CHAPTER VI.
“PETER PORCUPINE, AT YOUR SERVICE!”
Mr. Thomas Bradford’s Political Book Store, No. 8, South Front Street, is furnished with all the latest publications. The works of Paine, Volney, Godwin and others, fill his shelves, and those of the new Federal light enliven his counter. He is doing a roaring trade; senators look in and gossip, and laugh over Porcupine; members from the House of Representatives come in and flatter the writer, and want to be blessed with a sight of him—“one wanted to treat me to a supper, another wanted to shake hands with me, and a third wanted to embrace me.”
But Mr. Cobbett is getting too independent. On the next proposal to publish, he actually wants to have a voice in the matter, over some detail; and, early in 1796, their engagements are sundered.
The plan for opening the new year was a commentary on the debates in Congress, under the title of “The Prospect from the Congress Gallery.” The first number appeared at the end of January. The circumstances under which Cobbett broke off with his publisher are thus given in the American autobiography (published in the ensuing August):
“My concerns with Mr. Bradford closed with “The Prospect from the Congress Gallery;” and, as our separation has given rise to conjectures and reports, I shall trouble the reader with an explanation of the matter. I proposed making a mere collection of the debates, with here and there a note by way of remarks. It was not my intention to publish it in numbers, but at the end of the session, in one volume; but Mr. Bradford, fearing a want of success in this form, determined on publishing in numbers. This was without my approbation, as was also a subscription that was opened for the support of the work. When about half a Number was finished, I was informed that many gentlemen had expressed their desire, that the work might contain a good deal of original matter, and few debates. In consequence of this, I was requested to alter my plan; I said I would, but that I would by no means undertake to continue the work.
“The first Number, as it was called (but not by me) was published, and its success led Mr. Bradford to press for a continuation. His son offered me, I believe, a hundred dollars a Number, in place of eighteen; and, I should have accepted his offer, had it not been for a word that escaped him during the conversation. He observed, that their customers would be much disappointed, for that, his father had promised a continuation, and that it should be made very interesting. This slip of the tongue opened my eyes at once. What! a bookseller undertake to promise that I should write, and that I should write to please his customers too! No; if all his customers, if all the Congress with the President at their head, had come and solicited me; nay, had my salvation depended on a compliance, I would not have written another line.
“I was fully employed at this time, having a translation on my hands for Mr. Moreau de St. Méry, as well as another work which took up a great deal of my time; so that, I believe, I should not have published the Censor had it not been to convince the customers of Mr. Bradford, that I was not in his pay; that I was not the puppet and he the showman. That, whatever merits or demerits my writings might have, no part of them fell to his share.”
The “Prospect” was pretty successful; and it was resolved to continue it occasionally. The next number was not published, however, till the end of March; and the title was changed to “The Political Censor.” But we now find on the title-page the name of Benjamin Davies, at No. 68, High Street—so it appears that the dissatisfaction with Mr. Bradford had some meaning in it. Between the first and second numbers of the “Censor,” Peter Porcupine produced a little book on French “horrors,” which had a great sale both in America and England, under the name of “The Bloody Buoy, thrown out as a Warning to the Political Pilots of all Nations: or, a faithful Relation of a Multitude of Acts of Horrid Barbarity, such as the Eye never witnessed, the Tongue expressed, or the Imagination conceived, until the Commencement of the French Revolution,” &c. This was published at Davies’ Book-store, and its announcement in the papers was probably the first intimation that Mr. Bradford had of the impending loss of Porcupine’s custom.
The later transactions between Cobbett and Bradford are thus disposed of in the autobiography:—
“After the ‘Observations,’ Mr. Bradford and I published together no longer. When a pamphlet 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. That the public may know exactly what gains I have derived from the publications that issued from Mr. Bradford’s, I here subjoin a list of them, and the sums received in payment.