American Aurora

I received a visit from Thomas Jefferson who told me he had been greatly concerned for me … He said … he was himself dogged and watched in the most extraordinary manner; and he apologized for the lateness of his visit (for we were at tea when he arrived) by saying that, in order to elude the curiosity of his spies, he had not taken the direct road but had come by a circuitous route by the Falls of Schuylkill … He spoke of the temper of the times and of the late acts of the Legislature with a sort of despair, but said he thought even the shadows of our liberties must be gone if they attempted anything that would injure me …

Today, the Quaker peace petitioner Dr. George Logan departs on his private peace mission to France. His wife, Deborah, explains:

At length, after having disposed of two parcels of real estate very cheaply in order to obtain funds to undertake the voyage and … pay off all his debts, on the 12th of June, 1798, he left me and his children, and his pleasant home at Stenton, and embarked on board the “Iris” a neutral vessel bound for Hamburg … When he left me, indeed I was as completely miserable as I could be, whilst innocent myself and united to a man whose honor I knew to be without stain. But I found it necessary, by a strong effort, to control my feelings. As soon as his [Federalist] committee of surveillance missed their charge, there was a prodigious stir in the city; they looked upon each other with blank faces as having suffered an adroit enemy to escape their vigilance. Some idea may be formed of the temper of the time when I add that … Dr. Rush … suffered himself to be one of this committee …⁴²⁸

The loss of subscribers has worsened the Aurora’s financial condition. Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:

To the Generous, Humane, and Charitable …

Ben Surgo, the Grandson of the great Philosopher “qui eripuit coelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis” … [is] suffering from the obstinacy of the Federal Government … It is useless to dwell on the merits of the [Gazette] published by the aforesaid Citizen … [T]o the Grandson of the reknowned Lightening-catcher, we are indebted for early and large-editions of those excellent works, [Tom Paine’s writing against established religion,] the Age of Reason, [Tom Paine’s] Letter to George Washington, and a string of et ceteras … The immortal Paine … is employed in writing a book to be entitled “Treachery a Virtue.” … Surgo, the correspondent of the celebrated and virtuous Paine, will undoubtedly have it first in America. With such powerful claims on your purses, is there a man who can refuse some assistance …? Surgo’s butcher’s bill unpaid, he has not credit for a shin of beef … —Alas! alas! If this pathetic narrative should not have the desired effect, the shade of the great Franklin … will view with the deepest afflictions our degeneracy and apathy with respect to his meritorious grandson.

Today, my fellow Irish scribbler John Daly Burk becomes co-editor of the New York Time Piece, a thrice-weekly newspaper published in New York City.⁴²⁹ In today’s paper, he explains his editorial policy:

The spirit of the Paper shall be wholly Republican. It will support the Federal Constitution. But its Federalism will not be of that kind which displays itself in mean sycophantic compliance with every act of Administration, in clamouring for … a government of terror in efforts to suppress liberty of speech and the press. It will love the Constitution as it ought to be loved, for its excellence, for its republicanism; and will hold up to public abhorrence those who attempt to violate it, whatever be their professions.—This is our Federalism.

War measures … Today, John Adams approves and signs into law,

AN ACT

To suspend the commercial intercourse between the
United States and France, and the dependencies thereof.

Be it enacted, &c., That no ship or vessel owned, hired, or employed, wholly or in part, by any person resident in the United States … shall be allowed to proceed … to any port or place within the territory of the French Republic or the dependencies thereof … or shall be employed in any traffic or commerce with, or for any person resident within the jurisdiction, or under the authority of the French Republic …⁴³⁰

Bache … would be well to recollect that though he has not nominally renounced his allegiance to the United States and therefore is yet entitled to the privileges of a Citizen, it is no part of those privileges to misrepresent the proceedings of either branch of the legislature or to calumniate its members—that both houses are in duty bound to protect their members, and that he owes his impunity to their forbearance and his own insignificance.—He ought not to presume too far.

