Page:The English Peasant.djvu/275

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WILLIAM COBBETT.
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the opening in his own original way by firing a volley into the popular political creed of the city. The whole of the previous Sunday he spent in preparing such an exhibition as had never been known before in Philadelphia. His window was a large one, but he determined to fill it with engravings of all the kings, queens, and princes he could lay his hands upon; with portraits of the various members of the English ministry; several English bishops, generals, admirals; and, in short, with every picture which he thought would excite the rage of the enemies of Great Britain. In order to make the exhibition more exasperating, he linked together the most terrible of the French Revolutionists with certain popular Americans—Marat with Franklin, for example. The next day the people came—stared in amazement at the audacity of the new English bookseller, but not a stone was thrown. The town, however, soon teemed with angry pamphlets, in which he was attacked in his own style. The more he was abused the more he enjoyed the situation. "I am one," he told them, "whose obstinacy only increases with opposition." He now commenced a new series of pamphlets, which he entitled "The Political Censor," and in which he not only attacked democratic principles, but tried to pillory popular American leaders.

The yellow fever broke out in Philadelphia; Cobbett would not flee, as many did, but philosophically sought to divert his mind by reading a book called "Mes Périls," an exciting account of the adventures of M. Lovet, a Brissotin, who fled for his life during the Reign of Terror.

This epidemic was, however, the ultimate cause of Cobbett's return to England. There was a certain Dr Rush who professed that he had done great things during the fever. Cobbett considered this person as a quack, and that it was his duty to expose his pernicious system. He called him a Sangrado, the Samson of Medicine, charging him with murdering his patients, and slaying his thousands and tens of thousands. Rush brought an action for libel, and Cobbett, who had done his best to incense the American public, met with no mercy from judge or jury. He was condemned to pay five thousand dollars for the damage done to the reputation of his antagonist, and to pay the costs of the trial,