it, are recorded in the 'Democratic Judge' lately published by me." "In the mean time, the other prosecution went on in the Federal Court which met on Tuesday last. The bill of indictment was laid before the Grand Jury on Thursday; it was yesterday returned ignoramus." 8 Porc. Works, 138. In the 7th volume of Porcupine, 358, Cobbett says: "The day after the bill was returned ignoramus, the chief justice on the trial of Mr. Humphreys, for beating Bache, told the prisoner that if he had thought himself aggrieved by the press, he should have appealed to the law, and added, 'You may say, indeed, that Grand Juries will not do their duty; we have had a recent instance of that.' On this reflection on the Grand Jury, it is not my duty to comment. Had I been one of the gentlemen who composed it, I think I should have made an attempt, at least, to defend my conduct and character. But the people of this State have been so abused, so humbled and so degraded, by the long tyranny of this Fouquier Tinville, that very little spirit is to be expected from the very best of them. Any man who has affronted him looks upon himself as ruined. This is republican security." This unsuccessful attempt to arrest Mr. Cobbett in his extraordinary editorial career was the cause of no little vituperation on his part, first on the chief justice and his family, secondly upon the American judicial organization, and lastly upon the American people generally. (See 7 Porc. Works, 331 et seq.) Scandalous as was the party press of the day, all rivalry with a pen so prolific, so reckless, and so venomous, was soon extinguished. At first the Federalists supported him, and so nicely were party divisions drawn, that on the grand jury to which the bill in the text was presented, all the Democrats voted for a true bill, and all the Federalists for an ignoramus. This escape, however, whilst it stimulated him to a more reckless ribaldry, exposed him to a more successful attempt to curb it, and in the middle of 1798, he found himself bound over as a common libeller in recognizances which were sufficiently stringent for a time to insure his silence. But the unclean spirit could not be cast out by the exorcism of criminal process; and after having been tolerably decent, and of course unequivocally dull, for more than a year, Mr. Cobbett suddenly one morning enter. tained his readers by a most gross and vituperative attack upon Dr. Franklin. No epithet was too low to be applied to the buried philosopher. The result was that the recognizance was resorted to, and on it an action of debt was instituted in the Supreme Court. Cobbett, however, did not like thus suddenly to be pulled in, and at once filed an affidavit saying that he was a British citizen, and asking that the case be removed to the circuit court. His petition was rejected, and to this check upon his predatory tastes was soon added another still more efficacious. He was sued by Dr. Rush, for libel, and sustained a verdict of five thou sand dollars damages. This last blow was too much for him, and after making a few ingenious but futile attempts to remove his property from execution, he slipped away from Philadelphia, and in a short time found himself in England republishing in a work twelve volumes in size, those pas sages from "Peter Porcupine" which he considered the most racy in style, and the most antirepublican in doctrine. Helped by marginal notes, which, spicy as the text was, were put on as a sauce to give it "a little more seasoning," the work sold wonderfully well in England, from the hatred of Democracy, and still better, in America, from the love of scandal. This éclat stimulated the author to a parallel commentary on the morals and manners of his own countrymen, and the result was that in 1810 he was sent to Newgate for a year, and fined £1,000. He abused all sides; abused the Tories, and was imprisoned by them; abused the radicals, and was mobbed by them; was first the bitter denouncer of Napoleon, and then his retained advocate; first wrote.down Parliamentary reform, and then wrote it up; and at last, when the reform bill had passed, got into the House of Commons. His genius, however, was not parliamentary; his unrivalled talents for abuse were not available in the new arena; he sank at last, after a few attempts at invectives, into a speaker of the statistical school, dull, persevering and voluminous, and at last, in June 1835, died in his 71st year, after a decline brought on by fatigue and disappointment. In the life of Cobbett, published in London in 1835, by a writer who was not sufficiently acquainted with geography to avoid confounding the "State of Philadelphia" with the "City of Pennsylvania," (Life, &c. p. 129,) the following account is given of Cobbett's performances in this country: "It is fair to suppose that, with the exception of a little money which he might have amassed as serjeant-major of his regiment, during the last four years of his sojourn in Nova Scotia, the hundred and fifty guineas which his exemplary young bride had kept for him in England, must have made the sum of the little capital with which he had to commence his new career. A great deal of this, too, must have already been swallowed up by the expenses of his marriage, a journey to--and six months residence in-France, and the costs of his voyage to New York; so that we have every reason to believe that his means must have been exceedingly