Their rise [as a Federalist militia, the Macpherson’s Blues] was at a season of alarm and political ferment … [A]n advertisement calling upon the YOUTH of Philadelphia to meet at a public tavern … was couched in singular form, for the youth were explained to comprehend those between 16 and 23 years of age … [E]ffects not to be then foreseen arose from the example set by Philadelphia, for all the continent was taught, and the eulogy bestowed by the president on these youths of 23 gave our nether world a high opinion of this queer begotten association, and the example was followed as we have seen …
Never was l’esprit de corps more strongly manifested than in the first months of its institution by this body … [M]en of sound republican principles but weak minds were seen enrolling themselves in ranks under the apprehension of their growing power and the consequent danger; and men … were seen disgracing the memories of their fathers and the independence of their country by the elevation of the black British cockade!…
This corps, sanctioned by the President … gave a species of law to the public of this city.—Weak men feared them … The theatre—the public streets—and even the domestic sanctuary was infested with their folly or their violence …
WILLIAM DUANE. EDITOR,
AURORA GENERAL ADVERTISER, 1798–1822302
A great riot happened … and hints thrown out of a design to fire the city; the light-horse were out all night, and the militia and private citizens were on guard, patrolling also, but it was passed in quiet, but we are still suspicious that the evil spirit is not wholly at rest, only lulled asleep. “Young Lightning Rod” had his house guarded by armed men, within and without, being fearful of having it pulled down. I think I never saw so many people at one time in my life as on that evening. What a world we live in, and what tumultuous times!
MARGARET MORRIS OF PHILADELPHIA, MAY 11, 1798303
FRIDAY, APRIL 27, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
For some days past, the Anglo Monarchical Tory party have appeared at the [New] Theatre in full triumph—and the President’s March and other aristocratical tunes have been … vehemently applauded.—
A few evenings ago, a drunken-Bravo with some valiant associates called upon the Democrats to [dare] hold up their hands, but he and his comrades were soon silenced by the spirited conduct of ONE gentleman in the Boxes, when they prudently retired. On Wednesday evening, however, the admirers of British tyranny again assembled in consequence of the managers having announced in the bills of the day that there would be given a Patriotic song to the tune of the President’s March. All the British merchants, British agents, and many of our congress tories attended to do honor to the occasion. When the wished-for song came—which contained, amidst the most ridiculous bombast, the vilest adulation to the Anglo Monarchical Party and the two Presidents, the extacy of the party knew no bounds; they encored, they shouted, they became
Mad as the Priests of the Delphic God,
And in the fury of their exultation threatened to throw over or otherwise ill treat every person who did not join heartily in the applause.
The rapture of the moment was as great as if … John Adams had been proclaimed king of America, and the loyalty was so impressive that even the excellent Lady of his Excellency (who was present) shed tears of sensibility and delight.
For what reason the managers presume to offend a great body of the citizens of Philadelphia by devoting their theatre to party purposes we are at a loss to determine; or why the orchestra who had so readily gratified one party, should refuse to play Ca Ira when repeatedly called for, unless the managers wish to drive from the Theatre every friend to plain republican principles and depend alone upon the tories for support … The Republican party would do well therefore to absent themselves from the Theatre, unless they wish to have their noses pulled by the Tories and it is even possible their ears will be offended … If however any should be rash enough to enter that Temple of Aristocracy called the New Theatre, let them at least go in a party sufficiently strong to protect themselves from outrage, from insult, and degradation.
The aspect of affairs in America is … mysterious and alarming … [I]t would be ludicrous to suppose that the querulous and cankered murmurs of blind, bald, crippled, toothless Adams … can have any other effect than to afford additional and experimental proof of the folly of trusting such men with power.
Later today, the President’s Lady, Abigail Adams, writes her sister:
I inclose to you a National Song composed by this same Mr. Hopkinson. French tunes have for a long time usurped an uncontrould sway. Since the Change in the publick opinion respecting France, the people begin to lose their relish for them, and what had been harmony now becomes discord. Accordingly their had been for several Evenings at the Theatre something like disorder, one party crying out for the Presidents March and Yankee Doodle, while Ciera [“Ça Ira”] was vociferated from the other. It was hisst off repeatedly. The managers were blamed. Their excuse was that they had not any words for the Presidents March—Mr. Hopkinson accordingly composed these to the tune. Last Eve’ng they were sung for the first time …
Bache says this morning among other impudence that the excellent Lady of the Excellent President was present and shed Tears of sensibility upon the occasion. That was a lie. However I should not have been ashamed if it had been so. I laughed at one scene which was playd [to] be sure, untill the tears ran down, I believe. But the song, by the manner in which it is received, is death to their Party. The House was really crowded and by the most respectable people in the city.304
War measures … Today, John Adams approves and signs into law:
AN ACT
To provide an additional armament for the further protection of the trade of the United States, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted, &c. That the President of the United States shall be, and is hereby, authorized and empowered to cause to be built, purchased or hired a number of vessels, not exceeding twelve, not carrying more than twenty-two guns each, to be armed, fitted out, and manned under his direction.”305
President Adams also approves and signs into law,
AN ACT
To provide an additional regiment of
artillerists and Engineers.
Be it enacted, &c., That an additional regiment of artillerists and engineers shall and may be engaged by voluntary enlistments [and] … shall be considered as part of the Military Establishment of the United States …306
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
EXTRACT OF LYING
“Firm—united—let us be,” &c.
Bache, finding this sentiment of union and patriotism spreading rapidly throughout the United States … attacks it with wickedness and virulence wherever he finds it. The song, sung with the enthusiastic applause of every American at the Theatre on Wednesday last, has excited his keenest resentment and called for an exertion of his Lying faculty … The song is now before the public, and they will see there is not throughout a single allusion to any party or any party principle or question … But the two Presidents are spoken of with respect, and this offends the delicacy of Bache. And if I shall ever see the day when my countrymen shall forget the services of a WASHINGTON or an ADAMS … I shall see the day when American virtue and gratitude are buried and extinct …
AN AMERICAN
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
BACHE is said to be—not at home; so that it is probable that everything … ought to be attributed immediately to CALLENDER, a wretch who boasted of having fled hither to escape the hands of justice … a runaway and incendiary, a vagabond, and a pauper.
SATURDAY, APRIL 28, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
SUMMER CIRCUS
Corner of Market and Thirteenth street.
WILL open on TUESDAY next, the FIRST of MAY—The details of the Performance of the Evening, which are very ENTERTAINING, will be given in a New Advertisement.
Today, another anonymous letter warns President Adams that his Fast Day will be a day of murder and mayhem:
Much respected Sir,
To warn a worthy people of impending danger is surely laudable. Permit me therefore to warn you against the Ninth of May. Be prepared, be courageous, for you will then stand in need of all your fortitude to repel the insidious attacks of domestic enemies. There is a vile plot laid. The prime movers of it are Frenchmen. They imagine themselves secure in their villainy, and thus will (on that day which is fixed on for fasting & prayer) perpetrate such [deeds] as all good men will shudder at. They will [murder] man, woman & Child, set fire to all your [offices] &c. &c. unless timely steps are taken to prevent it. Do not sleep in fearless security. The hour of danger is near …
A Friend to America & Truth307
Poor Richard wrote,
Happy that nation, fortunate that age,
whose history is not diverting.308
This is not that nation. This is not that age.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
Although Bache called his myrmidons to arms and requested the republican party (as he called it) to go to the Theatre in a strong body for the purpose of exciting riot and tumult, yet the PATRIOTIC SONG was received last evening with more enthusiastic applause than before. It was again encored and sung four times, and called for oftener …
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
THE THEATRE was very full last night … [W]hat gave life to everything was the SONG … At every repetition it was received with additional enthusiasm, till towards the last, [the] great part of the audience, pit, box, and gallery, actually joined in the chorus.—It was very pleasing to observe that the last stanza received particular marks of approbation. Every one was closed with long and loud clapping and huzzas, but no sooner were the words,
“BEHOLD THE CHIEF WHO NOW COMMANDS”
pronounced than the house shook to its very center; the song and the whole were drowned in the enthusiastic peals of applause, and were obliged to stop and begin again and again in order to gain a hearing.
Today, Abigail Adams delights in the public response:
[W]herever I past, I received a marked notice of Bows … & the Friends [Quakers] in the Street in their way noticed me. I thought nothing of it untill my attention was caught by a Bunch of Tradesmen, they lookt like, who at the corners of the Street saluted me as I past with their Hats—
In short, we are now wonderfully popular except with Bache & Co who in his paper calls the President old, querilous, Bald, blind, cripled, Toothless Adams. Thus in scripture was the Prophet mocked, and tho no Bears may devour the wretch, the wrath of an insulted people will by & by break upon him.309
Tonight, in Philadelphia’s Southwark district, Samuel Relf (who is recruiting for the private Federalist militia, the Macpherson’s Blues) presides over a boisterous meeting of “Young Men” at James Cameron’s Tavern on Shippen-street. The meeting chooses a committee to draft an address to the President and agrees to reconvene on Monday to approve the address. Before adjourning, all sing Joseph Hopkinson’s new song, “Hail Columbia.”310
MONDAY, APRIL 30, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Some days ago, it was noticed in the Aurora that the friends of order in this city were beginning to threaten the disorganizers, that is to say, such people as do not wish to get into war in defence of two presidential speeches, with a trial of your own guillotine. We expected to see this menace denied in the anglo presidential gazette of Chestnut street [the Gazette of the United States]. Instead of that, how great was our surprize to see the threatening repeated …
Mr. Fenno, in some late numbers, has reproached Callender as the author of several pieces printed in the Aurora which the latter had never seen or heard of … [N]othing shall be said but simply that he knew nothing about them; that he writes but little for the Aurora, and that he neither has nor ever had any concern whatever in the editorship of the paper.
Jimmy Callender can’t write for the Aurora unless Benny pays him more. The issue is distancing them, and Benny wants me to give up my paltry salary to keep Jimmy on the payroll.311
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
CALLENDER TURN’D OFF
Bache begins to be ashamed or rather tired of his scald-headed associate—In the Aurora of this morning, we find Callender disavowed as a contributor to the elegancies of that repository or as having any participation in its editorship—It is possible that the scald-headed Pauper has been asking for some of those broken victuals which his employer is not so well able to spare as when his employers were on the spot.
Tonight, at seven o’clock, almost a thousand “Young Men of Philadelphia” cram into James Cameron’s Tavern in Southwark to approve, paragraph by paragraph and by acclamation, an address to be presented next Monday to the President of the United States.312
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
THE THEATRE is tomorrow Evening to be honored with the company of THE PRESIDENT and his LADY, and also of the OFFICERS OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.
TUESDAY, MAY 1, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
It is difficult to give a distinct account of the proceedings of the meeting held [at Cameron’s] on Saturday evening by the half-fledged friends of order… [F]rom beginning to end, the whole (according to a correspondent) exhibited a scene of puerile hurly-burly confusion … The young gentlemen wished to do something, but they could not express what … The laws require the full age of 21 before a citizen shall have the right of voting; is it not absurd that young men under that age should attempt to instruct representatives on their own …
Certain unknown incendiaries intend to set fire to this city on the ninth of May, and in order to facilitate the execution of this infernal design, they thought fit to inform his excellency the President Adams by three successive letters of the exact day and time they intend to attempt it … These incendiaries, it would appear, express great confidence in the President, and if the scheme for setting fire is not a mere silly fiction, they must have looked upon him as a faithful accomplice in setting not only the city but the whole country on fire.
We are requested to say the President attends the Theatre this evening.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
Bache’s account of the meeting [of Philadelphia’s “Young Men”] at Cameron’s is totally false … This contemptible foreign tool goes on to say that young men between eighteen and twenty-one are not entitled to the rights of citizens and that therefore it is improper in them to give instructions to the government …
The young men between the age of eighteen and twenty-one are liable to be called into actual service; there can be no impropriety in declaring their determination not to shrink from the task in the eyes of any other than an infamous miscreant who wishes the destruction of his country in order that France may rise on the ruins of its greatness.
