The Bee, New-London, December 25, 1799

Volume III, Number 123, of Charles Holt's New-London Bee, carrying the Philadelphia report of December 16 on the trial of Rush v. Cobbett in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania: the counsel on both sides, Chief Justice Shippen's charge on the law of libel and the liberty of the press, the jury's verdict of five thousand dollars after two hours, the applause in the courtroom, and the court's refusal on the seventeenth to grant Cobbett a rule for a new trial. The same issue carries the first news of the death of George Washington.

From Catalog I

The news as it travelled: 'Philadelphia, December 16. On Saturday ended the trial of Dr. Benjamin Rush against William Cobbet, on an action for slander … The jury, after an absence of two hours, brought in a verdict in favor of the plaintiff, of five thousand dollars.' With the report of the seventeenth that the court refused even to hear Cobbett's motion for a new trial 'on the ground of excessive damages,' and the editor's moral — that the verdict offered citizens a way to defend their character 'instead of resorting to brutal violence, or to the disproportioned injury and violence of murder by duelling.' The same issue carries the first news of Washington's death.