scanty during the first period of his sojourn in the United States. "This supposition is somewhat confirmed by the fact of his having taken to authorship, although not until after so long a period that we are puzzled to know how Cobbett and his young wife had subsisted in the meanwhile. Perhaps we have underrated the amount of his savings while serjeant major of his regiment. But Cobbett himself claims the merit of taking up the pen on other ground than that of pecuniary necessity. He lays it at the door of patriotism. "In the month of July, 1794,' he says, 'the famous Unitarian doctor, Fellow of the Royal Society, London, Citizen of France, and delegate to the GRANDE CONVENTION Nationale, landed at New York. His landing was nothing to men or to anybody else; but the fulsome and consequential addresses sent him by the pretended patriots, at once calculated to flatter the people here, and to degrade his country and mine, was something to me. It was my business, and the business of every man who thinks that truth ought to be opposed to malice and hypocrisy.' "The person to whom Cobbett here alludes, and whom he soon set himself to attack, was a man of no small notoriety-the celebrated Dr. Priestley, then, and afterwards, remarkable for his writings on the side of the prevalent opinions in favour of Democracy. "With an assault upon this individual, embodied in a pamphlet which he called 'The Tartuffe Detected; or, Observations on the Emigration of a Martyr to the Cause of Liberty,' Cobbett commenced his career as an author: a career, since made memorable by the exhibition of every versatility of talent, every sign of activity; by the dissemination of useful knowledge and the purest moral principles; and, again, in contradiction, by the spread of dangerous doctrines, whole volumes of invective, ever-changing opinions, and the most vigorous papers that have ever been read or written, upon all sides of all kinds of political questions. "And how was this career begun ?-Nearly like that of most of the lovers and ornaments of literature who were striving to turn their talents into meat and drink. Cobbett was living in Philadelphia, and he went to a Mr. Carey, a bookseller in that city. Mr. Carey,' he says, 'received me as booksellers generally receive authors (I mean authors whom they hope to get but little by); he looked at the title from top to bottom, and then at me from head to foot. "No, my lad," says he, "I don't think it will suit." This was enough for Cobbett: more indignant at being called 'my lad,' than discouraged with the reception he had met with, he immediately repaired to a rival bookseller of the name of Bradford, whom he abstained from visiting at first, on account of the rooted hatred which he knew that person to retain against Great Britain. His pique, however, had conquered this objection, and the next day,' he says, 'I went to him to know his determination. He hesitated-wanted to know if I could not make it a little more popular, adding, that unless I could, he feared that the publishing of it would endanger his windows. More popular I could not make it-I never was of an accommodating disposition in my life.' "After some parley, however, Cobbett consented to modify the title, rejecting The Tartuffe Detected, and retaining the 'Observations on, the Emigration of a Martyr, &c.' Upon this Mr. Bradford consented to publish the pamphlet under an arrangement which Cobbett thus describes: "The terms on which Mr. Bradford took the "Observations," are what booksellers call publishing it together. I beg the reader, if he foresees the possibility of his becoming author, to recollect this phrase well. Publishing it together is thus managed: the bookseller takes the work, prints it and defrays all expenses of paper, binding, &c., and the profits, if any, are divided between him and the author. Long after the "Observations" were sold off, Mr. Bradford tendered me an account (undoubtedly a very just one, of the sales. According to this account my share of the profits, my share only, amounted to the sum of one shilling and sevenpence-halfpenny currency of the State of Pennsylvania, or about elevenpence-three-farthings sterling) quite entirely clear of all deductions whatsoever.' . "It will readily be seen that our young writer would never have made his fortune at such work as this; which seems to beat the poorest state of the poorest authorship in this country. Cobbett, however, with a shrewdness natural to him, rather conceived a disgust at the system of dividing profits, than to the new calling which he had chosen; he did not, therefore, cease to write, but he ceased to 'publish together. Ever afterwards his arrangements with Mr. Bradford assumed a new character. When a pamphlet,' he says, 'was ready for the press, we made a bargain for it, and I took his note of hand payable in one, two, or three months. This was something like business. "The 'Observations' formed the first of that celebrated series of papers to which Cobbett affixed the signature of Peter Porcupine, and which he afterwards continued under different heads to an extent which enabled him to gather them into twelve volumes, in which form they were republished in this country in May, 1801. Those pamphlets which immediately เ succeeded the 'Observations,' and which he still published with-or rather sold to—Mr. Bradford, were as follows: 'A Bone to Gnaw for the Democrats,' in two