ONE OF THE MEETING
THE YOUNG MEN
of this city and suburbs … will not feel themselves debased or suffer their ardor to be abated by the low abuse and affected contempt of such a thing as Bache. This poor creature whose register of infamy and falsehood is rapidly sinking to its dissolution: who is himself as deep in ruin as he is in dishonor, and will shortly exhibit an awful picture of the contempt and misery into which that man must fall who devotes himself to the interests of a foreign country, to the destruction of his own; whose disgrace and sufferings will furnish a memento of the indignation which Americans feel against those who dare to vilify their country, and express a wish to prostrate her at the feet of foreign insolence, ought not to excite any resentment even in the ardent breasts of youthful patriots—Let them pursue their course of honor and independence and pass this harmless, hissing snake in contempt.
Nothing can display, in a more strong or pleasing view, the spirit of national honor … than the associations of young men similar to that now set on foot. I am informed that between three and four hundred attended the first meeting … There are few young traitors; ones that have spent their early years in France [like Benjamin Franklin Bache]; and been reared and educated under examples of cunning prudence; and in the maxims of hypocrisy and the wisdom of fair appearances.
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
Mr. B. F. BACHE. As a member of the meeting held at Cameron’s on Saturday evening last, I thank you for the colouring you have attempted to give their proceedings; you could not have imagined a panegyric more pleasing to the feelings of the youth of Philadelphia … Holding you as the tool of a disorganizing faction and as a full fledged scoundrel, they consider [that] your countenance to their measures would disgrace them …
A Member of the Committee.
Bache must soon wind up his business here, and he will doubtless take his flight to France, that land of liberty and equality, which he is so well fitted to become a subject of … [Bache] is poor, very poor; has not the money he has advanced and the protested notes which are unpaid place him in critical circumstances? Does he not owe his papermakers, his journeymen, &c. &c. &c.? and as for Callender, his demi-devil … to keep his family from starving …, I would here recommend to the smoaky wig’d pauper to accept of Bache’s valuable copy rights in part pay …
The raucous Federalist dinners and recruitment of young men into the Macpherson’s Blues have disquieted Republicans.313 Tonight, Republicans hold their own dinner in the Northern Liberties district of Philadelphia.314
Tonight, the President of the United States and entourage attend Philadelphia’s New Theatre to hear the patriotic song “Hail Columbia.” Porcupine’s Gazette reports:
THE PRESIDENT, accompanied by his LADY and the OFFICERS OF THE GOVERNMENT, honoured the theater with his Presence. The reception he met with cannot be so well described as by saying that it was such as he merits and has a right to expect from a grateful people. The moment he entered the box, the whole audience rose and expressed their affection for him in enthusiastic acclamations that did honour to their hearts. Mr. HOPKINSON’s song was repeatedly sung, the last stanza was every time encored, and the audience, men and women, joined aloud in the chorus …315
President Adams will now appoint Joseph Hopkinson to a federal position.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 2, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
A citizen, being asked whether he would keep the 9th of May as a day of fasting, answered dryly: “I am not of the opinion that in Adams’ fall, we sinned all.”
Today, President Adams answers an address from the citizens of Baltimore, Maryland:
[D]ivisions are generally harmless, often salutary, and seldom very hurtful, except when foreign nations interfere and by their arts and agents excite and ferment them into parties and factions … Such interference and influence must be resisted and exterminated, or it will end in America, as it did anciently in Greece and in our own time in Europe, in our total destruction as a republican government and independent power.316
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
THE PROCEEDINGS OF
The Young Men of Philadelphia.
At a general meeting of the young men of Philadelphia, of the District of Southwark and the Northern Liberties, convened by public notice at the house of Mr. Cameron, Shippen-street, … the following resolutions were proposed and unanimously adopted, viz …
2d … [W]e cheerfully pledge ourselves to obey with alacrity the first summons of our country in resisting the invasion of a foreign enemy …
Samuel Relph, Chairman
(Let BACHE and his French clan growl at this. I can very well excuse the wretches; for if anything can convince them of the ruin of their cause, it is the generous enthusiasm that has here made its appearance. The pledge of the young men of the capital of the Union to fly, on the first summons, to the defence of this country is not a vain and empty boast …)
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
THE MANAGERS of the Theatre deserve much credit for the honourable and splendid manner in which they received the President last evening … [N]o man who was not there can have an idea of the loud bursting enthusiasm, the heartfelt rapture with which they received their respected President, and the constant shouts and huzzahs which rang through the house in honour of him through the whole evening. The National Songs met with unbounded applause. “Firm—united—let us be” was the universal sentiment; and this chorus was joined in by the audience with general enthusiasm and great effect. If I hated Bache and some others even more than they hate the country and government, I could not wish them a greater punishment than to have obliged them to be at the Theatre last evening and to have witnessed the joyful return of American feelings … In the course of the night … a great number of gentlemen, accompanied with a Band of Music, serenaded the President and the Heads of the Departments and the author of the Song, with the new Song “HAIL COLUMBIA! happy land.” The spirit of America is aroused—Let its enemies beware …317
To the Citizens of Newark, in the State of New-Jersey,
GENTLEMEN … I know of no further measures that can be pursued to produce an amicable adjustment of differences with the French Republic. THE delusions and misrepresentations which have misled so many citizens are very serious evils and must be discountenanced by authority as well as by citizens at large, or they will soon produce all kinds of calamities in this country …
JOHN ADAMS
The Youth of Philadelphia and Liberties are informed that a copy of the address to the President is deposited at the Library, to which, between the hours of two and six P.M., they may place their signatures if they think proper—Also at the City Tavern.
THURSDAY, MAY 3, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
On Saturday, the 21st instant, “near a hundred staunch federalists” (to use their own words) “assembled at James Cameron’s tavern, in the district of Southwark …” [I]t appeared a perfect scene of riot and confusion. These hundred staunch federalists drank no less than thirty-two staunch toasts to each of which they gave exactly 9 cheers … [T]hese hundred staunch federalists roared like a hundred bulls …
Today, Thomas Jefferson notes in his journal:
The Presid[en]t has … app[ointe]d Joseph Hopkinson Comm[issione]r to make a treaty with the Oneida Ind[ia]ns. He is a youth of about 22 or 23 and has no other merit than extreme toryism & having made a poor song to the tune of the President’s March.318
Today, Thomas Jefferson writes James Madison:
These [towns] and N[ew] Jersey are pouring in their addresses, offering life & fortune. Even these addresses are not the worst things … Whatever chance for peace … is compleatly lost by these answers [of John Adams].
Nor is it France alone but his own fellow citizens against whom his threats are uttered. In Fenno of yesterday, you will see one wherein he says to the address from Newark, “The delusions and misrepresentations which have misled so many citizens must be discountenanced by authority as well as by the citizens at large.” … What new law they will propose on this subject has not yet leaked out …
The threatening appearances from the Alien bills have so alarmed the French who are among us that they are going off. A ship, chartered by themselves for this purpose, will sail within about a fortnight for France, with as many as she can carry …
Perhaps the Pr.[esident]’s expression before quoted may look to the Sedition bill which has been spoken of and which may be meant to put the Printing presses under the Imprimatur of the executive. Bache is thought a main object of it.319
Republicans are afraid. Tonight, there is a meeting of Republicans at John Shnyder’s at the sign of Robinhood.320
Today, in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Annals of Congress report:
NATURALIZATION LAW.
Mr. ALLEN [Federalist, Connecticut] … [T]here are citizens of several other countries who … have dispositions equally hostile to this country as the French … Mr. A. alluded to the vast number of naturalizations which lately took place in this city to support a particular party [the Republican party] in a particular election. It did not appear to him necessary to have the exercise of this power [to expel aliens] depend on any contingency, such as a threatening of invasion, or war, before it could be exercised. He wished the President to have it at all times … to remove at any time the citizen of any foreign country whatever …321
Tonight, the Porcupine’s Gazette publishes a death threat from the “Young Men” who gathered at Cameron’s:
That Child of infamy Bache or his clipt and pauper associate Callender affects to despise the young men who have agreed to offer their personal services in defence of their country if necessary and calls them half fledged men. It appears to me who am one of the half fledged men that the dastardly vagabond trembled as he wrote …
You may inform him, Sir, … that although there is not one of the half-fledged men who would be backward in conferring upon him such chastisement that he not long since received from Mr. Humphreys or such as his beastly franking friend suffered in the Hall of Congress, … it would be unfair to deprive a very useful man of the fee which he may expect shortly to receive for doing the last kind office to the grandson of a Philosopher, and it is a disgraceful thing to see the miscreant riding to his long home with a pair of black eyes… So wishing him a happy and speedy deliverance from all his afflictions, I remain.
A Half Fledged Man
As Wednesday the 9th instant is appointed by the President of the United States as a day of solemn humiliation, fasting, and prayer, notice is hereby given that the Bank of Pennsylvania will be shut on that day, and that all payments … must be made on the day preceding.
By order of the Board.
Jonathan Smith, Cashier.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
LOST—by the Editor of the Aurora.
THE PEOPLE.
FRIDAY, MAY 4, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Mr. Allen [Federalist, Connecticut] on the 20th [of April] ult. made the following observations in the Federal House of Representatives:—“Let me add, as no contemptible engine in this business of sowing discord, dissension, and distrust of the Government, a vile incendiary paper published in this city …” [&c., &c.]
[Congressman Allen’s remarks on the Aurora follow.]
Remarks on the Above by the EDITOR OF THE AURORA
Mr. Allen’s speech is in the hackneyed style of the abuse which has been unceasingly poured on the Aurora... The opposers of any measures of administration will always be called … “incendiaries, sowers of discord, dissentious, and distrust of government …”
Mr. Allen should never mention the words “discord, dissension, and distrust of the government, &c..” This is the very man who the other day in Litchfield in Connecticut, expressed strong doubts as to the permanency of the Federal government; spoke of his political opponents as rascals; and rounded his … speech with the remark that if those “rascals” could not be put down, the government is not worth preserving, &c …
We want no “septembrizing” [massacring] to get rid of men such as Mr. Allen. It is only necessary that the People should be acquainted with the truth to throw them in the back ground …
We have as much stake in this country at least as this very Mr. Allen. If he is a native of it; so are we. Does he plume himself upon the foolish pride of ancestry; let him make the comparison [with our roots in Dr. Franklin.] Has he a family to attach him to the country; and so have we; one as dear to us as his can be to him: We have something more to attach us here: it is that very constitution which he has talked of subverting; those principles which he is endeavoring to sap.
As to the dark insinuations of this paper’s receiving foreign support, it is scandalous and false. The Aurora is bottomed upon the support of the persons who individually subscribe for it, & of those who advertise in it. It has never been upheld by the donations of private individuals, much less by foreign aid.
Today, President Adams writes the inhabitants of Chester County, Pennsylvania:
Those lovers of themselves, who withdraw their confidence from their own legitimate government and place it on a foreign nation or domestic faction or both in alliance, deserve all your contempt and abhorrence.322
War measures … Today, John Adams approves and signs into law:
AN ACT
To enable the President of the United States
to procure cannon, arms, and ammunition
and for other purposes.
Be it enacted, &c, That a sum not exceeding eight hundred thousand dollars shall be, and hereby is appropriated … to purchase as soon as may be, a sufficient number of cannon; also, a supply of small arms, and of ammunition and military stores to be deposited and used as will be most conducive to the public safety and defence, at the discretion of the President of the United States.323
John Adams also approves and signs into law:
AN ACT
To authorize the President of the United States
to cause to be purchased, or built, a number of
small vessels, to be equipped as Gallies, or otherwise.
Be it enacted, &c, That the President of the United States be, and he is hereby, authorized … to cause a number of small vessels, not exceeding ten, to be built or purchased, and to be fitted out, manned, armed and equipped as galleys or otherwise in the service of the United States … [and t]hat there be appropriated for the purpose aforesaid the sum of eighty thousand dollars …324
Tonight, William Cobbett in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
I am happy to inform my readers that the Young Men of New York are following the example of those at Philadelphia. A correspondent proposes that the young men [of Philadelphia] who sign the address … should, when the address is delivered, assume the [black] American Cockade and never leave it off till the haughty and insolent foe is reduced to reason. This is, I observe, already adopted at New York; and it is certainly proper. The hand writing at the bottom of the address is seen but by few persons; whereas a cockade will been seen by the whole city …
Tonight, Thomas Jefferson presents letters on the discovery of mammoth bones to a meeting of the American Philosophical Society. Eight members of the society attend, including the newly elected Polish writer Julien Niemcewicz.325 The meeting breaks up about ten-thirty, though Jefferson and Niemcewicz will remain awake for many hours. Niemcewicz:
On my return from this meeting at half past ten in the evening … General [Kosciuszko]’s servant told me that his master asked to speak with me … [W]hen we were alone, [the Polish General Kosciuszko] said, “I leave this night for Europe. I leave alone … I beseech you to tell everyone that I have gone to take the waters in Virginia. You will leave Philadelphia in three days and you will go in that direction saying it is to rejoin me.”
