animated also by a (p. 184)
new-born zeal for his literary fame. He was told he was his own greatest
enemy. He was doing himself irreparable injury by the course he was
taking. He was so acting as to lose the reputation he had early won.
This feeling naturally increased in intensity as suits continued to be
decided in his favor. The newspapers at last rose to the full
appreciation of the situation. The liberty of the press was actually in
danger. The trials were said to be conducted in defiance of law as well
as justice. The judges belonged to the Democratic party, and they
wrested the statutes from their true intent in order to oppress the Whig
editor. There came finally to be something exquisitely absurd in the
utterances of the journals on the subject of these suits. One would
fancy from reading them that the plaintiff was a monster resembling the
bloodthirsty ogre of a fairy tale, bullying judges, overawing juries,
maliciously bent on crushing the free-born American who should have the
temerity to express an unfavorable opinion of his writings. Coriolanus,
indeed, never fluttered the dove-cotes in Corioli more effectively than
for some years Cooper did the Whig newspaper offices of the state of New
York.

The origin of the suits was as follows: An account of the circumstances
connected with the Three Mile Point controversy appeared, immediately
after they had taken place, in the "Norwich Telegraph," a paper
published in the neighboring county of Chenango. The article began with
a reference to Cooper. "This gentleman," it said, "not satisfied with
having drawn upon his head universal contempt from abroad, has done the
same thing at Cooperstown where he resides." In this spirit it (p. 185)
went on to give its report of the events told in the preceding chapter.
"So stands the matter at present," it closed its account, "Mr. J. F. C.
threatening the citizens on the one hand, and being derided and despised
by them on the other." In conclusion it called upon the "Otsego
Republican," the Whig newspaper of Cooperstown, to furnish all the facts
in the case.

The latter journal was edited by a man named Barber. He was not slow to
comply with the request, and in one of the numbers of August, 1837, he
republished the article of the "Chenango Telegraph" with additional
assertions of his own. The latter belonged more to the realm of fiction
than of fact. Three Mile Point he declared had been reserved expressly
for t