parts, ' A Kick for a Bite,' 'Plain English, Addressed to the people of the United States,' The New Year's Gift,' and 'The Prospect from the Congress Gallery.' The copyrights of each of these produced their author the annexed prices:— "The pamphlets which Cobbett had published with the American bookseller, Bradford, had made a great stir in Philadelphia, and other parts of the United States. They had given him a fame which was at first bestowed upon one who wrote anonymously, but which he determined to avow and cope with, by assuming a corresponding position in society, and taking upon himself, along with the responsibility of his writings, the character of bookseller and publisher in the city; from whence he dealt out his oracles as from a lion's mouth. His quarrel with his publisher, and consequent separation, had caused that respected individual to pen the following laconic epistle: "Sir,-Send me your account and a receipt for the last publication, and your money shall be sent you by666 Yours, "Cobbett answered this in his own hard-hitting, home-seeking style; but his real substantial reply-his argumentum ad hominem-was the assuming of the responsibility at which we have hinted above, the opening of a shop in the month immediately following that very April. He himself mentions this fact as follows: "In the spring of the year 1796, I took a house in Second street, Philadelphia, for the purpose of carrying on the bookselling business, which I looked upon as being at once a means of getting money, and of propagating writings against the French. I went into my house in May, but the shop could not be gotten ready for some time; and, from one delay and another, I was prevented from opening till the second week in July. "Till I took this house, I had remained almost entirely unknown as a writer. A few persons did, indeed, know that I was the person who had assumed the name of Peter Porcupine; but the fact was by no means a matter of notoriety. The moment, however, that I had taken a lease of a large house, the transaction became the topic of public conversation, and the eyes of the Democrats and the French, who still lorded it over the city, and who owed me a mutual grudge, were fixed upon me. "I thought my situation somewhat perilous. Such truths as I had published, no man had dared to utter, in the United States, since the rebellion!! I knew that these truths had mortally offended the leading men amongst the Democrats, who could, at any time, muster a mob quite sufficient to destroy my house, and to murder me. I had not a friend to whom I could look with any reasonable hope of receiving efficient support; and, as to the law, I had seen too much of republican justice, to expect anything but persecution from that quarter. In short, there were, in Philadelphia, about ten thousand persons, all of whom would have rejoiced to see me murdered; and there might, probably, be two thousand, who would have been very sorry for it; but not above fifty of whom would have stirred an inch to save me. As the time approached for opening my shop, my friends grew more anxious for my safety. It was recommended to me, to be cautious how I exposed, at my window, anything that might provoke the people; and, above all, not to put up any aristocratical portraits, which would certainly cause my windows to be demolished. "I saw the danger; but also saw that I must at once set all danger at defiance, or live in everlasting subjection to the prejudices and caprice of the Democratical mob. I resolved on the former; and as my shop was to open on Monday morning, I employed myself all day on Sunday, in preparing an exhibition, that I thought would put the courage and the power of my enemies to the test. I put up in my windows, which were very large, all the portraits that I had in my possession of kings, queens, princes and nobles. I had all the English ministry; several of the bishops and judges; the most famous admirals; and, in short, every picture that I thought likely to excite rage in the enemies of Great Britain. "Early on the Monday morning, I took down my shutters. Such a sight had not been seen in Philadelphia for twenty years. Never, since the beginning of the rebellion, had any one dared to hoist at his window the portrait of George the Third. "In order to make the test as perfect as possible, I had put up some of the "worthies of the revolution," and had found out fit companions for them. I had coupled Franklin and Marat together; and, in another place, M'Kean and Ankerstrom.”—Ibid., 108. "Immediately upon this threatening hint followed a number of squibs, or rather missiles, mighty in invective and unsparing of abuse. They came out like hornets that had had their nests disturbed; they stung in all directions; sundry sheets and reams of paper in particular, and perhaps less than anything else, the equanimity of Cobbett. Porcupine was now a name and a mark for vengeance in the city of Philadelphia. There were the 'Roaster for Peter Porcupine,' 'The Blue Shop,' 'Porcupine in Print,' 'The History of a Porcupine,'' A Pill for a Porcupine,' 'The Impostor Detected,' and so on through a generation of the species, as though the quills of a thousand porcupines had been employed upon the annihilation of one."