Too moved, too agitated by all that I had just heard, I could not close an eye. At one o’clock in the morning, I left and roamed the streets … At 4 o’clock a covered carriage arrived with Mr. J[efferson] inside. K[osciuszko] got in … With my eyes I followed the carriage as far as I could. They took a route completely opposite from that to the harbor. I do not know for whom this precaution was taken, for all the world slept. I learned later that they had gone by land up to New Castel where a boat awaited him … This departure, so precipitous, so concealed, so stealthy, caused general astonishment … How in this time of mistrust and suspicion is one to explain this clandestine voyage …?326
Tadeusz Kosciuszko has departed for France to join any French effort to liberate his native Poland from czarist Russia. He has entrusted his last will and testament to Thomas Jefferson.327
SATURDAY, MAY 5, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
On Friday night last, a Club of Jovial citizens attacked the sign of Citizen Julien on which was wrote “a perpetual Alliance between France & the United States.” These formidable patriots conveyed it to the place of execution and demolished it sans ceremonie … This is emblematical of the disposition of the British faction …
On Thursday, the “true Republican Society,” composed of between eighty and one hundred members, assembled at John Shnyder’s at the sign of the Robinhood. A handsome dinner was provided …
Republicans are organizing. Benny will need their help.
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
SIR, In a letter to the committee … I requested them to call on every one who may sign the address to wear the [black] cockade in order that they may be known, and as the propriety of this cannot be called in question but by cowards, I have not a doubt when they notify the addressers to meet, that they will make known that request … I am, &c.
A Young Man
P. S. With respect to Bache and his “half fledged men,” more hereafter.
The concourse of spectators, to see the YOUNG MEN of this city march to the President’s on Monday will doubtless be very numerous; and I think they may promise themselves the countenance of all the fair sex. The committee have very properly left it to every one to put a [BLACK] COCKADE in his hat or not; because, by this, the PRESIDENT will know whom he can depend upon and whom he cannot. The man who is afraid to be known at all times and in all places as the friend of his country will most certainly be afraid to expose his life in its defence …
NOTICE.
The YOUTH of the City of Philadelphia, the Northern Liberties, and the district of Southwark are requested to meet at the City Tavern on Monday morning next at 11 o’clock precisely; from thence to wait upon the President of the United States with their Address.
Samuel Relf
SUNDAY, MAY 6, 1798
Today, at Mount Vernon, George Washington writes:
The Demo’s seem to be lifting up their heads again according to Mr. Bache. They were a little crest fallen; or one might say, thunder stricken on the publication of the [“X, Y, Z”] Dispatches from our Envoys [in Paris], but the contents of them are now resolved into harmless chit-chat and trifles …328
MONDAY, MAY 7, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Plots, Conspiracy, and Conflagration!
Some wag or modern Titus Oates has taken it into his head to amuse himself by writing incendiary letters to the President, threatening to lay this city in ashes! and for this silly business the weak and ignorant are seriously called on to use their utmost vigilance to avert the impending calamity … [I]ndeed have the citizens, not of Philadelphia only but of America in general, a right to be on their guard, for history informs us that plots like standing armies have ever been found fit instruments to strengthen the bands of government and curtail the liberties of the people.
This morning, the President’s Lady, Abigail Adams, writes:
We are today to have a moveing and strikng spectacle, no less than between 7 & 8 Hundred young Men from 18–23 in a Body to present an address. Upon this occasion the President puts on his uniform, and the whole House will be thrown open to receive them. A number of ladies will be present upon the occasion with me …329
John Fenno:
This day, at 12 o’clock, the YOUNG MEN of this City assembled at the Merchants’ Coffee House, from whence they marched in a body, attended by an immense concourse of their fellow citizens, to the House of the President of the United States …330
William Cobbett (Peter Porcupine):
The concourse of people, as spectators of the march to the PRESIDENT’S was immense. There could not be less than ten thousand. Every female in the city, whose face is worth looking at, gladdened the way with her smiles; and they certainly were well bestowed, for an assemblage of finer or more worthy young men, has seldom been seen in this city or in any other. It has been a proud day for Philadelphia, to see the flower of its youth thus voluntarily collected, hoisting the [BLACK] COCKADE, and proceeding to deposit in the hands of the common Father a solemn pledge of their attachment to their country and of their resolution to defend its laws, liberties, and religion, or to perish in the struggle … They were about twelve hundred in number, The procession was formed, or rather the battalion was drawn up, opposite the City Tavern, from whence they marched to the PRESIDENT’S HOUSE, in person who [bore] … a countenance expressive of the pleasure he felt …331
Abigail Adams:
The Young Men of the City … to the amount of near Eleven Hundred came at 12 oclock at procession two and two. There was assembled on the occasion it is said ten thousand Persons. One might have walkd upon their Heads besides the houses, windows & even tops of Houses. In great order & decorum the Young Men, with each a black cockade, marchd through the Multitude and all of them entered the House preceeded by their committe. When a young gentleman by the name of Hare, a nephew of Mrs. Binghams, read the address, the President received them in his Levee Room drest in his uniform, and as usual upon such occasions, read his answer to them …332
John Adams is pleased with the address. As Poor Richard says,
A Flatterer never seems absurd:
The Flatter’d always takes his Word.333
President Adams speaks:
For a long course of years, my amiable young friends, before the birth of the oldest of you, I was called upon to act with your fathers in concerting measures the most disagreeable and dangerous, not from a desire of innovation, not from discontent with the government under which we were born and bred, but to preserve the honor of our country, and vindicate the immemorial liberties of our ancestors … I sincerely wish that none of you … [&c, &c]334
Abigail Adams:
The Multitude gave three Cheers, & followed them to the State House Yard, where the answer [by the President] was again read by the Chairman of the committee, with acclamations.335
Later today, the Gazette of The United States prints the “Young Men’s” noontime address to the President, the President’s answer to the “Young Men,” and a song for wandering crowds to sing about Benny Bache and his “grand pap,” Benjamin Franklin:
To be sung or said in all the lanes, alleys and streets, public houses and private parties in Philadelphia and elsewhere … to the tune of YANKEE DOODLE.
Tom Callender’s a nasty beast,
Ben Bache a dirty fellow;
They curse our country day and night,
And to the French would sell her.
Fire and murder, keep it up,
Plunder is the dandy;
When some folks get the upper hand,
With heads they’ll be so handy
When Benny was a little brat,
He whipt his top in France, sir,
They taught him how to shape a lie,
As well as how to dance, sir.
Fire and murder, &c.
The little dog was also taught,
That laws are human scourges;
That war and murder now and then
Are naught but wholesome purges.
Fire and murder, &c….
That precept might not lose its force,
For want of good example:
Of every vice which cunning hides,
His grandpap gave a sample.
Fire and murder, &c.
He shew’d him how to seem most learn’d
Without an education;
And how, with wond’rous skill to steal
Another’s reputation.
Fire and murder, &c….
Behold, he cried, how long my life,
How great my reputation;
In time of trouble and of strife;
I chose the strongest station …
Fire and murder, &c….
So deep I played the hypocrite,
So simple were my manners,
That all admir’d the artless man—
Who bore deception’s banners.
Fire and murder, &c….
A patriot’s honor too I claim’d,
Without a patriot’s heart, sir;
For, Pope declares, all honor lies
In acting well your part, sir.
Fire and murder, &c.
When Benny’s mind had well imbib’d,
This precious education;
Tis plain he was prepared to be
The curse of any nation.
Fire and murder, &c….
Tonight (too late for inclusion in tomorrow’s Aurora), a crowd of young men attacks Benny’s house. Benny:
[B]etween ten and eleven, my house was assailed by a party of young men who in the morning had addressed the President … They honored me with imprecations and threats … My doors and windows were battered, and the women and children in the house (I happened to be from home) [were] somewhat terrified. They were prevented from going to more unjustifiable lengths by some citizens who happened to be passing at the time and by the neighbors …336
The attack of a loyal mob on this house [was] … the most unfortunate for the abbettors of it. It served only to convince the Editor of the number and spirit of his friends; who shewed themselves, in consequence of that outrage, determined, if violence was offered to his person or property, to assist him in repelling force by force.337
Julien Niemcewicz is a witness:
Since these youths have begun to gather, the peace of the night is disturbed by their cries and chants. Drunk with wine they go to serenade at the windows of the President; they then go to break those of the printer Bache; they have hoisted the black cockade … It is these same means that provoke divisions. Alas, how many times have we not seen pools of blood spilled for a half a yard of ribbon?338
Abigail Adams:
They then closed the scene by singing the new song [“Hail Columbia”], which at 12 oclock at night was sung by them under our windows, they having dined together or rather a part of them.339
TUESDAY, MAY 8, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Where are we! when the president makes the avowal [in his answer yesterday to the Young Men assembled in his House] … that he was not induced to join our revolutionary war from any discontentment with the form of kingly government established in Britain and that independence was then not an object of predilection and choice but of indispensable necessity? Is it not avowing, in fact, that he would have no objection to the establishment of a monarchy here and that if we had been admitted to the privileges of British subjects in the then mother country, he would not have wanted independence? …
The “friends of order” at the meeting for free debate on Thursday evening menaced the Republicans, broke the banisters and benches in the gallery and some of the glass in the neighboring doors. All this is well; the practical effect of that good order with which their mouths are filled, and a good criterion by which to judge of their profession, that they wish to maintain PEACE in our once happy COUNTRY.
Today, in reaction to the Federalist attack on Benny’s home, groups of Republicans appear on High-street to defend the Aurora. They wear the tricolor cockade of red, white, and blue.340
Today, President Adams writes some admirers,
There is nothing in the conduct of our enemies more remarkable than their total contempt of the people … [T]he people are represented as in opposition, in enmity, and on the point of hostility against the government of their own institution and the administration of their own choice. If this were true, what would be the consequence? Nothing more or less than that they are ripe for a military despotism under the domination of a foreign power. It is to me no wonder that American blood boils at these ideas..341
War measures … Today, the U.S. House of Representatives opens debate on a bill “authorizing the President of the United States to raise a provisional army” of ten thousand volunteers. This bill would allow Federalist militias, like the black-cockaded Macpherson’s Blues, to become, in effect, the federal army! From today’s debate, as reported in the Annals of Congress:
PROVISIONAL ARMY …
Mr. GALLATIN [Republican, Pennsylvania] said … He must confess he looked upon all that was said of an invasion by France as a mere bugbear. He did not believe any attempt would ever be made …
Mr. BRENT [Republican, Virginia] said he knew that one of the more cogent reasons urged in favor of this army was that the southern states stood in need of them in order to quell any insurrection … Let us, said he, go on and make the people salutary laws; let the people experience the blessings of good government … and you will not require a standing army either to defend the country against internal or external enemies …
Mr. OTIS [Federalist, Massachusetts] … Could there be any fear that the President would raise these men if no danger threatened the country?342
Everyone senses the growing hostility to foreigners. Polish writer Julien Niemcewicz notes in his diary:
[T]he Alien bill, conceived in a truly Turkish spirit, shows to what point the administration attempts to adopt and imitate the arbitrary means of despots. There is nothing more proper than to be on guard against troublesome and dangerous foreigners, but indiscriminately to place under suspicion all foreigners comes from a desire more to rule than to protect.343
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette, William Cobbett writes:
DETECTION OF A CONSPIRACY FORMED BY THE UNITED IRISHMEN, For the Evident Purpose Of Aiding the Views of France In Subverting the Government OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— …
I have long thought that the French have formed a regular plan for organizing an active and effective force within these States … [W]here could they have sought them with such certainty of success as amongst that restless rebellious tribe, the emigrated UNITED IRISHMEN?
The first I heard of the existence of a Society of United Irishmen here was by a printed paper … signed Js. REYNOLDS … and about three weeks afterwards, the plan of the conspiracy was conveyed to me …
The plan, which is called a constitution, is printed in a small octavo pamphlet …344
The gallant youth of the city … should reflect that … [i]t is not hoisting a [black] COCKADE merely to pass in review and then cramming it in the pocket that will merit the applause of the nation … [A]ll those, in short, who are not afraid to meet the sans-culottes will wear the sign of their determination to oppose them.
