In June 1798 Benjamin Franklin Bache, the grandson of Benjamin Franklin and publisher of the Republican newspaper Aurora, published a conciliatory letter from Charles de Talleyrand, the French foreign minister, to American peace envoys before President Adams had seen the letter. Republicans defended Bache for educating the public about the French desire for peace, but William Cobbett, publisher of the Federalist Porcupine's Gazette, condemned Bache as a traitor: It is here proved, that the man, who for six long years, has been incessantly employed in accusing and villifying your government, and in justifying the French in all their abominable injuries and insults, is absolutely in close correspondence with the insolent and savage despots by whom those injuries and insults have been committed, and who now demand of you an enormous TRIBUTE or. threaten you, in case of disobedience, with the fate of...