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 importance to create any interest now. Many are extremely good in themselves; and, though they were called abusive, allowance should be made where the provocation was so great. They are witty, rather than abusive, for wit sanctifies harsh terms, whatever puny critics may say. That which would be merely vulgar in a vapid writing, becomes wit when genius puts the point to it. Pope, Dryden, and Swift, have used hard words, and in their day were called abusive, too, but their very epithets are admired in ours. Wit can take liberties that dulness must not.
To say that there was no error in the writings of a man beginning his career at 33 years of age, having been born under a roof where knowledge was not to be gained, educated in a barrack, and always without a guide, would be impertinence; but he who says that a man thus qualified, and with a mind made by nature of the most vehement kind, is to answer rigidly for every error in giving his thoughts to the public once during every week for the space of nearly 40 years, demands that perfection of mind, that abundance of knowledge, and that foresight into events, which no man has hitherto shown. In “Porcupine’s” writings then, he always assumes that the English Government, both in its form and in its practices, is the most perfect of governments; but he did it while living at three thousand miles from that Government, and in a country where casual travellers now find it extremely difficult to preserve the republican notions with which they start from home. In the early stages of his political life, he was both scholar and teacher, and therefore, to forbid any change of opinion, would have been to forbid him to make progress. He always owns his changes