That the PRESIDENT highly approves of this is clear from his conduct of yesterday. He not only put on his [black] cockade but his whole military uniform. It was not in this dress that he received the address of the merchants … [Y]esterday he had to receive those whom he looked upon as soldiers; and therefore as soldiers he met them.
I have heard that a few … sunshine soldiers have laid up the [black] cockade … [T]hey must not only wear [black] cockades, but must begin to wear a musket against their shoulder, or … that Government would be very foolish that should place any reliance on their efforts.
Tomorrow is President Adams’ day for prayer and fasting. Everyone prepares for violence. Thomas Jefferson will recall,
The President received 3. anonymous letters … announcing plots to burn the city on the fast-day. He thought them worth being made known, and great preparations were proposed by way of caution, and some were yielded to by the Governor. Many … packed their most valuable moveables to be ready for transportation.345
Tonight, the Macpherson’s Blues appear in the city, pledging to support the government. “Citizen Volunteers” guard the Mint and the Arsenal. Troops of cavalry clatter throughout the streets.346
WEDNESDAY, MAY 9, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The other papers of this city have chosen to be silent this day, because the President has recommended a fast. We do not follow their example: Because there is nothing in the constitution giving authority to proclaim fasts … Because prayer, fasting, and humiliation are matters of religion and conscience, with which government has nothing to do … And Because we consider a connection between state and church affairs as dangerous to religious and political freedom and that, therefore, every approach towards it should be discouraged …
On Monday evening, between ten and eleven, my house was assailed by a party of young men who, in the morning, had addressed the President. They had dined together and were more than gay; but this is no excuse for the outrage. They honored me with imprecations and threats, the only notice I could be proud to receive from them. My doors and windows were battered …
It has been wrong from the beginning to encourage young men, not of age, to meddle in politics … We see how early they dive in excesses. They are now called upon to arm themselves; what are we to expect from them? The sincere friends to order and laws should look to those things. It might, indeed, be a gratification to some that I should have my throat cut without the trouble of going through the tedious and uncertain forms of law. To be sure this in itself would be no very mighty matter, but the work of blood once begun, who will say where it would stop?
If the proceeding I have thought it my duty to notice is by way of intimidation, I pledge myself [that it] shall not produce the effect. While I respect and obey the laws of my country, I shall not be unmindful of the voice of my conscience which tells me it is my duty to remain at my post when the liberties of my country are endangered.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN BACHE
[Yesterday] morning, about 3 or 4 o’clock, the peaceful and industrious inhabitants of Carter’s alley were disturbed by a youthful “band of brothers,” singing and playing Mr. Hopkinson’s new song … and afterwards made some feeble attempts at Yankee Doodle …
However fond some of the inhabitants of that part of the city may be of the “concord of sweet sounds” in general, or partial to the President’s March in particular, … ‘[t]is … to be hoped that these nocturnal revellers will hereafter choose some other scene to “warble their wood notes wild.”
Today is the day John Adams set aside for humiliation, prayer, and fasting. It is also the day, by anonymous threat, Philadelphia is to burn!
Today, lawyer Joseph Hopkinson sends George Washington a copy of his new patriotic song, “Hail Columbia,” as well as a pamphlet he has written which includes:
The opposition to government has been remarkable … Even the public acts of government, the votes of the legislature … undergo some distortion under the press of the Aurora … Even WASHINGTON, the noblest fabrick of humanity that ever came from the hands of the creator … has not withered the tongue of slander …
Believe me. Americans, the object of this faction is not to correct the abuses of government or defend your liberties: Your government despises such monitors and you need no such defenders …347
Today, Thomas Jefferson observes:
Party passions are indeed high. Nobody has more reason to know it than myself. I receive daily bitter proofs of it from people who never saw me, nor know anything of me but through Porcupine & Fenno. At this moment all the passions are boiling over, and one who keeps himself cool and clear of the contagion is so far below the point of ordinary conversation that he finds himself isolated in every society.348
Today, as the President requested, churches hold special prayer services. William Cobbett observes:
The churches were, perhaps, never so crowded on any Sunday for years past. The sermons preached by Mr. [James] ABERCROMBY … were the most animated and awful discourses ever delivered in this city …349
From his pulpit in Philadelphia’s Christ Church (across from Porcupine’s offices on Second-street), Porcupine’s friend and constant associate350 the Reverend James Abercrombie, A.M., intones:
That frantic and licentious spirit of disorder and desolation … originated in the infidelity of [France’s] Philosophers … a Voltaire … a Diderot, a Helvetius, a Rousseau …
How so infatuated an attachment to French politics and principle should so long have captivated … Americans is truly surprising … “The God whom we profess to serve is able to deliver us, and he will deliver us …” …
As the Jews of old … we are in like manner now called upon by THE FATHER AND GUARDIAN OF OUR COUNTRY, who … will continue to be, “the minister of God to us for good.” Justly elevated by the gratitude of his country … to the honorable station of CHIEF MAGISTRATE, the reiterated tributes of applause which now resound thro’ our immense Continent incontestably prove that, during his administration of the adopted government, “he hath done all things well.” …
Now to God the Father &c.351
The Aurora’s name is not omitted from today’s worship. A congregation in Medford, Massachusetts, not far from Boston, hears the Rev. David Osgood preach:
Having no other prey at present at hand, the arms of the French Republic are now stretched toward us … [T]he Aurora of Philadelphia and some other ignes fatui are so many decoys to draw us within reach of her fraternal embrace. If you would not be ravished by the monster, drive her panders from among you. The editors, patrons, and abettors of those vehicles of slander upon our government … have no longer any cloak for their guilt … Brethren, mark them who cause such dangerous divisions among us, and let them wear the stigma of reproach due to the perfidious betrayer of their country … So, O Lord God of Israel, let our enemies be turned back, disappointed and ashamed; and to thee shall be glory!
AMEN.352
Everyone is braced for violence. Tonight, it occurs. Abigail Adams:
The purport of the [two anonymous] letters was to inform the President that the French people who were in this city had formed a conspiracy with some unsuspected Americans, on the Evening of the day appointed for the fast, to set fire to the city in various parts and to Massacre the inhabitants, intreating the President not to neglect the information & the warning given … Another Letter of the same purport was sent ten days after, thrust under the door of Mr. Otis’s office. These with some Rumours of combinations got abroad, and the Mayor, Aldermen &c kept some persons upon the watch through all parts of the city, & the Governor gave orders privately to have a troop of Horse in case of need.353
Jimmy Callender:
The British gang wanted to burn [Bache’s home] … They were headed by [Federalist Joseph Thomas, who led the crowds at Dunwoody’s and James Cameron’s]; and truly the head and the tail were worthy of each other. The fast day of May 9th, 1798 was chosen for the design … Bache heard of his danger, and informed [Mr.] Hilary Baker, then mayor of the city. No notice was taken of this intimation. The jacobin [Bache], the French pensioner, was left to his fate.354
Tonight, Philadelphia Federalist leader and lawyer Joseph Thomas, brandishing a sword above his head, leads a phalanx of sword-waving Federalists toward the Aurora’s offices.355 Learning that a corps of Republican volunteers has prepared for its arrival, the mob limits itself to breaking windows in Benny’s house. Jimmy Callender:
Bache collected and armed some of his friends. The six per cent myrmidons [the Federalists] heard of his preparations, and fortunately desisted from their plan. They filled the streets with noise and alarm; but they did not hazard an attack … It was affirmed, at the time, that a large quantity of arms was lodged by the government faction in a house near the hall of congress and that, in case of disturbance, muskets and ball were to be distributed to the young citizens, as the attorney’s mob chose to call themselves …356
Philadelphian Margaret Morris, who lives near the State-house, will recall,
A great riot happened on … [that] evening, and hints thrown out of a design to fire the city; the light-horse were out all night, and the militia and private citizens were on guard, patrolling also, but it was passed in quiet, but we are still suspicious that the evil spirit is not wholly at rest, only lulled asleep. “Young Lightning Rod” had his house guarded by armed men, within and without, being fearful of having it pulled down. I think I never saw so many people at one time in my life as on that evening. What a world we live in, and what tumultuous times!357
From Benny’s house, the Federalist “Young Men” march toward the State-house yard, knocking down lampposts, breaking windows, and smearing mud on the statue of Benjamin Franklin at the Philadelphia Library.358 A group of thirty or forty Republicans, wearing red and blue cockades, also march toward the State-house, and, as the Gazette of the United States reports, “riots” occur between opposing groups about 6 p.m.,
the magistry sending to prison as many of those persons who did not escape either by flight or taking the [red & blue] cockades out of their hats …359
Abigail Adams:
[I]t was in the State House Garden … [T]here they had their contest which terminated by sending half a dozen to prison …360 [The encounter] was sufficient to allarm the inhabitants, and there were every where large collections of people. The light Horse were calld out & patrold the streets all night. A guard was placed before this [Presidential] House … A foreign attempt to try their strength & to awe the inhabitants was no doubt at bottom. Congress are upon an Allien Bill.361
President John Adams:
[T]he night of the fast day, the streets were crowded with multitudinous assemblies of the people, especially that before my door, and kept in order only, as many people thought, by a military patrol, ordered, I believe, by the Governor of Pennsylvania.362
Jimmy Callender:
[T]hirty lads appeared in a body in Philadelphia with French cockades … They were dispersed by the magistrates who committed some of them to prison. The federal mob were by far more numerous, more noisy, and more apparently dangerous. No attempt was made by the magistrates to reduce them to quiet …363
An anonymous eyewitness:
[U]nder color of a danger of the city being set on fire … the independent horse and light infantry companies were put in a state of requisition under the command of the militia brigadier general M’Pherson (who is also a naval officer). In the evening forty draymen and butcher boys, angry at the arrogance of the black cockades, paraded the town with blue and red cockades … In the mean while, 7 or 800 black cockades, without any orders whatsoever, collected, some with guns, others with bludgeons, with the design, as they said, of suppressing mobs, while the greatest appearance of mob was among themselves and no danger except what they might create. They were persuaded to parade by the mayor’s door as waiting for orders and from thence sent detachments to the suburbs, &c. It was two o’clock in the morning before they were persuaded finally to disperse.364
THURSDAY, MAY 10, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Our city yesterday bore a very disquieting appearance. The passions of our citizens which have been artfully inflamed by war speeches and addresses, as well as threats and denunciations against the Republicans, burst out in such a manner as to endanger the peace of the city. It was early foretold that the insidious recommendation of [Porcupine] a British printer to the youths of this city to wear a [black] cockade would be attended with disagreeable consequences. The prediction has been in a degree verified; tumultuous meetings and riots took place towards dark … The scenes of yesterday should be a warning … Another step and the yawning gulph may swallow up in inevitable ruin the fabricators of this scheme of arraying our citizens against each other as well as those against whom the destruction is intended.
It is true and lamentably true that endeavors are making to silence the freedom of opinions and the freedom of the press. The President of the United States has publicly denounced the freedom of opinion … In his answer to the address of the citizens of Newark may be found this remarkable sentence, “the delusions and misrepresentations … must be discountenanced by authority as well as by citizens at large, or they will soon produce all kinds of calamities in this Country.” … Cannot public measures bear public viewing? … [Has t]he genius of freedom mingled itself in the dust with the ashes of Franklin …? Was it to be made subservient to the will of an individual …?
Today, John Adams answers an address from Hartford, Connecticut:
If the designs of foreign hostility and the views of domestic treachery are now fully disclosed; … if the spirit of independent freemen is again awakened and its force is combined … it will be irresistible.365
Today, the President also answers citizens from the vicinity of Shepherd’s Town in Berkeley County, Virginia:
I had never until lately any expectation that I should live to see … the Executive authority vilified and our very existence threatened through the means of our citizens or any other with impunity …366
Today, Thomas Jefferson writes James Madison:
No bill has passed since my last [letter]. The alien bill, now before the Senate, you will see in Bache [May 8 issue] … Some of the young men who addressed the President on Monday mounted the black (or English) cockade. The next day numbers of people appeared with the tricolored (or French) cockade. Yesterday, being the fast day, the black cockade again appeared, on which the tricolour also showed itself. A
fray ensued, the light horse were called in, & the city was so filled with confusion from about 6. to 10. o’clock last night that it was dangerous going out …367
Today, Abigail Adams writes her sister,
Bache is cursing and abusing daily. If that fellow … is not surpres-sed, we shall come to a civil war. I hope the Gen’ll Court of our State will take the subject up &, if they have not a strong Sedition Bill, make one.368
Today, Liz Hewson, Benny’s friend, writes:
[Benny is] very much embarrassed in his circumstance … [and] going fast to destruction.369
War measures … Today, the U.S. House of Representatives debates the bill that allows John Adams to enlist the new Federalist militias into his “provisional” army. The Annals of Congress report:
PROVISIONAL ARMY.