We hasten to communicate to our Readers the following very

IMPORTANT STATE PAPER

From the French Minister of Foreign Affairs

to the American Commissioners

Paris … 18th March 1798 …

It is an incontestable truth … that France is entitled to a priority of complaints and of grievances … before the United States had the least foundation for either... [A]ll the grievances exhibited by the [American] commissioners and envoys extraordinary, with some exceptions that the undersigned was ready to discuss, are a necessary consequence of the measures which the prior conduct of the United States has rendered justifiable on the part of the French Republic …

Complaint was made [by France] … of the non-execution of the only clauses of the treaties concluded in 1778 in which France has stipulated some advantages in return for the efforts she had engaged [to win America’s independence]. [C]ontrary to the letter of the Treaty of Commerce of 1778 … the French were entirely discouraged from cruising in the American seas against an enemy … The French government endeavored in vain to … procure … privileges to our commerce and navigation the principle of which was well established by the treaties of 1778 …

What has been, till [recently], the conduct of the French government toward the United States? … Scarcely was the Republic [of France] constituted when we sent a minister [Edmund Genět] to Philadelphia whose first step was to declare to the United States that they should not be urged to carry into execution the defensive clauses of the Treaty of alliance [requiring the United States to defend the French West Indies islands against the British] …

Yet it will hardly be believed that the French Republic and her [American] alliance were actually sacrificed at the very moment she was giving to her ally increased proof of her attention … Mr. [John] Jay … signing a Treaty [with Britain] … to make the neutrality of the United States operate to the disadvantage of the French Republic and to the advantage of England … French cruisers were notified … they could not longer … sell their prizes in the ports of the United States. This decision was grounded … on the treaty concluded between the United States and Great Britain …

Such are the motives which have prompted the arretes [decrees] of the Directory of which the United States complain, as well as the conduct of its agents in the West Indies [seizing American shipping]. All those measures are founded on the Article II of the treaty of 1778 [between the U.S. and France] which provides that, as to navigation and commerce, France shall always stand in relation to the United States on the footing of the most favored nation. The Executive Directory cannot be blamed if … this clause has produced some inconveniences to the American flag. As to abuses which may have arisen under the operation of that principle, the undersigned again repeats—that he was ready to discuss them in the most amicable manner…

(Signed) CH. MAU. TALLEYRAND

We have good reason to believe that [the] administration have been for more than a week in possession of the important State Paper which we this day communicate. Is it not astonishing that it should so long have been kept secret[?] Surely, while Congress are engaged in determining on the awful alternative of peace or war, they should be possessed of the fullest and earliest information … or are they to be the mere puppets of the Executive[?] We shall strike off an extra number of our paper this day …

Today’s publication of the Talleyrand letter is the scoop of the year. It should give the lie to those who say France doesn’t want to negotiate.

Benny and I share Talleyrand’s perspective.⁴³¹ During the American Revolution while Washington was leading American forces against Britain, the Continental Congress dispatched Ben Franklin and John Adams to get French help. In February of 1778, a Treaty of Alliance and a Treaty of Amity and Commerce were signed with France, providing that, in exchange for France’s entering the war on America’s side, America would always defend France’s islands in the West Indies (Caribbean), would always let France take prizes (i.e., ships France captures from her enemies) into American ports, and would not allow any nation except France to outfit privateers (privately commissioned vessels of war) in American ports. By these treaties, France and America pledged to honor each other’s freedom of the seas, meaning the freedom to carry trade anywhere, even to the ports of the other’s enemies during wartime (with the obvious exception of military contraband). Finally, America promised to treat France, in commerce and navigation, as favorably as America treated her most favored of other nations.

Fifteen years later, France called for help under these treaties. Ben Franklin was dead. George Washington and John Adams were governing America.

In early 1793, two weeks after the French Revolution guillotined the King of France, Britain’s King George III went to war against the new French Republic to end French democracy and to restore monarchical rule. Two weeks thereafter, the French Republic dispatched its first American ambassador, Edmond Genět, to ask for American help.

Genět would make clear that France was not asking—as well she might—for America to defend France’s islands in the West Indies, but France did want to sell French prizes and outfit privateers in American ports. Suddenly, Washington and Adams had to decide how to treat America’s old and only ally.

As “an Old French Soldier” asked in the pages of the Philadelphia Aurora, “Who would have thought, when the blood of Frenchmen drenched the foundation of the temple of your [American] liberty, that a day would come when the interests of your former tyrants and those of your allies should be weighed in the same balance …?”⁴³²

But that day had come. Within twenty-four hours of Genět’s arrival in Philadelphia and even before he met with the President, George Washington issued his Neutrality Proclamation of 1793, declaring, in effect, that America would not help France. When the French ambassador threatened to appeal to the American people, Washington asked France to recall Edmond Genět.