--Ibid., 114. "Some time in the month of August, 1797, the Spanish minister in America, Don Carlos Martinez d'Yrujo applied to the Federal government to prosecute Cobbett for certain matters published in 'Porcupine's Gazette,' of the 17th July of that year against himself and his master, Charles IV., King of Spain. The American government consented, and Cobbett was bound over to appear in the Federal District Court in the following April. His prosecutor, however, succeeded in getting the trial transferred to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, where Cobbett would be judged by Chief Justice M'Kean, one of those men in authority' to whom he has shown so little favour. Accordingly we soon find that he was not treated by the justice with any very pleasant ceremony, as he proceeds to tell us in the following narration: "The trifling circumstances attending an arrest and giving bail,' he remarks,' are scarcely worth relating: but, sometimes, trifling circumstances serve to convey a more correct idea of the character of the parties concerned in a transaction, and to guide the reader to a more just appreciation of their motives, than the longest and most laboured general account of their conduct. "The sheriff (whose civility and candour I have every reason to applaud) came to my house for the first time at twelve o'clock; and he was ordered to have me before the Judge at half-past one. Thank God, I am not versed in arrests; but, I believe, this is the first time that a man prosecuted for a libel was pinned down to the short space of an hour and a half to prepare for going out and to procure himself bail. The English reader (for this pamphlet shall be read in England) will observe, that this government of Pennsylvania is that which is everlastingly boasting of the mildness and humanity of its laws. "I was not so destitute of friends as, perhaps, the judge expected I was. cured, and we were before him at the appointed time. Bail was pro "He asked us to sit down. I seated myself on one side of the fire, and he on the other. After he had talked on for some time to very little purpose (at least, as to the effect his talk produced on me), he showed me certain newspapers, asked me if I had printed and published them? To this I replied, that the law did not require me to answer any questions in that stage of the business; and that, therefore, I should not do it. At this reply, though a very prudent and a very proper one, 'he waxed exceeding wroth.' He instantly ordered me to get off my chair, and stand up before him, although he himself had invited me to sit down which species of resentment excited in my mind no other sentiment than that which I dare say it has already excited in the mind of the reader.' "This show of temper, however, on the part of the judge in the above stage of the business, appears to have been only a sort of preliminary evidence of his dislike to Cobbett, which was afterwards more injuriously, and most shamefully exercised from the bench, when the trial came on, in his charge to the jury, which, as we have read it, is one of the most partial and disgraceful emanations of judicial malice, it ever fell to our lot to peruse. Fortunately for Cobbett, however, it failed in its intended effect; the jury were unbiassed by it and returned the bill. This, we believe, is the only instance (except one) among his many trials for libel, in which Cobbett achieved anything like a triumph."-Ibid., 129. TRIAL OF MATTHEW LYON FOR A SEDITIOUS LIBEL. IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES VERGENNES, OCTOBER 7, 1798.* THE indictment which was found on October 5, 1798, contained three counts, the first of which, after averring the intent to be "to stir up sedition, and to bring the President and government of the United States into contempt," laid the following libellous matter: "As to the Executive, when I shall see the efforts of that power bent on the promotion of the comfort, the happiness, and accommodation of the people, that executive shall have my zealous and uniform support: but whenever I shall, on the part of the Executive, see every consideration of the public welfare swallowed up in a continual grasp for power, in an unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation, and selfish avarice; when I shall behold men of real merit daily turned out of office, for no other cause but independency of sentiment; when I shall see men of firmness, merit, years, abilities, and experience, discarded in their applications for office, for fear they possess that independence, and men of meanness preferred for the ease with which they take up and advocate opinions, the consequence of which they know but little of-when I shall see the sacred name of religion employed as a state engine to make mankind hate and persecute one another, I shall not be their humble advocate." The second count consisted of having maliciously, &c., and with intent, &c., published a letter, said to be a letter from a diplomatic character in France, containing two paragraphs, in the words following: • The materials of this case, which, with the greatest difficulty, I have collected, are drawn chiefly from the New York Spectator of Oct. 24, 1798, a paper then said to be under Mr. Hamilton's control, and of course decidedly federal, and from the Aurora of Nov. 15, 1798, whose politics were equally decided the other way. I have made very general inquiries for fuller details, but the Vergennes paper of that day goes no further than those just cited, and I understand that a fuller report is not now to be obtained. |