Mr. GALLATIN [Republican, Pennsylvania]: [said that] one of the most important powers that could be vested in Congress, viz: the power of raising an army is, by this bill, proposed to be transferred from Congress to the President. This he considered a dangerous principle …
Mr. DAYTON [Federalist, New Jersey]: The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. GALLATIN) had now boldly erected his … opposition, not merely to the Administration or to the Government, but to all effectual measures of protection, defence, and preservation; and what was the motto …? “Weakness and Submission” …
[T]he power and means of invasion … was known … [T]here were already collected upon the coasts of France, bordering upon the English channel, a numerous army … The same soldiers who were prepared to invade an island might certainly be employed [toward us] upon the Main and the same bayonets would pierce the breasts of the people inhabiting the latter as the former. Their larger transports … might transport a considerable part of them across the Atlantic and land them upon our shores … But the member from Pennsylvania [Mr. GALLATIN], aware of the possibility of the attempt, has attempted to divert the country from immediate preparation …370
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
THE FAST
Was yesterday observed in this city with all the Solemnity of a Sabbath … The spirit of faction is not, however, quite killed. Towards evening, about twenty fellows, the greatest part of them foreigners, had the impudence to go to the State House yard with French cockades in their hats … The conduct of the Associated Youth was highly praiseworthy. They all assembled with alacrity … They should now lose no time in forming themselves into companies, procuring themselves arms, and appointing commanders. It has been stupidly asserted that their hoisting of the [BLACK] COCKADE was the occasion of the fracas! Monstrous!—What! are men to carry about them no sign of their devotion to the cause of their own country … for fear of giving offence and exciting tumults!
The Youth of Lancaster have mounted the BLACK COCKADE—Bravo!—Either it must stand, or the Country falls.
VOLUNTEER CORPS.
The Youth of North and South Mulberry Ward who are desirous of forming themselves into a Uniform Volunteer Corps, are requested to meet on Friday evening, the 11th instant, at the house of J. Hardy, Swan tavern, Third-street.
CONSPIRACY OF THE UNITED IRISHMEN
(Continued from Tuesday’s paper.)
In my last, it was amply proved that this conspiracy had for its object something highly criminal … That this conspiracy is intended to aid the cause of France … [O]bserve that the closest intimacy exists between the sans-culotte French who are here, the most distinguished of the emigrated United Irishmen, and a base American printer, notoriously in the service of France … [A]ny ALIEN LAW which extends only to ALIENS of a nation committing hostilities on the United States will not reach the members of this affiliation.
FRIDAY, MAY 11, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Several persons, it is said, have been … committed for wearing in their hats a red and blue ribbon … cockade. If these persons appeared disposed to be riotous or if the magistracy feared that the wearing of those ribbons might be productive of disorder, those who refused to put them by were proper subjects of the notice of the police; but so are many of those also who wear black cockades in their hats, who have indeed proceeded to actual violence by attacking the house of a citizen [the Editor] at the dead of night, threatening those whom they have been taught to consider as obnoxious …
It will no doubt be attempted to make a distinction between the two sorts of badges, the one will be called French because it bears some resemblance to it; the other American tho’ it is exactly like the British; but if the wearing of one of the cockades is permitted, the incitement to disorder will still exist, as still a distinction will be marked between our citizens—those with and those without the cockade. [T]he black cockade has been mounted on the express recommendation of [Porcupine] a printer in this city who avows himself a British subject and a royalist, and glories in their titles …
The proposals for embodying the youth of the City … is another egg from the same nest. The Adamites are not, it seems, contented with plunging their Country into foreign war, unless they can superadd a military government at home. The present proceedings of the faction are so monstrous that they must completely open the eyes of every one who is not absolutely blinded. The assertion of the President that he was not discontented with the British government before the Revolution ought to have been made more than twenty years ago, that America might have been on her guard against him.
We shall be in a precious plight if the Aristocrats in Congress get their bill past for a provisional standing army of ten thousand men: provisional, that is to say, if the President shall see them necessary, and this he infallibly will do. He wants, as he has kindly told us, to suppress opinions by authority which, without force, is a shadow, and so, when he has got the standing army, he will then have force … This standing army, of which the black cockade men have on Monday & on Wednesday evening last given so desirable a specimen, will cost at least fifteen thousand dollars a day …
The fast [day] puzzled the Printers not a little. Most of them did not publish on that day … For our part, determined to maintain our conscience free from political fetters, we published our paper as usual; but Mr. Adams resolved not to be broken in upon and sent it to us back … He was the only one of our subscribers who so scrupulously observed the fast to send back our paper. He was determined to shew a proper respect to his own recommendation—and, who had a better right?
Word is out that Republicans are raising a private militia and that Benny has gone to the Northern Liberties to encourage attendance at Saturday’s gathering of the Tammany Society on the banks of the Schuylkill River.371
Today, John Adams writes some citizens,
I trust with you that the spirit of disunion is much diminished … but unless the spirit of libelling and sedition shall be controlled by an execution of the laws, that spirit will again increase.372
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
Bache, whilst other people were observing the Fast Day yesterday (except a few Jacobins) as every good man ought to, was circulating his vehicle of lies and sedition …
Bache in his newspaper of this morning says, “it was early foretold that the insidious recommendation of a British Printer to the Youth of this city to wear a cockade would be attended with disagreeable consequences …” Bache, with his usual effrontery, ascribes to the [black cockade] badge which distinguishes Americans the tumult of Wednesday evening, when he knows that what took place was begun by persons wearing French cockades … Yet with respect to their badge he would have been silent.—No, he means that we should discard the badge which distinguishes Americans from the enemies of America. But why discard this badge? … [I]t is essential … that true Americans be distinguished from the partizans of France … Bache disseminates the atheistical principles of Paine—publishes forged letters of general Washington … endeavors to ridicule the age of our President. This same Bache … has the front to talk of the good of his country whose peace and happiness he has labored to destroy. He has sounded the lowest depth of human depravity and now exhibits to the world an example of wickedness that no man of his years ever arrived at before. Let none attempt to describe him—language is too weak—no combination of words will come so near to expressing everything that is monstrous in human nature as BENJAMIN FRANKLIN BACHE …
We hear the vile incendiary Bache … was disseminating his political poison among the citizens of the Northern Liberties, and announced his intention of having a Jacobinian festival at the Falls of Schuylkill [River] on Saturday, where he intended to descant [discourse] upon the answer of the President to the address of the Youth of the City—You may therefore expect to see a long list of hellish toasts … on Monday [or Tuesday] next inserted in his shameless Aurora.
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
The adoption of the American [black] cockade will at once point out the friends of good order … and demonstrate to Bache and his cut throat abettors that the Fable of the LYON and the BULLS will not be verified in the conduct of the American people …
SIR, How the tumult originated yesterday afternoon that disturbed the peace of the city I now know … It was the French cockade … To … prevent future riots on the same account, it will not be amiss for the Mayor and Corporation, or some other authority, immediately to issue a proclamation, forbidding all men to wear the French cockade in Philadelphia …
A HINT
SATURDAY, MAY 12, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The black cockade is the military cockade of this country. [I]t has been so settled by the Federal government. It is earnestly recommended to Republicans, the real friends of order, not to think of assuming any badge liable to misconstruction. This … might be attended with mischief.
The Gazette of the United States is constantly harping on the assertion that the editor of the Aurora is in French pay. We are tired of giving the lie to this falsehood.
In a paper published under the immediate direction and constant inspection of the English Agent in this city, a publication has been recently made concerning The United Irishmen. It is not at all surprising … [I]f nationality proceeds to the length of supporting tyranny … then is nationality the most execrable of all human propensities. Of the latter character is the [British] nationality which attacks the unfortunate and long oppressed Irish. Of that character are the … two [Porcupine] papers of this week by the organ of the English Government, William Cobbett, formerly a corporal in the English regiment of foot, still remaining a British subject and a professed royalist.
Today, Benny Bache and other leading Republicans373 attend the Annual Festival of the Republican Tammany Society at the Columbia Wigwam on the banks of the River Schuylkill. The society is a center for radical Republicanism, particularly among the newly arrived Irish.374 Benny’s Quaker friend Dr. George Logan of Stenton speaks:
[A]ssisted by the blood and treasure of that brave and generous people, the French, we became a free, independent republic …
The present gloomy appearance of our public affairs has no doubt been occasioned by the Citizens of the United States having too much neglected the representative principles of the federal government and looking up to one man for the salvation of our country …
The kingly power, after having been a scourge to Europe for ages, is now, by the light of the American and French revolutions, coming to an end. It is devoutly to be wished that the citizens of the United States may be upon their guard not to suffer even the appearance of kingly authority to return amongst us to blast the fair prospects of our revolution …375
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
APPOINTMENTS—BY AUTHORITY
JOSEPH HOPKINSON, of Pennsylvania, Commissioner for holding a treaty with the Oneida Indians.
MONDAY, MAY 14. 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The alarms and disorders which have taken place within these few days … will, if not speedily checked, end in blood … The partizans of war … [i]nstead of resorting to reason … have recourse to threat, and instead of endeavoring to convince, they endeavor to enforce … Are free men to be bullied into certain opinions? …
To evince their zeal, a number of young men [on May 7] addressed the president … If, after the address was presented, the black cockade recommended by Porcupine had been laid aside, all might have been well; but this was not done, and the consequences are now unfolding themselves. The Day which was to have been set aside to implore the Deity in behalf of our country and to prostrate ourselves before him in humility and meekness became a day of riot and disorder … Our city never was in such alarm as on the evening of the fast day—the causes must be obvious to every one.
If proceedings like these are not discountenanced, my fellow citizens, where will they end? … Already it is said … that opposition is maturing itself. If hostile corps thus rise up among us, who can say that he will be safe. The consequences are to be deprecated, and an immediate check ought to be given to proceedings which are pregnant with ruin and murder. Before it is too late, my fellow-citizens, interpose your counsel and your influence, for if we are to have war, heaven guard us against a civil war.
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
Many of the Young Men here have gotten themselves arms and are forming themselves into companies.
TUESDAY, MAY 15, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
On Saturday, the Tammany Society met … A long talk was … delivered by DR.[GEORGE] LOGAN. After dinner the following [16] toasts were drank: … 5. The chief of one of the Councils Thomas Jefferson … Two guns and three cheers … 10. The freedom of talk—May he who aims at interrupting it be branded by the tribes as a traitor, monster, and tyrant.— Three guns and six cheers. 11. The memory of our great and good father Dr. Franklin.—May the children of Pennsylvania cherish at every hazard the great legacy of freedom which he bequeathed.—Two guns. 12. The warriors of 76—May those only who fought from choice & not necessity, for liberty as well as independence, be entitled to the honors and rewards of the sixteen tribes.—Three guns and six cheers …
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette, William Cobbett writes:
From various causes, these United States have become the resting place of ninety-nine hundredths of the factious villains which Great Britain and Ireland have vomited from their shores. They are all schooled in sedition, are adept at their trade, and they most certainly bear as cordial a hatred to this government as they did to their own … [A] paragraph … appeared a few days ago in the paper of that well-known scoundrel, the grand son of old Franklin. This wretch attempts to impose on the public a belief that, in every thing I say against the UNITED IRISHMEN, I aim at the whole Irish nation … [H]e lies from the bottom of his heart.
Wear the [black] American cockade … It is not sufficient that a man view unconcerned the progress of vice; if he makes no attempt to impede it, he gives it countenance … And is this not analogous to the Aurora confederation … [C]an any man who has eyes and ears plead ignorance of the wishes and designs of that hydra of iniquity? No … Wear the American cockade …
WEDNESDAY. MAY 16, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
[In] the constitution alleged to be that of the United Irishmen, I find … That ALL men are created equal … But let me ask, in what respect do the circumstances of Ireland in 1798 differ from those of America in 1776?
