The Bee, 25 December 1799: the verdict

The same paper, twenty-six months later, reporting from Philadelphia on 16 December: "On Saturday ended the trial of Dr. Benjamin Rush against William Cobbett, on an action for slander, in the supreme court of the state of Pennsylvania." It names the counsel on both sides, Joseph Hopkinson, Moses Levy, William Lewis and Jared Ingersoll for Rush, and Rawle, Robert Goodloe Harper and Edward Tilghman for Cobbett.

Chief Justice Shippen's charge to the jury, the report says, was elegant, sensible and pointed upon the doctrine of libels and the liberty of the press, and concluded with a bold and decided opinion that the damages in this case should be liberal and exemplary. The jury was absent two hours and brought in a verdict for the plaintiff of five thousand dollars, upon which the crowded courtroom, in a manner unprecedented in the courts of the city, broke into applause.

The editor adds his own verdict, that character is the precious and inestimable property of a free government, and that men should be encouraged to seek the law for the defence of their innocence rather than resort to brutal violence, to disproportioned injury, or to the violence of murder by duelling. On the seventeenth, the paper reports, Cobbett's counsel moved for a new trial on the ground of excessive damages, and the court refused the rule.

Charles Holt printed The Bee at New London and was himself prosecuted for sedition the following year.

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