As America was abandoning its old French ally, its old enemy, Great Britain, continued to seize American shipping to French ports, abducting (impressing) into the British navy large numbers of American seaman whose American citizenship Britain refused to recognize. In 1794, under pressure from these attacks, Washington dispatched Federalist John Jay to conciliate Britain, whereupon Jay negotiated and Washington signed the so-called Jay Treaty of 1795 (also known as the “British treaty”), which promised Britain that America would not permit France to sell prizes or outfit privateers in American ports (Articles XXIV and XXV) and which recognized Britain’s right to seize any American shipments—even nonmilitary shipments like food—to French ports, even to ports in the French islands America had promised to defend (Article XVII).

John Jay was familiar with America’s obligations to France. Jay had also gone to France during America’s Revolution and, with Ben Franklin and John Adams, negotiated the treaty that ended America’s Revolutionary War. Yet, ten years later, Jay negotiated this shameful treaty.

That’s what brings America to the crisis of 1798. French reaction to the Jay Treaty has been to treat American shipping on the same unfavorable basis (“as favorably”) as Jay and Washington agreed Britain could treat it. That’s what January’s decree promises to do. Despite America’s proclamation of neutrality, France will seize any American ship with a British product on board. How could France do otherwise? How could America permit Britain to seize American food and other nonmilitary shipments to France while France was obligated, by her American treaties, not to impede such American shipments to Britain? France has every right to be outraged, and France is doing no more than what America permits Britain to do.⁴³³ Freedom of the seas is gone.

Last year, Benny addressed Washington’s conduct in a powerful pamphlet, Remarks Occasioned by the Late Conduct of Mr. Washington, President of the United States, including,

Such however is the fate of America that, after having kept the world in flames for above seven years to save her own liberties; yet, before twice seven years are expired, she makes herself an instrument to undo the liberties of [France] her great benefactor; to increase the power of [Britain] her only persecutor; to surrender the rights of neutral nations … finally to enter into stipulations for spreading famine among mankind during war … This pursuit of the new friendship of [Britain,] an arbitrary court, and this rejection of the old alliance of [France,] a freed nation, speak for themselves.—Let each American take this subject to his pillow …⁴³⁴

[N]othing is more obvious than that France intends not to make war on us, so that our administration has the merit exclusively of precipitating us into that state … France has been roused against us by the administration who have never lost a moment to keep her [France’s] resentment at the height by multiplying the causes of irritation daily …⁴³⁵

Today, volunteers swell the ranks of the Macpherson’s Blues to six hundred men. Macpherson’s Blues now controls the First Troop of City Cavalry, the Second Troop of City Cavalry, separate companies of Grenadiers, Artillery, and Riflemen, four companies of Infantry (Blues), and a Germantown infantry company.⁴³⁶

The hireling Bache has this morning published a letter from the French Minister of Foreign Affairs to our envoys in Paris, dated the 18th of March last … Talleyrand says the Directory were astonished to hear America complain, when the grievances were all on the side of France!—He then goes over the old hackneyed topics of … BACHE, respecting the British Treaty … [I]t is certain that BACHE has received this letter from France or from some French agent here for the express purpose of drawing off the people from the Government, of exciting discontents, and to procure a fatal DELAY of preparation for war. The prostitute printer has announced that he has struck off an extraordinary number of the gazette … Ought not Bache to be regarded as an organ of the diplomatic skill of France? And ought such a wretch be tolerated at this time?

Whether the Editor of the Aurora is an official agent of the French Directory or not, time will elucidate. There is, however, not a doubt that he was furnished with the State Paper published in the Aurora this morning before it was received by the Executive of the United States … —By what means can it be supposed such a paper, if it be genuine, could come into the hands of any individual in his private capacity unless by transmission from the government of France itself or from our envoys? … Can the latter be supposed to hold correspondence with Bache or his office?

MR. FENNO, What better proof do we want of the diplomatic skill of France—The document this day published in the Aurora was received the day before yesterday, in French, together with an answer from our commissioners which is voluminous. The clerks have been engaged in translating one and copying the other—But behold master Ben has a translation cut and dried …

Today, one of America’s three envoys to France, John Marshall, arrives back in Philadelphia. John Fenno describes his reception:

The three corps [of Philadelphia cavalry] … turned out in full uniform. The concourse of citizens in carriages, on horseback, and on foot was immense … Mr. Marshall was met by his applauding fellow-citizens about 6 miles from the city and escorted through the principal streets to the City Tavern amidst the ringing of bells and the shouts of the exulting multitude. Even in the Northern Liberties where the demos of anarchy and confusion are attempting to organize treason and death, repeated shouts of applause were given as the cavalcade approached and passed along.⁴³⁷

War measures … Today, at midday, President Adams receives the Macpherson’s Blues and their commandant, William Macpherson. The President addresses the assemblage:

THIS dedication of yours, in the presence of God and the world, to defend—against the attacks of arrogance, injustice, and lawless ambition—that happy system of government you have inherited from your fathers, cemented by the best blood of America and sanctioned by your own approbation, is very solemn and affecting … I am fully convinced that America must reassume the warlike character … I accept with pleasure your services …⁴³⁸

AN ACT

Supplementary to and to amend an act, entitled
“An Act to establish an uniform rule of Naturalization,”
and to repeal the act heretofore passed on that subject.

Be it enacted, &c., That no alien shall be admitted to become a citizen of the United States or any State unless … he has resided within the United States fourteen years at least …⁴³⁹

By prolonging the residency requirement from five to fourteen years, John Adams keeps those who are refugees from the British monarch or Robespierre’s despotism from following Jimmy Callender’s route to American citizenship. Such European democrats will remain aliens and will soon be subject to Adams’ arbitrary control.⁴⁴⁰ Adams forgets Poor Richard’s admonition,

No longer virtuous no longer free is a Maxim as true
with regard to a private Person as a Common-wealth.⁴⁴¹

Today, John Adams delivers to Congress Dispatch No. 8 from the Paris envoys, including the Talleyrand letter that Benny published two days ago.⁴⁴² In the House of Representatives, the Annals of Congress report:

MR. THATCHER [Federalist, Massachusetts] stated … It was well known that the letter of Mr. Talleyrand had already been printed in the French paper of this city, and he believed by order of the Executive Directory … [H]e saw … the Executive Directory and its agents taking extraordinary means to spread that letter …

Mr. T. CLAIBORNE [Republican, Virginia] did not understand what the gentleman meant in saying he believed certain persons are French agents.

Mr. THATCHER [Federalist, Massachusetts] said he considered the printer of the paper to which he had alluded as an agent of the French Directory, and he hoped soon to lay before the House satisfactory evidence of the fact.

Mr. HARPER [Federalist, S. Carolina] … It had long been manifest to him that France had her secret agents in this country … and the act of Saturday was only one of the ramifications of the scheme.⁴⁴³

Today, Federalist U.S. Senator James Lloyd of Maryland writes George Washington,

You will, before this reaches you, have seen Talleyrand’s puny performance which was first published by Bache … Bache was in possession of Talleyrand’s note before the dispatches were received by our government but it was not known how he came by them ‘till Saturday when a Mr. Keeder told a number of Gazette men at the City Tavern that he had received a packet for Bache sealed with the seal of the minister of exterior relations … and that he had delivered the packet to Bache …

Your most obedt Servant,
James Lloyd

P.S. We shall soon declare the Treaty with France void and pass a strong act to punish Sedition. Doctor Logan left the City this morning for France. This Gov’t had information of his intentions but … we have no law by which he could be laid hold of.⁴⁴⁴

The letter was without any doubt sent to Bache from Talleyrand himself, and its object, it is very clear, was to deceive the people … and to prepare the way for an invasion …

Doctor LOGAN is just departed for France! Recollect his connections; recollect that seditious envoys from all the Republics that France has subjugated first went to Paris and concerted measures with the despots … The whole of this business is not come to light yet … In the mean time, watch, Philadelphians, or the fire is in your houses and the couteau [knife] at your throats.—A guard should be mounted every night in this city.— Take care; or, when your blood runs down the gutters, don’t say you were not forewarned of the danger!