Mr. Adams … proclaimed a fast and, but a few days before that fast, he attended the play house [to hear the Federalist song]. He first endeavors to ingratiate himself with the powers of darkness by going to the play house and then with the source of light by going to church.
Today, in the U. S. House of Representatives, the Annals of Congress report:
PROVISIONAL ARMY …
Mr. GALLATIN [Republican, Pennsylvania] said … The committee was told the other day that, by virtue of this bill, a number of volunteer corps would be raised who would associate themselves for the purpose of learning the military art … To consist of whom? Of those persons who, from their situation in life, are able to arm, clothe and equip themselves at their own expense. It was therefore giving an exclusive privilege to a certain class of men (young merchants, lawyers, and others) who are possessed of more wealth than their poorer neighbors to form a Military Association. And for what purpose? … [T]o do military duty in any manner that the President may think proper … The President is also to accept whom and reject whom he pleases …
[I]t would be impossible to form a standing army more dangerous than this … Upon the whole, Mr. G.[allatin] said, it appeared to him … a plan to arm one description of men exclusively of others and give them to the President of the United States to be used as he pleased, and what security had they that they would not be used for dangerous purposes?376
Mr. DAYTON [Federalist, New Jersey] … then replied to the member from Pennsylvania (Mr. GALLATIN) who had called these volunteer corps a most formidable force to be put into the hands of the President … [T]o whom, he asked, would they be truly formidable? To the invaders of our country—to the turbulent and seditious—to insurgents—to the daring infractors of the laws … [T]hese volunteers would be the first … to suppress seditious and disaffected persons, insurgents, or any daring infractors of the law …377
Mr. GALLATIN [Republican, Pennsylvania, answered] … we have seen differences of political opinion but no symptom of any infraction of the laws … Why then is the House told, not only today, but on former occasions, of seditious and disaffected persons—of dangers threatened to this country from insurrections? …378
Mr. HARPER [Federalist, South Carolina] said he should not employ a great deal of time in answering what had fallen from the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. GALLATIN) … Certain gentlemen are alarmed to see this corps of generous youth and represent them as a force not to be trusted. Why? Because it will prove dangerous to liberty. To the liberty of insurgents and the seditious …379
Mr. GALLATIN [Republican, Pennsylvania] … The gentleman from South Carolina had said there were disorganizers and seditious persons … and yet he has not shown where these disorganizers and perturbators exist … A gentleman rises from his seat and tells the committee he saw five or six men in the streets of this city with French cockades … that some one had reported that it was said that somebody had heard that one of them had said he would join the French if they landed here; the gentleman immediately concluded that there is a deep conspiracy in the country …380
Mr. ALLEN [Federalist, Connecticut] … What the committee had heard from the Gentlemen from Pennsylvania, of this being a plan to arm the rich against the poor, was said to raise a popular clamour against it … While the people … are addressing the Government with offers of their lives and fortunes in support of our measures against France, the gentleman from Pennsylvania wishes to take no measures for our security. There is something very extraordinary in this. But the young men of our country possess a different spirit; they are resolved to unite in their country’s cause; and they will be able effectually to prevent insurrections and insults from taking place in large cities which are the most subject to them …381
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
The imps of the infernal Paris monster … are endeavoring to persuade the young men that the black is not the American cockade but the British … [I]s it not now worn by all the officers, land and sea, and by the PRESIDENT himself?
SPITTING RECORD, BE IT REMEMBERED. THAT … ONE MATTHEW LYON, an Irishman and a furious Democrat … did, in Congress Hall, while the House was in actual session, spit the nauseous slime from his jaws into the face of Roger Griswold, a member from Connecticut …
THURSDAY, MAY 17, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Citizens of America, you are called upon to unite and for what? In support of a man who openly avows his predilection for monarchical government and who has openly declared that it was not from discontent with the British government that he espoused the cause of your country—That there is cause for alarm no one can deny; but that this cause is domestic and not foreign is too palpable to be questioned … [W]hile you are [busied] in preparing for an imagined enemy, the real enemy is assaulting the citadel of your dearest privileges … and ere long you will be convinced to your sorrow that it was for independence and not for liberty that the present President of the United States contended.
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette, Peter Porcupine writes:
I informed my readers that there was a section in the provisional army bill, authorizing the President to accept the services of volunteers corps … Gallatin said there was no occasion for the volunteer corps, as there was “no fear of war.” … He was told that he feared the existence of volunteer corps, because he well knew from experience their efficacy “in SUPPRESSING INSURRECTIONS.”
FRIDAY, MAY 18, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The French had assisted us very materially in our own revolutionary war, even before they openly joined us, with not only loans of money but with gratuitous donations to a large amount. Was it not natural when they, in their turn, were struggling under the burdens of a revolution, that they should look to us for some aid at least in the way of a loan?
War measures … Today, the U.S. House of Representatives approves, 51 to 40, the bill for a new provisional army of ten thousand volunteers.382 The U.S. Senate resumes a second reading of the bill concerning aliens.383
Republicans are abandoning Congress.384 Today, Republican House leader Al Gallatin writes his brother-in-law:
I remain almost alone to bear the irksome burthen of opposition against a dozen or two speakers, several of whom [are] exceedingly deficient in talents but supplying their room by blackguardism and impudence … I consider it my sacred duty to remain firm to the post assigned to me by my constituents, however ungrateful the task.385
Thomas Jefferson explains:
The Federalists’ usurpations and violations of the Constitution at that period and their majority in both Houses of Congress were so great, so decided, and so daring that, after combatting their aggressions inch by inch without being able in the least to check their career, the Republican leaders thought it would be best for them to give up their useless efforts there, go home, get into their respective legislatures, embody whatever of resistance they could be formed into, and, if ineffectual, to perish there as in the last ditch. All therefore retired, leaving Mr. Gallatin alone in the House of Representatives, and myself in the Senate, where I then presided as Vice President … No one who was not a witness to the scene of that gloomy period can form any idea of the afflicting persecutions and personal indignities we had to brook.386
SUNDAY, MAY 20. 1798
Today, James Madison writes Thomas Jefferson:
The Alien bill proposed in the Senate is a monster that must forever disgrace its parents. I should not have supposed it possible that such a one could have been engendered in either House & still persuade myself that it cannot be fathered by both … These addresses to the feelings of the people from their enemies may have more effect in opening their eyes than all the arguments addressed to their understandings by their friends. The President also seems to be co-operating for the same purpose. Every answer he gives to his addressers unmasks more and more his principles & views. His language to the young men at Ph[iladelphia] is the most abominable & degrading that could fall from the lips of the first magistrate of an independent people … It throws some light on his meaning when he remarked to me “that there was not a single principle the same in the American & French Revolutions;” … The abolition of Royalty was, it seems, not one of his Revolutionary principles …387
Today, President Adams’ nephew, William Shaw, writes his aunt, Abigail Adams:
I believe the grand cause of all our present difficulties may be traced to this source—too many hordes of Foreigners to America. I believe the English government will not allow any alien to be capable of receiving any office what ever. We shall not, I am afraid, continue long independent as citizens and as a nation, unless we speedily enact some-such law. Let us no longer pray that America may become an asylum to all nations, but let us encourage our own men & cultivate our simple manners.388
The President will shortly make William Shaw his private secretary.
MONDAY, MAY 21, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The United States ship the Ganges, capt. Dale, of 20 guns (nine pounders), having completed her preparations for sea, is now lying at anchor in the cove with a full complement of men. The Cutter General Greene is also completely armed and manned.
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
[The President] has the happiness never to have approved of the principles of the French Revolution, directly or indirectly.
TUESDAY, MAY 22, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The armed cutter Gen. Greene, captain Price, sailed from hence yesterday on a cruise.
Today, John Adams calls another group of young men to arms:
To arms, then, my young friends,—to arms … For safety against dangers which we now see and feel, cannot be averted by truth, reason, or justice … I ought not to forget the worst enemy we have, that obloquy [slandering] which you have observed, it is the worst enemy to virtue and the best friend to vice; it strives to destroy all distinction between right and wrong; it leads to divisions, sedition, civil war, and military despotism. I need say no more. JOHN ADAMS389
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
I am one of the young men … [W]hy does our wearing the [black] American cockade excite the warmest sensibility of the corrupt Aurora man and his virtuous friends? Why have they raised a villainous mob to insult and intimidate those who had courage and patriotism to wear it? Because it shews who are friends of this country … because it has a tendency to check the spreading of the baneful principles which have been industriously disseminated for the purpose of rearing the hideous head of anarchy. The panic with which the American cockade strikes the French faction is an undeniable proof of the absolute necessity of wearing it …
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
Robison’s Proofs of a Conspiracy … contains an exposure of such deep-laid villainy … The French Revolution with all its abominations are traced to … [the] ILLUMINATI …
While a pupil is under trial and before he is admitted into this infernal society, many questions are put … For instance: “How far is the proposition true that WICKED MEANS may be used for a GOOD PURPOSE?”
In one of the answers to this question, the example of a great philosopher and Cosmopolite is adduced, who betrayed a private correspondence entrusted to him, for the service of Freedom: the case was DOCTOR FRANKLIN!!!!!—This is excellent! DOCTOR FRANKLIN is held up as an example to the pupils of a society, surpassing if possible hell itself in perfidy and every species of wickedness!! The illuminati understood the merits of Doctor Franklin …
As Jimmy Callender has observed, “Abuse on the memory of Dr. Franklin has, for some time, been an essential ingredient in every federal pamphlet.”390
WEDNESDAY, MAY 23, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Mr. Adams, in his answer to the address from Burlington, declares the French nation to be “our enemies.” Query, has the President the power of declaring war? If he has not, by what authority does he presume to stile a nation our enemy with whom we are at peace?
THURSDAY, MAY 24. 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
PORCUPINE AND THE PRESIDENT
Amongst the numerous and fulsome praise which issue from Cobbett’s press to daub and flatter the President, we cannot help noticing one … for [his] having never approved of the principles of the French Revolution, either directly or indirectly!— This indeed we required no ghost to inform us of: for the American who could not approve of the principles which gave freedom and independence to his own country could certainly not view the emancipation of a foreign and distant nation in any favourable point for view.
War … This morning at eleven o’clock, the Secretary of War, accompanied by Captain Barry of the frigate United States, boards the U.S. ship-of-war Ganges and delivers sailing orders to Captain Dale. This afternoon, the Gazette of the United States reports,
On the Secretary’s leaving the ship, a salute was fired, immediately after which she weighed anchor to proceed to her cruising station.
War … At about five o’clock this afternoon, between Norfolk, Virginia and Philadelphia, the American schooner Liberty has an encounter with a French privateer. Captain Joseph Canby reports:
I was chased by a privateer without colours but whose crew wore the National Cockade of France. When she overhaled me and came alongside, within about thirty yards, she ordered me to hoist out my boat, and go aboard her, but before I could do it, the man at the masthead called out … “a Sail,” upon which the privateer left me … The privateer carried twelve guns …391
SATURDAY, MAY 26, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Hopkinson, the author of the late Federal Song [“Hail Columbia”) to the tune of the President’s March … has been nominated [by the President] a commissioner to transact some business with some Indians. He has written his song to some tune, and to the right tune—that’s clear.
[Clement] Humphries, who attempted to assassinate Mr. Bache, of which he was convicted, on going to pay his penalty received notice it had been paid already; and he has since been selected to carry dispatches to the three envoys at Paris! pause, reader, and reflect on conduct that beggars all commentary. The next conspirator for the murder of Mr. Bache ought not to complain for the want of previous engagement. If the writing of adulatory songs to the president and the assassinating of men who have firmness to expose the improper measures of our government are to recommend them to executive appointments, to what an alarming pass has our government arrived.
HIGHLY ALARMING!
It is said, that there are six French privateer Cruisers now on our coast to take all American vessels with British property on board!
HIGHLY ALARMING, AGAIN.
It is said that there are ten sail of British Ships of war on the American coast to [take] … all American vessels bound to or from the ports of France … having the produce of those countries on board.
A pretty pickle of fish for the United States to digest!
The object of the late political fast [May 9th] is every day better and better understood. Instead of a day devoted to solemn prayer and humiliation, rancorous fulminations and party invectives issued from most of the pulpits. Many ministers of religion … were wonderfully uniform … They moved with an exactness which proved that there existed a main spring somewhere. The mystery is unraveled when the reader is informed that some weeks before the fast day, circulars were issuing from a certain public office in this city to these select Reverends throughout the Union.
