“I believe they spoke truth; for the cannons of the State were fired, and military companies, with drums beating and colours flying, attended the execrable fête, one of the ceremonies of which was burning the English flag; and as to the sentiments contained in the oaths and speeches (for there were both) they abounded in insults towards almost all the princes of the earth, but particularly the King of Great Britain.
“A Judge of Pennsylvania, Redman, was, in November, 1795, caught thieving in the shop of Mr. Folwell, the dry-goods merchant in Front Street. Mr. Folwell detected him, took the money ($300) from him, and kicked him into the street. His friends, among the most intimate of whom was His Excellency the Governor, advised him to retire; and he is still living at his ease about 20 miles from the city. No justice was ever done to him; he was never censured, not even in the newspapers! Such is the cowardly, base, and worthless press of America. Such are republican judges, and such is republican morality! But this is not the worst. I know a Judge who committed murder! wilful murder, and that, too, previous to his appointment by this our republican Governor!
“I only give a sort of hint here. One day or other if it pleases God to spare my life, I will publish such a collection of facts as will shock the universe.
“A Pennsylvania Judge’s wife had, a little while ago, a child, by a man who kept a livery stable. The lady says, the stableman is the best of the two and so has married him, though his Honour is still living. I need not name the parties, for though the cowardly newspapers have never noticed the affair it is notorious enough.
“There are more bastards born annually in the single state of Pennsylvania, than in all the British dominions: and as to cuckoldom, I will only say that every paper teems with advertisements of wives eloped from the bed and board of their husbands. I do not hence insinuate that there are no good people here. There are many. As many as in most countries; but then people will, and do allow, that the morals of the country are approaching fast to that state, which has never yet failed to prove the ruin of every thing held in esteem amongst men.”
In proving the falsehood of the assertion so frequently repeated, as well on this as on the other side of the Atlantic, that “in America the press is free and truth is not a libel,” our author adverts to a letter of Dr. Priestley’s on that subject which he promises hereafter to expose more fully (a promise which we trust he will not forget); and then introduces the following curious anecdote, which we extract for the benefit of the Doctor’s political friends and admirers in Europe. “But since the Doctor wrote that letter it seems experience has changed his opinion. He has suffered the just punishment of his malignancy against his country; he has been cheated, neglected, and scorned. He is now in an obscurity hardly penetrable; he is reduced to poverty and bursting with vexation” (may a restless spirit of innovation, springing from, and nourished by, a bigotted vanity and a turbulent pride ever experience a similar fate)! All this has had an effect; and I will state as a fact, which I call upon him to deny if he can, that he has lately declared “that Republican governments are the most arbitrary in the world”! This Machiavel had said before, and this all unprejudiced men of reading and observation had long since admitted; but, we confess we little expected to hear Doctor Priestley subscribe to the creed of the one, or to the acknowledgments of the other. Adversity, however, is an able advocate in the cause of TRUTH.
The Address to the People of England, which is prefixed to the publication, is short, but pointed and expressive. It breathes the true spirit of a Briton. Of the literary merit of the work, after the ample analysis which we have given of its contents, and the extracts which we have made, little remains to be said. We agree with the publisher, who in the Advertisement says: “The author has been more anxious to strengthen his arguments than to polish his style, to convince the judgment than to flatter the taste,” but those critics must be more “delicate” or fastidious who can reject substantial advantages for fanciful defects. Though Peter aim not at embellishments, he possesses great strength and energy of language, and generally writes with more accuracy than most of the American authors, who, be it observed, have a phraseology peculiar to themselves. This tract contains much important information, and we strenuously recommend it to the serious perusal of our countrymen; particularly to such of them as are disposed to question the superior advantages which they enjoy, over ALL republican states under our own well-poised and limited MONARCHY. The following admonitions with which the author concludes, will, we trust, have a due effect on the minds of those to whom they are addressed. “Such, Britons, is the fruit of republican government here; not among the apish and wolfish French, but among a people descended from the same ancestors as yourselves. When your monarchial government bears such fruits, let it, I say, be hewn down and cast into the fire; but till that disgraceful and dreadful day comes, watch over it with care and defend it to the last drop of your blood, preserve it as you would a golden casket, the apple of your eye, or the last dear gift of your dying parents. With this I conclude, praying the God of our fathers to lead you in the practice of all their virtues, to give wisdom to your minds and strength to your arms, to keep you firm and united, honest and generous, loyal, brave, and free; but above all, to preserve you from the desolating and degrading curse of revolutionary madness and modern republicanism.”
PETER PORCUPINE’S WILL.
[By William Cobbett. Published in The Anti-Jacobin Review and Magazine; or Monthly Political and Literary Censor: from July to December, 1798. Vol. i., pp. 725–8.—Ed.]
In the name of Fun, Amen. I Peter Porcupine, Pamphleteer and Newsmonger, being (as yet) sound both in body and in mind, do, this fifteenth day of April, in the Year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-seven, make, declare, and publish, this my Last Will and Testament, in manner, form, and substance following; to wit: