His argument against his opponents' cost estimates touches upon certain fundamental issues, such as the threat of an aristocratic rule if the stipend for legislators is indeed kept very low. Towards the end he notes an instance of intimidation:
One thing more I would observe—a very threatening letter has been written to the printer denouncing vengeance on him, if he does not deliver up the author of "the friend of the people"—this I take to be an attempt to frighten and preclude further investigation, but it will be of little avail when the interests of my fellow citizens are so deeply concerned.
That James Green, although not named, is the printer of this second broadside can be demonstrated by typographical comparison with the January 24 and February 21, 1801 issues of Green's Impartial Observer, available at the Library of Congress.
The two broadsides cited are the only copies recorded in Douglas C. McMurtrie's A Bibliography of Mississippi Imprints 1798-1830 (Beauvoir Community, Miss., 1945).[56] They bear manuscript notations, in an identical hand, that suggest use in an official archive; and the earlier broadside is stated to be "from Mr Banks, Novr 12th 1800." Sutton Bankes, one of the eight signers, is presumably referred to here. The second broadside has, besides a brief caption in this hand, a more elegantly written address: "His Excellency Winthrop Sergent Bellemont." Bellemont was one of Governor Sargent's residences near Natchez.
It is interesting that at the time Governor Sargent expressed himself privately on the earlier broadside as follows:
They [the members of the House of Representatives] are undoubtedly the proper Guardians of their own honour and Conduct, but nevertheless, will not take it amiss, in a Communication intended only for themselves, that I should observe it has always been Considered derogatory to the Dignity of Public Bodies, to notice anonymous writings, in the style and Manner of the Hand Bills,—it opens a broad Avenue to Retort and Satire, with many other obvious and unpleasant Consequences.[57]
[55] See Douglas C. McMurtrie, Pioneer Printing in Mississippi (Atlanta, 1932); and Charles S. Sydnor, "The Beginning of Printing in Mississippi," The Journal of Southern History, vol. 1, 1935, p. [49]-55.
[56] Nos. 11 and 12.
[57] From letter dated November 12, 1800, in The Mississippi Territorial Archives, compiled and edited by Dunbar Rowland, vol. 1 (1905), p. 301-302.