Today, The President’s Lady, Abigail Adams, writes her sister:
I wish the Laws of our Country were competent to punish the stirrer up of sedition, the writer and Printer of base and unfounded calumny. This would contribute much to the Peace and harmony of our Country as any measure, and in times like the present, a more carefull and attentive watch ought to be kept over foreigners. This will be done in the future if the Alien Bill passes, without being curtaild & clipt untill it is made nearly useless. The Volunteer Corps which are forming not only of young Men but others will keep in check these people, I trust…392
SUNDAY, MAY 27, 1798
Today, George Washington answers Joseph Hopkinson’s letter of May 9th:
I pray you now, my good Sir, to accept my thanks for the Pamphlet and Song which accompanied it … To expect that all men should think alike upon political, more than on religious or other subjects, would be to look for a change in the order of things; but at so dangerous a crisis as the present, when everything dear to Independence is at stake, the well disposed part of them might, one would think, act more alike; Opposition therefore to the major will and to that self respect which is due to the National character cannot but seem strange!
But I will unite with you in a fervent wish and hope that greater unanimity than heretofore will prevail … and that the young men of the present day will not suffer the liberty for which their fore fathers fought … [to] be lost by them either by supineness or divisions among themselves disgraceful to the Country …393
MONDAY, MAY 28, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The westerly winds that have prevailed for some days past compelled the English frigates to retire from our coasts, and several vessels have in consequence entered port.
There are now French vessels of war within the capes of Delaware, and there is a treaty [of 1778] still in existence between the United States and France … [B]y that treaty, not only armed French vessels may come into our ports and bring in their prizes; but they may also sail out of our ports at any time unmolested, and we are bound not to give them hindrance.
War measures … Today, John Adams approves and signs into law,
AN ACT
More effectually to protect the commerce
of the United States.
WHEREAS armed vessels … of France have committed depredations on the commerce of the United States …
Be it Enacted … That … the President … is hereby authorized to instruct and direct the armed vessels belonging to the United States to seize, take and bring into any port of the United States … any such armed vessel which shall have committed, or which shall be found hovering on the coast for the purpose of committing, depredations …394
War measures … Today, John Adams approves and signs into law,
AN ACT
Authorizing the President of the United States to raise a Provisional Army.
Sec. 1. Be it enacted … That the President … is hereby authorized in the event of a declaration of war against the United States, or of actual invasion, … or of imminent danger of such invasion discovered in his opinion to exist, to cause to be inlisted … a number of troops not exceeding ten thousand …
Sec. 3. And be it further enacted … That … the President is hereby empowered, at any time within three years after the passing of this act, if in his opinion the public interest shall require, to accept of any company or companies of volunteers … who may associate and offer themselves for the service, who shall be armed, clothed and equipped at their own expense …395
John Adams will now invest Macpherson’s Blues and other Federalist militias with the authority of the U.S. government.
Today, President Adams warns some citizens,
[Y]our tranquillity has been disturbed by incessant appeals to the passions and prejudices of the people by designing men and by audacious attempts to separate the people from the government …396
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
It would be an endless labor to notice all the lies and misrepresentations that crowd the pages of Bache’s papers. In the Aurora of [Saturday morning], he pretends to account for the unanimity of the sentiments expressed by the ministers of religion on the late [May 9th] fast day by suggesting that they were prompted to do this by “circulars issued some weeks before by a certain public office to the select reverends throughout the union.” The office alluded to is certainly the Department of State, and the facts were simply these—Proclamations were printed for the information of all the clergy in the United States. [T]hey were formed into packages and addressed to the marshals and, to facilitate their distribution by the aid of the public mails, they were separately folded and packed up at the Department of State without the name of one clergy superscribed, it being left to the marshal to add to the superscription of Reverend the name of each minister in his district … Bache … says that “rancorous fulminations and party invectives issued from most of the pulpits.” … [This fact] proves that most of the clergy in the United States, and thence we can conclude most of the people, detest the conduct of the French and are ready to oppose their attempts to control our government.
Several volunteer companies are now forming in this city. The Troops of Horse have increased their number. M’Pherson’s Blues are organizing themselves anew … A company of Grenadiers has likewise been established … Let the youthful signers of the late address to the President now come forward and join … Their country does now call for their assistance, and Congress has prescribed the mode in which it shall be rendered by authorizing the President to accept their services as volunteers …
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
The YOUNG MEN who pledged themselves to the president will take notice that the committee will wait this evening (only) at the City Tavern, from 6 till 9 o’clock, to receive signatures of those who wish to join themselves to Macpherson’s Blues.
TUESDAY, MAY 29, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
We are now, by the mad measures of our administration, on the eve of war, if not actually at war with the French Republic; our legislature it is hoped will not separate without further provision for the defence of our sea port towns and harbours. As government have determined that we should come to an open rupture with the French, we must expect to be treated as enemies.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
The vapourings of poor Surgo Ut Prosim and his party remind one of the Balloonist who, after ascending in his machine with the pompous motto “sic itur ad astra” [thus may you go to the stars] was presently dropped upon the earth and shattered to pieces.
“Rise,” cries Bache, “ere it be too late”—Rise, and redress your wrongs: But ah! he cries in vain. The cruel state of his party resembles that of a wounded serpent …
WEDNESDAY, MAY 30, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
TO JOHN ADAMS, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. SIR … [T]he many addresses from different parts of the union approbating your conduct … are founded upon th[e] supposition that you have been sincere in your attempts at negociation with the French Republic … [Others] have said you secretly wished for a rupture with France and for a closer connection with Great-Britain whose government was more consonant with your feelings and with your ideas of perfection … [Should the people] hereafter be convinced that your secret movements spoke a different language from your public declarations … that by stirring upon the Americans to hate the French, it was intended they should hate … both Frenchmen and Republicanism … the public resentment will recoil with redoubled vengeance upon the heads of those who are its proper objects …
Today, Benny’s brother, William, and four other doctors at the Philadelphia Dispensary urge the dispensary’s managers not to dismiss Dr. Jimmy Reynolds, leader of Philadelphia’s Society of United Irishmen:
GENTLEMEN, The Physicians of the Philadelphia Dispensary have been informed that some of the contributors have applied to you for the removal of one of their associates, against whom nothing is urged but difference in political opinion, while all agree that his attentions to the duty annexed to the appointment have been useful to the sick and honorable to himself.
We place too much reliance on the candor and liberality of the Managers to believe that they will be the instruments of introducing into a charitable association the distinctions of party and are persuaded they will never consent to render a valuable institution an engine of oppression.
WILLIAM BACHE [et al]397
THURSDAY, MAY 31, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
BOSTON, MAY 24. Yesterday between 2 and 3 o’clock, P. M. was experienced a very violent storm … declared to be a damn’d jacobin storm, by a noted major, for destroying a picture of George Washington and striking the mast of the schooner FEDERAL GEORGE. This is as conclusive reasoning as perhaps can be had that the operation of nature is highly anti-federal and ought, if possible, to be arrested in its progress.
Today, Thomas Jefferson writes James Madison:
The Alien bill will be ready today, probably, for its 3rd reading in the senate … [I]t is a most detestable thing … This bill will unquestionably pass the H of R, the majority there being decisive, consolidated, and bold enough to do anything. I have no doubt from the hints dropped they will pass a bill to declare the French treaty void …
Volney & a ship-load of others sail on Sunday next. Another shipload will go off in about 3 weeks.398
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
It is currently reported that the itinerant philosopher VOLNEY has determined shortly to embark for Europe … [T]he day is just at hand when he and other emissaries must quit this land of toleration for the regions of directorial tyranny.
FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
We believe nothing will so much endanger the liberties of the people of any country as frequent wars. They produce a vast accumulation of debt, an immense patronage in the hands of the executive, a great increase in fiscal influence (at all times unfavorable to liberties) and by harassing the people, induce them to trust the defence of their country to standing armies who will soon make some bold and aspiring man the tyrant of his country.
A special meeting of the AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY will be held at their Hall at 7 o’clock this evening.
Today, Thomas Jefferson writes fellow Virginian John Taylor:
A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolved, and the people recovering their true sight, restoring their government to its true principles … It is hardly necessary to caution you to let nothing of mine get before the public; a single senfence got hold of by the Porcupines will suffice to abuse and persecute me in their papers for months.399
Tonight, the Rev. James Abercrombie of Philadelphia’s Christ Church repeats his anti-French Fast Day sermon before a meeting of the American Philosophical Society. Thomas Jefferson, who has been at every meeting of the society since March, does not attend. The minutes read:
Abercrombie’s Sermon on fast day, May 9, was presented by him. Thanks voted.
Adjourned to this day week.400
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
To the citizens of Queen Anne’s County in … Maryland …
I cannot profess my attachment to the principles of the French Revolution … An anxiety for the establishment of a government in France on the basis of the equal rights of mankind … I feel in common with you …
JOHN ADAMS
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
LONDON [England] … [I]n consequence of the order issued by the House of Peers [Lords] for the apprehension of the proprietor and printer of the Morning Chronicle, Mr. Perry and Mr. Lambert … were … conveyed to Newgate [Prison] by two doorkeepers of the House of Lords. Take care Bache!—Take care, child of Old Franklin!
SATURDAY, JUNE 2, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
From the accounts brought by the packet, it appears that Ireland is in a very unsettled, distracted state; and declared in a state of rebellion.
SHIP NEWS.
PORT OF PHILADELPHIA
Cleared. Brig. Benjamin Franklin, Jones, Bourdeaux.
The ship Benjamin Franklin is preparing to take would-be Americans back to France.
Today, Abigail Adams writes her nephew, William Shaw:
France has Settled her plan of subjugating America. [H]er system is fully known … [S]he can pour in her armies upon us. [S]he can, as she has Done, Arm the Slave against his master, and continue by her Agents and emissaries whom … she boasts of having thickly Scattered through our Country, serving her principles, her depravity of manners, her Atheism, in every part of the United States. [B]y these means she will seduce the mind & sap the foundation of our strongest pillars, religion & Government. These are not visionary ideas of future events. They are now active. They have already proceeded to a most alarming height. It becomes every individual to rise and unite, to stop the progress, to resist the poison before it contaminates our vitals. [L]et not the question be asked what can I do? but what may I do? unite, unite
“As a band of Brothers joined,
peace and safety we shall find”
Form voluntary corps—let every citizen become a soldier and determine, as formerly, on Liberty or Death!401
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
DUPONT, the French consul, who came from Charleston to replace MONS[IEUR] LE TOMBE as [Philadelphia’s French] Consul General has been refused to be received by the President; and, I understand he is going off for France, having obtained a passport for that purpose …
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
The propriety of wearing some badge of distinction is suggested to the different volunteer corps now forming in this city … It has now become necessary to give a military appearance to the United States … Upon the bulk of mankind, parade and even ostentation most forcibly operate, and the sign of a feather or a uniform may give greater aid than could at first be imagined to motives of duty and patriotism … It is not sufficient for this purpose to wear only the [black] cockade, since it is worn by persons who neither are nor mean to become soldiers … Actuated by these opinions, the volunteer company of Philadelphia Grenadiers have entered into a resolution to wear at all times a black feather in their hats and to appear upon Sundays in full uniform …
John Fenno’s twenty-year-old son, John Ward (“Jack”) Fenno, helped to organize the Philadelphia Grenadiers,402 who are joined with the Macpherson’s Blues.403
SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 1798
Today, George Washington writes Judge Alexander Addison of the U.S. District Court of Pennsylvania:
[M]uch good may, and I am persuaded will, result from the investigation of Political heresies when the propagation of them is intended evidently to mislead the multitude who … only require correct information to enable them to decide justly upon all National matters … not like the Demagogues that attempt to impose upon their understandings and … embarrass them more in the prosecution of their system of opposition to the Wheels of Government which they have adopted, and at all events, it would seem, are determined to adhere to …404
Today, James Madison writes Thomas Jefferson:
Whilst it was expected that the unrelenting temper of France would bring on war, the mask of peace was worn by the [Federalist] war party. Now that a contrary appearance on the side of France is intimated, the mask is dropped and the lye openly given to their own professions by [their] pressing measures which must force France into War.405
MONDAY, JUNE 4, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
REPUBLICAN BLUES
Citizens desirous to attach themselves to this Company are requested to apply to a Committee of the Company who will sit at the house of Abraham Morrow, Chestnut-street on Tuesday, Thursday & Sunday; or at the sign of the Cock and Lion, corner of Coates’ and Second-streets, on Wednesday and Friday evenings, between the hours of 7 & 9 o’clock.
