[In following essay, originally published in 1798, Cobbett criticizes Bache for what he argues were deceptive actions surrounding Bache's publication of a letter from Talleyrand, the foreign affairs minister of France.]

On Saturday, the 16th inst. Bache (the grandson of Old Franklin) published a Letter from Talleyrand, the French minister for Foreign affairs, to the American Envoys at Paris. This letter was evidently calculated, not for the perusal of the Envoys, but for that of the people of America. Its object is to persuade them, that France always has been, and yet is, friendly to them; and that all the calamitles they have suffered, as well as the war, which they have been driven into, are to be ascribed solely to their own government. How this at once fawning, insolent, and malicious letter got into the hands of Bache the following certificate will prove.

“At Paris, on the 19th or 20th of March last, or soon after at Bordeaux, Mr. LEE, the gentleman who brought dispatches to government, desired me to take charge of a number of letters addressed to different persons in America, among others, one to Benj. F. Bache, another to Genet of Long Island. Their size and the seal of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, attracted my notice. I asked Mr. Lee what they contained; he told me he believed a pamphlet written by a young man in Talleyrand's office. Being almost an entire stranger to the political relations of my country with France, I delivered the letters at the Post-Office without suspecting their contents. After the publication of an important State Paper by the Printer to whom the letter was addressed, it immediately occurred to me that I must have been innocently the bearer of the papers alluded to. I hasten to communicate to the public this fact, that they may judge whether or not the French have their secret agents in this country.

JOHN KIDDER.

June 18, 1798.

Now observe well, that these dispatches for Bache were sent off from Paris the moment Talleyrand's letter was delivered to our envoys there. Talleyrand knew that the envoys would not send it here, 'till they could send their answer along with it, and as this must inevitably take some time, it was hoped that the insidious letter of Talleyrand would go forth alone to the people of America, and produce all the effects expected from it, before the answer could arrive. Providence, however, which we ought to believe still watches over us, ordered it otherwise. The Envoy's answer, though not finished till the 3d of April arrived in a vessel at Cape Ann on the 8th of June, and was received at the secretary of state's office on the 14th, just three days after Mr. Kidder, (in another vessel) arrived at Philadelphia, and deposited Bache's dispatches in the post-office.

All the dispatches had to be translated or decyphered, and consequently Bache was able to get his out first; but, learning that those of the government were about to appear, and knowing that this would counteract his poison, he then accused the government of having had an intention to keep the dispatches a secret, in order to blind the people, and betray them into a war!

This Americans, is the most awful warning you ever had. It is here proved, that the man, who, for six long years, has been incessantly employed in accusing and villifying your government, and in justifying the French in all their abominable injuries and insults, is absolutely in close correspondence with the insolent and savage despots by whom those injuries and insults have been committed, and who now demand of you an enormous Tribute or threaten you, in case of disobedience, with the fate of Venice; that is, first with subjugation, and then with being swapped away like cattle, to that prince or state, who will give them the most in exchange for you!