The past writings of Mr. William Cobbett, who has assumed the appellation of Peter Porcupine, are too well known in England to require any explanation from us, either of _their_ tendency, or of the author’s principles. Were any doubt entertained on the subject, nothing more would be requisite to dispel it than a mere reference to the comments of all the Jacobin Reviewers; who have, without exception, in defiance alike of decency and of truth, lavished on them the most indiscriminate censure and the most scurrilous abuse. Strange as it may appear, it is indisputably true that the individual exertions of Mr. Cobbett have more essentially contributed to give a proper tone to the public spirit in America than all the efforts of the well-disposed part of the native Americans: for a considerable length of time he combated alone a host of foes, “himself a host”; stemmed the impetuous tide of democracy; and checked the irruptions of French anarchy and atheism, which threatened to overwhelm the American States, and, with the ruins of their confliction, to crush everything for which the Americans, at the period of their revolution, professed to fight, and which they have ever since professed to cherish. The adoption of such a line of conduct was alone sufficient to draw down upon our author the vengeance of all whose treasonable designs his manly efforts were intended to defeat. Accordingly, nothing was spared by the infuriated advocates of anarchy to injure him in the public mind, and, by blasting his reputation, to deprive him of that credit which was indispensably necessary to secure the success of his works. No imputation however base, no lie however atrocious, none of those black and diabolical arts, in short, which, issuing from the bubbling cauldron of democracy, were so skilfully employed to blacken the first and fairest character in France, as a necessary prelude to the establishment of the _virtuous_ republic of the Great Nation, were neglected in the _glorious_ attempt to achieve the ruin of this worthy individual. When these were found to fail of producing the desired effect, recourse was had to personal threats—the coward’s weapon—with the hope of inducing him, by the means of intimidation, to quit a country in which his enemies endeavoured to convince him that his life was daily exposed to most imminent danger. But neither the dread of calumny, nor the fear of assassination, could lead the object of their persecution to forego his laudable design. He manfully persevered, and has at length, though not without infinite difficulty, succeeded in opening the eyes of the Americans to their own interest, and in the infamous machinations of France, and of American traitors in the pay of France—for England is not the ONLY country in which foreign gold is employed as a stimulus to domestic treason.[330] In the course of