Today, the Philadelphia Infirmary dismisses not only my Irish friend Dr. Jimmy Reynolds,406 but also Benny’s brother, William, and the other four doctors who wrote in Jimmy Reynolds’ defense.407
Fearing Federalist militias, friends of the Aurora are forming their own private militia, the “Republican Blues,” which Benny’s brother, William, will lead.408
Today, Thomas Jefferson writes a letter of introduction for Quaker George Logan, who is getting ready to leave for France:
I, Thomas Jefferson, do hereby certify that George Logan … is a citizen of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania and of the United States, of one of the most ancient and respectable families of the said commonwealth, of independent fortune, good morals, irreproachable conduct, and true civism …409
Today, French philosopher Constantin-François Volney announces his plans to leave:
Determined to leave this country immediately, I inform the public that the translation of my book, the RUINS, announced two years ago, and which I was to direct, is stopped and cannot take place …410
Today, in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Annals report:
SEDITIOUS PRACTICES
MR. SEWALL [Federalist, Massachusetts], from the Committee for the Protection of Commerce and the Defence of the Country reported a bill
… that any alien resident … who shall be a notorious fugitive from justice upon the charge of treasonable practices in any foreign State or country or whose continuance within the United States shall be, in the opinion of the President, injurious to the public peace … may be required to depart from the country …
And if any person, whether alien or citizen … discourage any person … under the Government … from undertaking his trust … by any writing, printing, or advised speaking … [such person] may be punished … by imprisonment …411
Today, Jimmy Callender, a “notorious fugitive” from Scottish “justice,” who arrived in America just five years and one week ago, rushes to take his citizenship oath at Pennsylvania’s Court of Common Pleas.412
Tonight, the Gazette of the United States reveals that Thomas Jefferson is helping the Aurora:
HELP! OH! HELP! …
We have it from good authority that a certain gentleman of high station in our Government has written on to Virginia “earnestly soliciting his partizans and all their influential men in his part of the country to exert themselves to procure subscriptions to the A U R O R A, or the paper must fall, many Subscribers having lately withdrawn.” Strange Revolution!
Aurora about to set, to rise no more!
Aurora, that rose to profit all, should fail to profit herself!
TUESDAY, JUNE 5, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Mr. Fenno, in last evening’s paper, states that a certain gentleman of high station in our government has written to Virginia, recommending to his friends to exert themselves in procuring subscriptions to the Aurora, or the paper must fall, many subscriptions having lately withdrawn. We can readily believe that there are persons high in office, even in the federal government, friendly to the cause of liberty and equal rights, & to the genuine principles of the constitution … who would, therefore, be ready to promote the circulation of the Aurora. But the inference therefrom that the paper must fall without additional support or that many subscribers have lately withdrawn is FALSE. The paper never brought in more money than it does now. It had never a more extensive circulation than at present, and its circulation is as extensive, at least, as that of the Gazette of the United States. It is true, nevertheless, that it has never been a very lucrative establishment; but it may become so, and, in the meantime it is reasonable to support itself and the proprietor of it without “benefactions” from any individual whatever.
As Poor Richard advised,
Let thy Discontents be Secrets.413
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
OF REPUBLICAN MODESTY
Take the following sample from the dying lips of the Jacobin Aurora. “We can readily believe that there are persons high in office … ready to promote the circulation of the Aurora.”
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette, Peter Porcupine writes:
In order to avoid the operation of the … law with respect to fugitive ALIENS, the CAITIFF CALLENDER went yesterday and offered himself as a Citizen of the United States and was admitted.
Tonight, a bad omen … Benjamin Jones, a tailor in Fromberger’s court, dies a horrible death. A report:
Mr. Jones had been but six or seven weeks resident in Philadelphia. About seven or eight months previous, he had been bit by a dog supposed to be mad. He was delirious and attempted to bite his attendants. These circumstances produced suspicion that he had the hydrophobia; but his physician, Dr. Physick, who opened his body after death, asserted it to be the yellow fever.414
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
TEXT
“Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of Speech or of the press …”
COMMENTARY
A BILL
For the prevention and restraint of dangerous and seditious persons …
Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, … if any person … shall, by any writing, printing or advised speaking, threaten [a public official] … with any damage to his character … shall and may be punished …
The above Bill is to be debated in committee of the whole house [of representatives] this day.
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
A few days ago, a committee of the House of Representatives reported a bill [that] … proposes that “any alien resident … who shall be a notorious fugitive from justice … in any foreign state or country … may be required to depart the country …” The miscreant CALLENDER saw that this bill would very soon send him back to Britain … [T]o avoid this long and disagreeable journey, he flew to the shelter of citizenship. He went on Monday last into the court of Nisi Prius … Here Thomas Leiper, a snuff-grinder [tobacconist], swore that he had known Callender for upwards of four years; that during that time he had been … attached to the constitution of the United States … [T]his we have it in our power to prove to be false … In his [Callender’s] History of the United States for 1796, he says … “the Federal Constitution was framed in darkness.” He represents the proceedings of the [FEDERAL CONSTITUTIONAL] CONVENTION as “clandestine” … In his Sketches of the History of America, … on the power which the constitution gives to the President and the Senate, he concludes thus: “This may be called REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT, but is evidently the dregs of Monarchy and Aristocracy.”
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
The Editor of the Aurora, to keep his readers in the dark as much as possible … omits the publication of the [laudatory] addresses to the government from almost every part of the Union …
THURSDAY, JUNE 7, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The Tories are … determined on war; they know that the conduct and language of the Executive make war unavoidable; they are therefore resolved to be … the first to strike a blow … The present is really a crisis in our affairs. Those members of the legislature who are absent should instantly repair to their posts, & the People, as they value the blessings of peace and their liberties (for their rights will always be more or less endangered in the turmoil of war), should meet and, by firm and manly remonstrances to their Representatives, avert the evils that threaten.
Regrettably, Republicans won’t return.
War … This morning, by report, the second of the navy’s new warships is at sea against France:
[T]he frigate United States, John Barry Esq. commander, weighed anchor and sailed down river. She reached the fort and came to about noon.415
Today, Thomas Jefferson writes James Madison:
[T]hey have brought into the lower house a sedition bill which, among other enormities, undertakes to make printing certain matters criminal, though one of the amendments to the Constitution has so expressly taken religion, printing presses, &c. out of their coercion. Indeed this bill and the alien bill both are so palpably in the teeth of the Constitution as to show they mean to pay no respect to it. The citizen bill passed by the lower house sleeps in a Committee of the Senate. In the meantime, Callender, a principal object of it, has eluded it by getting himself made a citizen. Volney is gone. So is Dupont, the rejected consul …416
Today, the brig Benjamin Franklin departs Philadelphia for France. Chartered by Frenchmen who now seek refuge from America and cleared for departure by U.S. Secretary of State Pickering, the Benjamin Franklin carries, among others, Constantin-François Volney (the great literary figure of the Enlightenment) and Victor Marie Dupont (the new consul general from France that John Adams has refused to receive).417 Fifteen such shiploads will flee America this year.418
Today, Federalist party leader Alexander Hamilton urges Secretary of State Pickering to expel French nationals:
If an alien Bill passes I should like to know what policy on exequaturs is likely to govern the Executive. My opinion is that while the mass ought to be obliged to leave the Country, the provisions in our Treaties in favor of Merchants ought to be observed & there ought to be guarded exceptions of characters whose situations would expose them too much if sent away … There are a few such.419
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette, Peter Porcupine writes:
THE [MOST RECENT] DISPATCHES from our envoys at Paris … present us nothing new. They only place all the propositions of X, Y, Z to the account of the [French] minister of Foreign Affairs. Infamous BACHE can therefore no longer impute the insolent demands to “unauthorized agents.” Talleyrand … is no unauthorized agent.
How [Dr. James Reynolds] ever came to be admitted as a Physician to so respectable an institution as the Philadelphia Dispensary, I know not; but I know that several of the most liberal contributors lately expressed their determination to withdraw their aid from it if he was suffered to remain. In consequence of which, he was, last Monday, turned out by the Managers. His colleagues (amongst whom was Bache the printer’s Brother) had the impertinence to resent the measure, in consequence of which the Managers very politely informed them that their services also were dispensed with!!!
This is worthy … [of] imitation, not only of every institution of this kind, but of every department of government. It is time that the foes of the nation should feel its resentment—If they love France, to France let them go. It is mere nonsense to say that the politics of a man ought to be no exception to him in the common concerns of life. A man’s politics, at this time, are every thing. I would sooner have my wounds dressed by a dog than a democrat.
A personal note … Today, my rent is one week overdue, so my landlady, an unconscionable foul mouthed Dutch woman, seized on my goods, notwithstanding that my wife, Catherine, is very ill and I have to ransom my possessions that I may go to business. Yet I know Benny can’t pay me more.420
FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
TO HIS SERENE HIGHNESS JOHN ADAMS—PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES—SIRE
… As the present moment is the rage for Addresses, … I have … yielded …
In common with those who detest mob government, I beheld your election … with inexpressible rapture … [T]he people would enjoy the happy tranquillity of being “well governed” without the trouble of governing themselves.—Every reasonable man must admit the truth of your opinion that governments of the people are governments of disorder and anarchy and that checks and balances of monarchy and aristocracy ought to be engrafted on every well regulated constitution … Away, sir, with those Frenchified doctrines that teach men to believe they are all created equal and that God has dispensed to all the same rights—they are atheistical …
The factions and “unprincipled mercenaries” who opposed your election compose no part of the American citizens … Sir, the very attempt to keep you from the presidency is proof of their alliance with a foreign nation and of their love of faction!!! What, could men who had their country’s good at heart have aided in opposition to you! To you, who are the oracle of all wisdom and the fountain of all patriotism! …
DEMOCRITUS
War measures … Today, the U.S. Senate passes the alien bill.
Today, Benny Bache writes an Aurora subscriber who wants to cancel his subscription:
Dear Sir … [Y]ou are backed in your determination to withdraw your support by no less a man than the President of the United States who has also lately decided my paper is no longer to be sent him, and if he should be able to discover—-from the clue given by this letter—your name, it may probably recommend you to his good graces.
Any thing in the shape of persecution against the cause which I have espoused … will meet with the countenance of our federal executive …
You may have … heard me speak of an unprovoked, premeditated, assassin-like, and cowardly assault upon my person on board the Frigate United States. The perpetrator of that foul deed has been taken by the hand by the Executive and has been sent the bearer of special dispatches to France …
To take this marked notice of a man who was yet under penalty of the law … is giving direct encouragement to assassination and setting a price upon my head. You may suppose that, in writing thus freely, I may expose myself to further outrage.421
The President’s appointment of Clement Humphreys might remind us of Poor Richard’s adage:
Pardoning the Bad is injuring the Good.422
Jimmy Callender:
[T]he case of Humphries demonstrates how gladly those who professed to applaud his intended murder and who paid his fine would butcher if they dared.423
Today, Abigail Adams writes her sister:
I was out yesterday at the Farm of Judge Peters calld Belmont. It is in all its Glory. I have been twice there … The Judge is an old friend and acquaintance of the President …
We have just got a Pamphlet from France, abusive as Thom. Paines against Washington, part Prose & part Poetry, the very language of their Party here, the very words of Bache & Volney in some parts of it …424
SUNDAY, JUNE 10, 1798
Today, James Madison writes Thomas Jefferson:
The law for capturing French privateers may certainly be deemed a formal commencement of hostilities and renders all hope of peace vain, unless a progress in amicable arrangements at Paris, not to be expected, should have secured it against the designs of our Gover[nment] …
The answers of Mr. Adams to his addressers form the most grotesque scene in the tragicomedy acting by the Gover[nment] … He is verifying compleatly the last feature in the character drawn of him by Dr. F.[ranklin] … “Always an honest man, often a wise one, but sometimes wholly out of his senses.”425
Poor Richard also said,
A Man in a Passion rides a mad Horse.426
MONDAY, JUNE 11, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
It has been surmised that the editors of well affected papers are about forming themselves into a corps to be armed in the Parthian [defensive] manner …