In the beginning of last week arrived in this city Mr. Keeder from Paris, with dispatches from the French Directory to Benjamin Bache, Printer of the Aurora, under the seal of Mr. Talleyrand …

Mr. Harper, in the House yesterday, spoke obscurely of conspiracies … Mr. Thatcher [observed] … “that he considered the French paper of this city, who had published his letter of Talleyrand, as agent of the French Directory, and he hoped soon to be able to convince the house of the fact by satisfactory evidence.“… This attack is a link in the chain of persecution by which it is attempted to injure the Aurora and muzzle the press … Mr. Thatcher’s charge against us, we say, is a base calumny: — it is false. He has promised proof in support of it … We dare him …

In conversation a few days ago, a federalist made use of this declaration: “wait, said he, ’till the sedition bill is passed and then we shall show you what we will do—we will begin first with JEFFERSON and GALLATIN, banish them and then we will take the others one by one.” This declaration ought to be proclaimed from the house top that the people may be made acquainted with the true designs of federalism.

On Saturday morning, before the House of Representatives met, the friends of order as they call themselves met in groups in different parts of the hall: “where did this Bache get the State Paper he published this morning?” No one can tell … Mr. Otis trudged away to the Secretary of State to advise him to [send] … Talleyrand’s note and our commissioners’ answer … to Porcupine and Fenno to appear in their papers of that evening. Timothy [Pickering] did not like this and observed, with a cunning look, that it would be better to give it out that the communications had been just received in cypher …

So much for Bache’s printing Talleyrand’s letter: if it had not been for this free press which is not under the direction of his Excellency, the People of America would not have known of Mr. Talleyrand’s dispatch until after they had been “committed by a declaration of war” which a Federal Representative has said they ought to be.

How did the Editor of the Aurora get M. Talleyrand’s letter [?] … (In answer … we can only at present say that it is a lie that we received the letter of Talleyrand from France. More of this in our next.)

Last Saturday afternoon, we could not avoid an immoderate fit of laughter on casting a first glance at that thing which pensioner Fenno calls the Gazette. He had been obliged … to borrow from a hostile, we scorn to say rival, print the most interesting state paper [from French Foreign Minister Talleyrand] …

Fenno … lost his patience … He [had] no less than four pieces … reviling Ben for doing himself on Saturday last what Mr. Adams could and should have done a week or ten days before.

To be sure it was a very jacobinical, democratical, anti-presidential, unconstitutional trick in the said Editor of the Aurora to let Congress and the American people into their own business. Who knows but what this production may stop or check the stream of warlike addresses and most warlike answers. It may clog the maturity of the war bills and give our hen-hearted Republican Representatives a fillip of courage in their replies …

[I]n any other Country, Bache & all his papers would have been seazd and ought to be here, but congress are dilly dallying about passing a Bill enabling the President to seize suspicious persons and their papers … I am weary of conjectures, so I shall say nothing of when it is probable Congress will rise. I believe they will declare war against the French first.⁴⁴⁵

I have long said (and I have been joined by the public voice) that the infamous Lightening-Rod, Jun. was a hireling of and in correspondence with the Despots of France. The fact is now PROVED beyond all contradiction, and it is with infinite satisfaction that I lay the proof of it before the people of America.

AMERICANS—Beware of French Intrigue! and Of your own CITIZENS who are agents for the French!!!

[Benny is] going fast to destruction … I am afraid very fatal consequences will attend his publishing the pieces he does.⁴⁴⁷

Monsieur Bache … affects to be mightily offended at being called a French Agent … There can be no doubt but that, to the extent of his poor abilities, he is a French agent …

He is but a luke-warm friend who waivers in the cause of his country … “He that is not for us is against us.”

BACHE (the grandson of Old Franklin) published a LETTER … sent off from Paris the moment TALLEYRAND’S letter was delivered to our envoys there … BACHE was able to get his out first; but learning that those of the government were about to appear … he then accused the government of having had an intention to keep the dispatches a secret in order to blind the people and betray them into war!

TALLEYRAND’S LETTER.

The following affidavit will save those that know the Editor the trouble of wading through the subjoined legal detail.

—City of Philadelphia, . On the 20th of June, 1798, personally appeared before me, Hilary Baker, Mayor of the city of Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin Bache; who, being duly sworn, deposed and said: That the letter signed Ch. Mau. Talleyrand and, which appeared in his newspaper, the Aurora, on Saturday last, was not received by him from France; that it was delivered to him for publication by a gentleman of this city; that he never received the letter said to have been put into the post office for him, in a piece signed John Kidder …

BENJ. FRANKLIN BACHE.—

Sworn before me, HILARY BAKER, Mayor.

