The Porcupine had consistently praised the “heaven-born” minister, and continued to do so, more or less, during its whole career. It began to diverge in opinion on the day of the above announcement. It was high time “for all true Englishmen to rally round the Throne,” for the granting of the proposed concessions to the Catholics “would undermine and finally overthrow,” &c., &c., according to the long-buried tenets of High-Toryism. A few weeks afterward, some sarcasm, directed toward Pitt’s paper-financing, appeared, but was disavowed next day by the editor, who had not seen the paragraph before it appeared in print, and who continued to entertain, “in common with a vast majority of the nation, the highest opinion of that gentleman’s talents as a financier.” Upon a report that Mr. Pitt was intending [July] to sell Holwood, he remarked that “we shall ever continue to think that to suffer a man, who has rendered such services to his country in particular, and to Europe in general, to feel the consequences arising from a confined income, is to incur a national disgrace.” But, by the end of the year, Mr. Cobbett was in opposition, along with the new party under Mr. Windham’s leadership.
Before dismissing the Porcupine newspaper, the reader will be entertained with a few characteristic illustrations. The editor very early began to display his pugnacity toward the opposition press. Not that he was singular, but that he excelled all his cotemporaries in the art of hitting straight when attacked. The newspapers of that day were largely occupied in throwing dirt at one another,[1] and one column was often taken up by a string of paragraphs, containing laboured sarcasms directed toward public men or the other public prints. The True Briton was especially industrious in this way. But here is Porcupine:—
“The Detector.—Under this title, it is our intention to devote a column or two of our paper, once a week at least, to the detecting and exposing of the ignorance, perverseness, and falsehood of the Jacobinical and stock-jobbing prints, which, to the great scandal and reproach of the nation, are not only tolerated, but read. From our experience, acquired in a country where the spirit of Jacobinism is, if possible, still more daring and violent than in England, we are convinced that, to succeed in a warfare such as we have commenced, defensive measures will not do,” &c.
“The Times calls the Chronicle the ‘leading print of Opposition,’ which compliment the Chronicle returns by styling the Times the ‘leading print of Government.’… What can entitle them to the epithet ‘leading,’ we are at a loss to discover, except it be their superiority in point of turpitude … if falsehood and hypocrisy admit of degrees of comparison, we are rather disposed to give the Times the scandalous pre-eminence.”
“The Morning Chronicle was yesterday seized with the horrors,” &c.
“To Correspondents.—Nimrod is surprised that we should have condescended to notice the Oracle, and advises us to pursue a nobler game; but he should do us the justice to recollect that, when game are not to be found, sportsmen sometimes amuse themselves by destroying vermin.”
“Ignorance and perversity: For these two amiable qualities the Morning Post and the Times are eminently distinguished.”
(The Observer): “The occupation of this print is to scrape together the orts of the week, and hash them up,” &c.
“The Monthly Magazine, a periodical miscellany, which we have already mentioned with due abhorrence.”