the age of 33, then, he published this pamphlet, on which we shall only remark here that the reader will see in it many of the excellences of his after writings; the same clearness, the same humorous bitterness, and a good deal of invective, though rather less grammatical accuracy. But of this he will be his own judge. The next publication was a pamphlet under the title of “A Bone to gnaw for the Democrats;” and the title suggests to us to explain further, that the American parties above alluded to, were known as Democrats and Aristocrats, or Federalists and Anti-federalists, or Whigs and Tories. These distinctions will be clearly understood if we take the Anti-federalist and the Federalist; for these were the real American distinctions, the others being borrowed either from France or England. At the close of the war of independence, in 1783, the thirteen States of America united under an Act of Confederation, but each State kept itself so completely sovereign in everything that concerned it, that, in matters of war and peace, and foreign commerce, there was no general government of sufficient power to give effect to the Confederation. This caused the reformation of 1787 before alluded to, which gave larger power to the Congress, and instituted an executive in the person of the President.
Federalist, Aristocrat, and Tory, mean the same; and Anti-federalist, Democrat, and Whig, mean the same. The principal federalists were, Washington, Adams, Hamilton, Jay, and Pinkney; and the principal anti-federalists were, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Rush, and Randolph. We take such names only as will be found most noticed in the writings that we are about to republish. In all the political strife of the eight years (from 1792 to 1800) in which Mr. Cobbett moved in America, the prominent question was, “Which country shall we seek to be allied with—England or France?” The anti-federalists were for France, and the federalists were for England. The mode of warfare, therefore, was to blacken the former as democratic traitors, ready to hand their country over to France for bribes received from that country; and with the other party, to blacken the federalists as aristocrats, who wished to bring America again under the monarchical yoke of England. He is innocent of political warfare who will not give the parties credit for doing the amplest injustice to each other! For, although there might have been reason to suspect the subordinate men on both sides, it is impossible to believe that there was any design in the minds of such men as Jefferson or Washington to sell or give up their country to either France or England. Both, however, were hunted through their official career as suspicious, and both seem to have been pursued to the last by the exaggerations of their furious party opponents. They have paid the price of greatness as all great men do. This pamphlet, then, was an attack upon the French, or anti-federal, party; and the object of the author was, to decoy the French Republic, and hold up England to favour in the eyes of the American people. It is obvious enough, that it was not his intention to pull down the Government of General Washington, but to counteract those unfavourable impressions that were industriously made against England, to bring the Americans into a friendly feeling towards her; and, no English reader ought to consider this as an attack on his own opinions, however popular they may be. The pamphlet was very successful, had an immense sale, and was, as all Mr. Cobbett’s anonymous writings have been, attributed to different men of learning and importance. The anti-federalists felt the shafts which he flung at them, and unwisely compared him to the porcupine, a name which he instantly adopted, as he many years afterwards adopted that of Lord Castlereagh’s “two-penny trash.”
His business, from the very first week of his landing in America, was that of teacher of English to the French emigrants, who abounded in Philadelphia and its neighbourhood, and at this he earned between four and five hundred pounds a-year. His first pamphlet brought him no money, although it had a large sale; he wrote others, and sold the manuscript and copyright; but, at so low a price, that, whatever the bookseller may have done, the author earned only one hundred pounds in two years. The proof of their having been valuable, is, that he wanted to buy them back, years after they had been published, and though he offered as much for them as he had originally taken, the bookseller refused his offer. He became an important writer, and, as he very proudly expresses it, “stood alone,” to bear the abuse and falsehoods of a teeming press. In the spring of 1796, he took a shop in Philadelphia for the purpose of selling his own writings, before which he had written some of the best of his pamphlets. The two principal ones are, “A Little Plain English,” and “A New Year’s Gift to the Democrats;” the first being a refutation of arguments put forth against the treaty of amity and commerce with England, entered into by the President Washington in 1794-5, through the mediation of Mr. Jay, and which treaty, being the first fruits of the reform of the constitution, threw the French party into violences bordering on treason. It is impossible to read it without admiring the ability with which the subject is handled; and it is impossible that an Englishman, even now, should not admire the boldness and energy of the man who could make so strong a defence for his country single-handed. In the progress of the ferment about the British treaty, a most awkward exposure of the Secretary of State, Randolph, was made, and in a manner as curious as the whole affair was awkward. England being then at war with France, a French vessel from America, carrying dispatches from the French Minister at Philadelphia, was taken in the Channel; the French captain threw the dispatches overboard, and they fell into the hands of the English Government. Being found to contain an account of the American Secretary of State’s treachery towards his own country, in concert with the French Minister, the English Government sent them to the President of America; and this affair furnished the friends of England with a weapon against the friends of France that “Porcupine” used effectively in the “New Year’s Gift to the Democrats,” the second of the two pamphlets above alluded to. The affair caused the immediate ratification of the British Treaty, which had been held in suspense by the Secretary’s intrigues, and it ended in his disgrace.
In 1796, Mr. Cobbett, having quarrelled with his bookseller, opened a shop, and, in a manner truly characteristic of him, bade defiance to his opponents. His friends feared for his personal safety, for the people were infected with the love of France. “I saw,” he says, “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 a 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!” The daring of this act produced excessive rage; the newspapers contained direct instigations to outrage, and threats were conveyed to him in the openest manner; but there were many amongst his political opponents, and even the people, who admired the “Englishman”; and, that the Government itself felt as it ought to do, will be seen in the course of our Selections.
He had already begun a monthly periodical work, one number of which had been published before he became his own publisher, called the “Prospect from the Congress Gallery;” which contained State papers, the substance of speeches made in the House of Representatives (the gallery of which he attended), and his own remarks upon them. He changed the title to that of “The Political Censor,” and carried it on with great success till March 1797, when he thought that he must have something that would put him more on a level with his opponents, a daily newspaper. Then it was that he began the “Porcupine’s Gazette,” which immediately acquired a large number of readers, and in which he carried on his warfare upon more equal terms as to time, and enraged his enemies beyond all common bounds. In argument he was far beyond them, and his cruel satire raised a storm of abuse that is yet living in tradition throughout the United States: they accused him of being a flogged deserter from the army, who had subsequently earned his living by picking pockets in the streets of London; and, so slight was their respect for sex, that they made an attack which caused the following refutation in the Censor: “Since the sentimental dastard, who has thus aimed a stab at the reputation of a woman, published his ‘Pill,’ I have shown my marriage certificate to Mr. Abercrombie, the minister of the church opposite me.” The selections from this Gazette will be but few, for they consist principally of personalities on such opponents, who were not of sufficient
