PORCUPINE'S GAZETTE, Philadelphia, June 17, 1797  

* Rare 18th century American publication

This was William Cobbett's important and controversial--but short-lived--daily newspaper.
Cobbett was a prolific & controversial publisher who often wrote under the pen-name of "Peter Porcupine." He was famous for sniping at his political opponents, usually those of a Jeffersonian-Republican sentiment. The first issue appeared on March 4, 1797 and the newspaper lasted but 770 issues.
Four pages, never-trimmed margins, nice condition.

Background: The June 17, 1797 issue of William Cobbett's Porcupine’s Gazette serves as a pristine, untrimmed window into the venomous hyper-partisanship that defined early American democracy during the Adams administration. Published in Philadelphia—the nation's temporary capital—under Cobbett's famously combative pen name "Peter Porcupine," this specific edition captured a critical inflection point in United States history as the country drifted into the Quasi-War with France following French attacks on American shipping. Cobbett, a fiercely pro-British and staunchly Federalist editor, used the four-page daily as a political weapon to relentlessly attack Thomas Jefferson's pro-French Democratic-Republican faction, notably highlighting major local developments such as the address of the Governor of Massachusetts regarding his recent election. The historical significance of this well-preserved artifact lies not only in its raw, first-hand account of deep geopolitical anxiety and domestic political warfare, but also in its representation of the short-lived, volatile nature of early American media, which eventually collapsed after just 770 issues when Cobbett was bankrupted by a landmark libel lawsuit.