XL. CHAPTER Saults, which had, of late, begun to fall thick and heavy upon all the principal supporters of Washington's policy, 1797. the Federalists were by no means passive. The principal writers on the side of the opposition were recent immigrants from abroad, of whom there were several besides Callender. But the Federalists were not without assistance from the same quarter. In the afterward so celebrated William Cobbett they had found a formidable champion. After an eight years' tour of duty in the British army, commencing just at the close of the American war, and passed principally in New Brunswick, during which he had risen from the ranks to be sergeant major of his regiment, and had improved his leisure to acquire a familiar knowledge of the French and a complete mastery of the English tongue, together with no inconsiderable stock of general information, Cobbett had emigrated to America in 1792. Of ardent feelings and most determined spirit, he had, as is not uncommonly the case with young men of that character, a traditionary reverence for the institutions of his native country-a reverence proportioned, as he himself confessed at a later day, and as such feelings are very apt to be, to his ignorance of what those institutions practically were. His patriotism and his hatred of the French, which he had imbibed in the army, were inflamed instead of being cowed by the detestation of England and partiality for France which he found so prevalent in America; and under the influence of those feelings, he wrote and published, in 1794, a bitter satirical pamphlet on Priestley's emigration to America, and the demonstrations with which he had been. welcomed at New York and Philadelphia. This pamphlet was favorably received by the Federalists, and was followed up by several others, principally relating to the British treaty, and published under the name of Peter XI. Porcupine, in which some very sharp thrusts were made CHAPTER at the Democratic opposition. Such, in fact, was the success of those writings, that Cobbett resolved to adopt 1797. that profession of a popular political writer, for which Nature had specially designed him. Having first set up a shop at Philadelphia for the publication and sale of his own writings for he complained of having been a good deal fleeced by the printers and publishers for whom he had hitherto written he commenced, simultaneously with Adams's administration, the publication of a daily paper called Porcupine's Gazette, being the eighth daily paper then published in Philadelphia (a greater number than at present), and in which he handled the opposition with very little mercy. His pointed wit, cutting sarcasm, and free command of the plainest and most downright English, made him, indeed, a formidable adversary. But the ultra and uncompromising Toryism in which he gloried, and the entire freedom which he claimed and exercised in expressing his opinions, rendered him not less dangerous to the party he had espoused than to that which he opposed. Though publishing an American paper professedly in support of the administration, he did not profess to be any the less a Briton in his allegiance and his heart, and he came into collisions hardly more violent with Bache's Aurora than with the Minerva, the leading Federalist paper of New York, edited by Noah Webster, the afterward celebrated lexicographer. It was vainly attempted to silence him by threats of violence; he grew daily more formidable; to Monroe he showed no mercy; and perhaps it was the sting of some of his sharp squibs that had stimulated to the recent attack upon Hamilton. That attack was presently followed up by a very remarkable experiment on Washington, with abuse of whom CHAPTER and of his administration, to which the Aurora and oth XL er more violent opposition prints clamorously responded, 1797. Callender's book had been filled. For the purpose, apparently, of ascertaining the effect of these attacks upon Washington's mind, and of drawing from him something of which advantage might be taken, a letter was addressSept. 23. ed to him, dated Warren, Albemarle county, and signed John Langhorne, condoling with him on the aspersions on his character, but suggesting that he ought not to allow them to disturb his peace. Without any suspicion that his correspondent was a fictitious person, but supposing him, as he afterward expressed it, to be "a pedant desirous of displaying the flowers of his pen," WashingOct. 15. ton, with his accustomed courtesy, made a short reply, declaring that on public account he felt as much as any man the calumnies leveled at the government and its supporters, but that as to himself personally he had à consolation within which protected him against the venom of these darts, and which, in spite of their utmost malignity, kept his mind perfectly tranquil. It having accidentally become known to John Nicholas, who lived in that vicinity, that there was a letter in the Charlottesville post-office, directed, in Washington's handwriting, to John Langhorne, a name unknown in the county, and his suspicions having been excited by other facts that had come to his knowledge, as it would seem, through his political intimacy with Jefferson, he took measures to learn what became of the letter, and ascertained that it was taken from the office by a political opponent of the administration, it would seem by a messenger from Monticello. Nicholas was a very zealous member of the opposition; but, whether instigated by regard for Washington, by personal dislike and distrust of Jefferson, or by a Nov. 18. mixture of motives, he presently wrote, warning Wash XI. ington against what had the appearance of a snare. CHAPTER Washington thereupon sent him a copy of the Langhorne letter and of his answer to it; and, some months after, 1798. Nicholas communicated, as Washington had requested, Feb. 22. the result of his investigations. That letter of Nicholas has never yet been published, but its tenor may be judged of from Washington's reply. "Nothing short of the evidence you have adduced," so Washington wrote, "cor- March 8. roborative of intimations which I had received long before through another channel, could have shaken my belief in the sincerity of a friendship which I had conceived was possessed for me by the person"-this person was Jefferson-" to whom you allude. But attempts to injure those who are supposed to stand well in the estimation of the people, and are stumbling blocks in the way, by misrepresenting their political tenets, thereby to destroy all confidence in them, are among the means by which the government is to be assailed and the Constitution destroyed. The conduct of this party is systematized, and every thing that is opposed to its execution will be sacrificed without hesitation or remorse, if the end can be answered by it. "If the person whom you suspect was really the author of the letter under the signature of John Langhorne, it is not at all surprising to me that the correspondence should have ended where it did, for the penetration of that man would have perceived by the first glance at the answer that nothing was to be drawn from that mode of attack. In what form the next insidious attempts may appear, remains to be discovered. But as the attempts to explain away the Constitution and weaken the gov ernment are now become so open, and the desire of placing the affairs of this country under the influence and control of a foreign nation is so apparent and strong, it CHAPTER is hardly to be expected that a resort to covert means to effect these objects will be longer regarded." XI. 1798. It would seem from a correspondence between Washington and his nephew Bushrod, presently a judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, that Nicholas was desirous of bringing before the public the circumstances respecting this Langhorne letter, and had consulted with the nephew for that purpose. Washington left the matter entirely to their discretion, observing that if the letter could be indubitably proved a forgery, "no doubt would remain in the mind of any one that it was written with a view to effect some nefarious purpose;" and that if the person whom Nicholas suspected was the real author or abettor, "it would be a pity not to expose him to public execration for attempting in so dishonorable a way to obtain a disclosure of sentiments of which some advantage could be taken. But," he added, "Mr. Nicholas will unquestionably know that if the proofs fail the matter will recoil, and that the statement must be a full and not a partial one that is given to the public; not only as the most satisfactory mode of bringing it before that tribunal, but the shortest in the result, for he will have a persevering phalanx to contend against." It would be necessary, also, for Nicholas, so Washington suggested, to disclose his own motives in the business, and to run the risk of being himself accused of having got up a plot. It would seem that Nicholas, who still preserved his political standing with his party, hesitated to encounter so great a risk. The whole affair remained buried in obscurity till brought to light by the recent publication of Washington's writings, and it was in ignorance that his double dealing, if not worse, had been fully exposed to Washington by one of his own warmest political partisans, that Jefferson, in his old age, wrote |