“From Mr. Carey I went to Mr. Bradford, and left the pamphlet for his perusal. The next day 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. The only alteration I would consent to was in the title. I had given the pamphlet the double title of ‘The Tartuffe Detected; or, Observations,’ &c. The former was suppressed, though, had I not been pretty certain that every press in the city was as little free as that to which I was sending it, the ‘Tartuffe Detected’ should have remained; for the person on whom it was bestowed merited it much better than the character so named by Molière.
“These difficulties, and these fears of the bookseller, at once opened my eyes with respect to the boasted liberty of the press. Because the laws of this country proclaim to the world, that every man may write and publish freely, and because I saw the newspapers filled with vaunts on the subject, I was fool enough to imagine that the press was really free for every one. I had not the least idea, that a man’s windows were in danger of being broken, if he published anything that was not popular. I did, indeed, see the words liberty and equality, the rights of man, the crimes of kings, and such like, in most of the booksellers’ windows; but I did not know that they were put there to save the glass, as a free republican Frenchman puts a cockade tricolor in his hat to save his head. I was ignorant of all these arcana of the liberty of the press.
“The work that it was feared would draw down punishment on the publisher, did not contain one untruth, one anarchical, indecent, immoral, or irreligious expression; and yet the bookseller feared for his windows! For what? Because it was not popular enough. A bookseller in a despotic state fears to publish a work that is ‘too popular,’ and one in a free state fears to publish a work that is not ‘popular enough.’ I leave it to the learned philosophers of the ‘Age of Reason’ to determine in which of these states there is the most liberty of the press; for, I must acknowledge, the point is too nice for me: fear is fear, whether inspired by a Sovereign Lord the King, or by a Sovereign People.
“The terms on which Mr. Bradford took the ‘Observations,’ were what booksellers call publishing it together. I beg the reader, if he foresees the possibility of his becoming an 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 rendered 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 enormous 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!
“Now, bulky as this sum appears in words at length, I presume, that when 1s. 7½d. is reduced to figures, no one will suppose it sufficient to put a coat upon my back. If my poor back were not too broad to be clothed with such a sum as this, God knows how I should bear all that has been, and is, and is to be, laid on it by the unmerciful democrats. Why! 1s. 7½d. would not cover the back of a Lilliputian; no, not even in rags, as they sell here.”
The allusion to the coat was occasioned by a report, which Cobbett thought fit to notice, that Mr. Bradford had provided him with the means of procuring one. Whether the “Observations” proved remunerative or not, it is certain that the tract was immediately reprinted in London, by Stockdale, and noticed in the magazines; and we will presently refer to the comments which were raised in England by the new politician.
Meanwhile the pamphlet was read, and became notorious; and its author had discovered where his strength lay. He would prepare another onslaught upon the anti-federalists.
In order, however, that we may understand the position which Cobbett soon came to occupy as a politician, it will be necessary to take a glimpse of the leading questions which were agitating the public mind of America. The chief cities of the United States, receiving, as they did, the overflowings of European ebullition, had also their own internal squabbles, and were become so many centres of revolutionary intrigue; and the perils and the strife thus engendered opened the field of political adventure to many an aspiring mind. It was a period of terrible personal animosities, both in Europe and America: men’s friendships, and men’s reputations, never had a harder lot, in the face of differences of opinion.