The letters of this period are filled with cautions, that every means be taken to avoid occasion of real offence. “Copy” for the _Register_ is to be carefully scanned, and communications from sympathizing correspondents are to be softened in their tone, before committal to the printer. Some of these latter are far too plain-spoken. An awakened public opinion, too liable to rush to extremes, must be kept within proper limits, as regards its expression. There is no disposition to go to jail for the sake of brilliant periods and caustic paragraphs. The “villains” could be lashed vigorously enough without any need of departing from facts. Questions of libel were by no means infrequent, during these years. And, with Lord Ellenborough’s severe opinions on that topic, there was plenty of reason to fear any conflict with authority. An action brought by an offended author against Messrs. Hood and Sharpe, in July 1808, for a skit upon a certain book of travels, brought Mr. Cobbett forward, in several letters upon the subject of libel law; in which he pointed out very clearly, that principles had retrograded since the days of Pope and Swift, who certainly had no idea that to write and publish truth was any crime:-- “The whole tenor of their works proves, that, so long as they confined themselves to the stating of what was _true_, they entertained no apprehensions as to the consequences.… They were afraid of no constructive libels; nor, if they chose to express their disapprobation of the conduct of kings and princes, did they fear the accusation of _disloyalty_. And what would they have said, had they been told that, in their country, it would become a crime to wound men’s feelings by holding them up to ridicule? Ridicule is a thing that will not attach _where it ought not_,” &c., &c. His own idea (which, however, he did not always put into practice) was to live it down; and, as for calumny, he had advised Mr. Paull, and he had so advised others, to let falsehood come to the inevitable over-reaching of itself. As for caricatures,-- “Caricatures are things to laugh at. They break no bones. I, for instance, have been represented as a bulldog, as a porcupine, as a wolf, as a sans-culotte, as a nightman, as a bear, as a kite, as a cur; and, in America, as hanging upon a gallows. Yet, here I am, just as sound as if no misrepresentation of me had ever been made.” This was no idle boast. The Anti-Cobbett squibs and caricatures were a standing source of amusement, even with the little boys and girls, at Botley house. The articles, above alluded to, had produced a fresh crop. He writes to Mr. Wright upon “our friends the satirists:”--