Mr. Cobbett, with his usual alacrity and fearlessness, at once proceeded to draw up a statement of the whole affair, and produced a pamphlet under the title of the “The Republican Judge; or the American Liberty of the Press, as exhibited, explained, and exposed, in the base and partial prosecution of William Cobbett, for a Pretended Libel against the King of Spain and his Ambassador.” On reading the judge’s charge, it is difficult to believe how an honest man could have selected the comparatively mild effusions of _Porcupine’s Gazette_ for prosecution; seeing that his own partisans had used with impunity the vilest epithets toward the “The Father of his country;” one paper, indeed, charged Washington with murder. Here is one passage from M’Kean’s speech, for example: “Libelling has become a national crime, and distinguishes us not only from all the states around us, but from the whole civilized world. Our satire has been nothing but ribaldry and Billingsgate; the contest has been, who could call names in the greatest variety of phrases; who could mangle the greatest number of characters; or who could excel in the magnitude or virulence of their lies,” &c., &c. And Mr. Cobbett showed pretty plainly, by a judicious selection of recent anti-federal blackguardisms,[5] what was the real nature of the fight. For himself, he writes in his best manner, as the following will show:-- “As to my writing, I never did slander any one, if the promulgation of useful truths be not slander. Innocence and virtue I have often endeavoured to defend, but I never defamed either. I have, indeed, stripped the close-drawn veil of hypocrisy; I have ridiculed the follies, and lashed the vices of thousands; and have done it sometimes, perhaps, with a rude and violent hand. But these are not the days for gentleness and mercy. Such as is the temper of the foe, such must be that of his opponent. Seeing myself published for a rogue, and my wife for a * * * * *; being persecuted with such infamous, such base and hellish calumny in the philanthropic city of Philadelphia, merely for asserting the truths respecting others, was not calculated, I assure you, to sweeten my temper, and turn my ink into honey-dew.