The  first  political  meeting  which  he  ever  attended  was  one  held
in  the  State-House  Yard,  in  Philadelphia,  in  1807,  on  the  occasion
of  the  attack  by  the  British  on  our  frigate  Chesapeake.  He  had,
up  to  this  time,  been  known  only  as  an  ambitious  and  extremely
studious  young  member  of  the  Bar.  He  made  an  animated  and
vigorous  speech  on  the  subject  of  the  wrongs  we  had  received  from
England  generally,  and  of  this  last  outrage  in  particular.  It  was
received  with  the  warmest  applause,  and  introduced  him  most
favorably  to  the  Republican  party.  Hitherto  known  but  little  as
a  public  speaker,  he  was  now  looked  upon  as  destined  to  eminence
in  this  field.  The  year  following  brought  him  for  the  first  time
into  professional  notice.  In  1808,  in  a  speech  that  occupied  the
principal  part  of  the  day,  he  defended  the  editor  of  "  The  Aurora,"
Colonel  Duane,  who  was  prosecuted  by  the  commonwealth  for  a


*  During  the  black  cockade  days,  Cobbett,  then  the  great  leader  of  the  Federal  press  in
the  United  States,  under  the  name  of  "  Peter  Porcupine,"  put  Dr.  Rush  on  his  prescriptive
list  with  Mr.  Jefferson,  avowedly  on  the  ground  of  his  Republican  principles.  The  latter  he
aised  to  call  "  Tom  the  Devil ;"  the  former  he  alternately  ridiculed  as  a  quack,  and  denounced
as  a  murderer.  Such  was  the  treatment  that  our  most  illustrious  citizens  received  at  the
hands  of  this  British  renegado  and  Federal  favorite  in  the  days  of  Federal  supremacy.  Dr.
Rash  in  a  beautiful  eulogium  pronounced  on  Mr.  Rittenhouse,  had  expatiated  on  his  Repub-
lican principles;  which,  when  Cobbett  read,  he  exclaimed,  "I'll  mark  him  for  that,"  and
the  venotn  of  his  press  was  accordingly  poured  without  measure  upon  him.
