The communication to the Aurora newspaper stated, among other things, that Porcupine had been “obliged to abscond from his darling old England to avoid being turned off into the other world before his time;” that his usual occupation at home was that of a “garret-scribbler” (excepting a little “night-business” occasionally, to supply unavoidable contingencies); and that he had to take French leave for France; that he was obliged as suddenly to leave that Republic, and figured some time in America as a pedagogue; “but as this employment scarcely furnished him salt to his porridge, he having been literally without hardly bread to eat, and not a second shirt to his back, he resumed his old occupation of scribbling, having little chance of success in the other employments which drove him to this country.” He is a fugitive felon; but his sudden change of condition shows that secret-service money has been liberally employed; “for his zeal to make atonement to his mother country seems proportioned to the magnitude of his offence, and the guineas advanced.” And so on.
The first announcement of “The Life and Adventures of Peter Porcupine” appears in the Gazette of the United States[6] of the 9th August; and its publication was the signal for a fresh outburst of spleen on the part of Peter’s opponents. And no wonder; for, as a mixture of artlessness and cool impudence, the “Life and Adventures” has seldom been equalled. Gaily daring, he begs his opponents to come on, and fire away at his reputation “till their old pens are worn to the stump,” and expresses his extreme sorrow that lies and threats will be all in vain, for he is “one of those whose obstinacy increases with opposition.” In point of fact, Peter was just now somewhat intoxicated with success. The applause of friends, and of that large class in every community that is ready to worship successful impudence—along with the virulence of his opponents, and the consciousness of honourable and patriotic motives—had their natural results in the mind of an ardent and earnest man who has recently emerged from obscurity, and who has suddenly learnt how easy it is to become famous—in a country, too, where a spade might be called a spade without fear of an Attorney-General—in a land where existed (at that period) the only semblance of liberty in the whole world.
And, as it turned out, years after, this daring “scoundrell” was the only man found worthy—because the only one with pluck enough—to do good work when he got face to face with his country’s enemies at home.
Mr. Cobbett’s reply to the charge of being in the pay of the British Government was easy enough:—
“It is hard to prove a negative; it is what no man is expected to do; yet I think I can prove that the accusation of my being in British pay is not supported by one single fact, or the least shadow of probability.
“When a foreign Government hires a writer, it takes care that his labours shall be distributed, whether the readers are all willing to pay for them or not. This we daily see verified in the distribution of certain blasphemous gazettes, which, though kicked from the door with disdain, fly in at the window. Now, has this ever been the case with the works of Peter Porcupine? Were they ever thrusted upon people in spite of their remonstrances? Can Mr. Bradford say that thousands of these pamphlets have ever been paid for by any agent of Great Britain? Can he say that I have ever distributed any of them? No; he can say no such thing. They had, at first, to encounter every difficulty, and they have made their way supported by public approbation, and by that alone. Mr. Bradford, if he is candid enough to repeat what he told me, will say that the British Consul, when he purchased half a dozen of them, insisted upon having them at the wholesale price! Did this look like a desire to encourage them? Besides, those who know anything of Mr. Bradford will never believe that he would have lent his aid to a British agent’s publications; for, of all the Americans I have yet conversed with, he seems to entertain the greatest degree of rancour against that nation.
“I have every reason to believe that the British Consul was far from approving of some at least of my publications. I happened to be in a bookseller’s shop, unseen by him, when he had the goodness to say that I was a ‘wild fellow.’ On which I shall only observe, that when the king bestows on me about five hundred pounds sterling a year, perhaps I may become a tame fellow, and hear my master, my countrymen, my friends, and my parents, belied and execrated, without saying one single word in their defence.
“Had the Minister of Great Britain employed me to write, can it be supposed that he would not furnish me with the means of living well, without becoming the retailer of my own works? Can it be supposed that he would have suffered me ever to have appeared on the scene? It must be a very poor king that he serves, if he could not afford me more than I can get by keeping a book-shop. An ambassador from a king of the gipsies could not have acted a meaner part. What! where was all the ‘gold of Pitt’? That gold which tempted, according to the Democrats, an American envoy to sell his country and two-thirds of the Senate to ratify the bargain—that gold which, according to the Convention of France, has made one half of that nation cut the throats of the other half—that potent gold could not keep Peter Porcupine from standing behind a counter to sell a pen-knife or a quire of paper.
“Must it not be evident, too, that the keeping of a shop would take up a great part of my time—time that was hardly worth paying for at all, if it was not of higher value than the profits on a few pamphlets? Every one knows that the ‘Censor’ has been delayed on account of my entering into business; would the Minister of Great Britain have suffered this, had I been in his pay? No; I repeat that it is downright stupidity to suppose that he would ever have suffered me to appear at all, had he even felt in the least interested in the fate of my works, or the effect they might produce. He must be sensible that, seeing the unconquerable prejudices existing in this country, my being known to be an Englishman would operate weightily against whatever I might advance. I saw this very plainly myself; but, as I had a living to get, and as I had determined on this line of business, such a consideration was not to awe me into idleness, or make me forego any other advantages that I had reason to hope I should enjoy.