I have gone through this … to show … the groundlessness of the calumnies … and to avoid satisfying them as to the source from which I really had the letter. The administration, however—we doubt not—by this time have discovered whence [and] … can inform me where I shall find my [other undelivered] letter, said to be sealed with the seal of the French department of Foreign Affairs … Even if the seal should be broken or the letter defaced, I shall attribute it to accident, & never suspect them of having done either. Provided the pamphlet be whole, they will receive the thanks of THE EDITOR OF THE AURORA.

War measures … Today, in the U.S. House of Representatives, Republican Edward Livingston of New York speaks against an alien bill that would allow John Adams to expel, without notice and without a hearing, any non-citizen who excites the President’s suspicions. The Annals of Congress report:

ALIENS …

Mr. [Edward] LIVINGSTON [Republican, New York], [stated that] the crime is “exciting the suspicions of the President,” but no man can tell what conduct will avoid that suspicion—-a careless word, perhaps misrepresented or never spoken may be sufficient evidence; a look may destroy; an idle gesture may insure punishment …

Judiciary power is taken from the courts and given to the executive …; the trial by jury is abolished; the “public trial” required by the Constitution is changed into a secret and worse than inquisitorial tribunal … No indictment; no jury; no trial; no public procedure; no statement of the accusation; no examination of witnesses in its support; no counsel for defence; all is dark, silence, mystery, and suspicion …

If we are ready to violate the constitution we have sworn to defend—will the people submit to our unauthorized acts? … Sir, they ought not to submit … For let no man vainly imagine that the evil is to stop here, that a few unprotected aliens are only to be affected by this inquisitorial power. The same arguments which enforce these provisions against aliens apply with equal strength to enacting them in the case of citizens … You have already been told of plots and conspiracies; and all the frightful images that were necessary to keep up the present system of terror and alarm were presented to you. But who were implicated by these dark hints—these mysterious allusions? They were our own citizens, sir, not aliens. If there is then any necessity for the system now proposed, it is more necessary to be enforced against our own citizens than against strangers; and I have no doubt that, either in this or some other shape, it will be attempted. I must ask, sir, whether the people of America are prepared for this? … Whether they are ready to submit to imprisonment or exile whenever suspicion, calumny or vengeance shall mark them for ruin? Are they base enough to be prepared for this? No sir; they will, I repeat it, they will resist this tyrannic system; the people will oppose it …

Mr. KITTERA [Federalist, Pennsylvania] said he hoped that this bill … would be followed by a strong sedition bill; and that they would, together, preserve us from the dangers with which we are threatened from internal enemies …⁴⁴⁸

UNITED STATES. June 21, 1798.

Gentlemen of the Senate and Gentlemen of the House of Representatives: …

[T]he negotiation may be considered at an end.

I will never send another minister to France without assurances that he will be received, respected, and honored as the representative of a great, free, powerful, and independent nation.

Dr. Logan, about a fortnight ago, sailed for Hamburg, tho’ for a twelve month past he had been intending to go to Europe as soon as he could get money enough to carry him there. Yet when he had accomplished this and fixed a time for going, he very unwisely made a mystery of it: so that his disappearance without notice excited conversations. This was seized by the war hawks and given out as a secret mission for the Jacobins here to solicit an army for France, instruct them as to their landing, &c. This extravagance produced a real panic among the citizens; & happening just when Bache published Talleyrand’s letter, Harper, on the 18th, gravely announced to the H[ouse] of R[epresentatives], that a traitorous correspondence between the Jacobins here and the French Directory; that he had got hold of some threads & clues of it, and would soon be able to develop the whole. This increased the alarm; their libelists immediately set to work, directly & indirectly to implicate whom they pleased. Porcupine gave me a principal share in it, as I am told, for I never read his papers. This state of things added to my reasons for not departing at the time I intended. These follies seem to have died away in some degree already. Perhaps I may renew my purpose [to return to Virginia] by the 25th.⁴⁵⁰

Bache says he never has and never will wittingly deceive the public. I ask him if he has not published a vile falsehood when he charges our government with keeping back the last dispatches from our Envoys …? It is to be remembered that few persons who take the Aurora ever see any other paper.

It is evident from the Statement published by the Editor of the Aurora that he has a Correspondent in the Office of Foreign Affairs at Paris. It is undoubtedly fact also that the correspondence relates to public affairs, as it appears the packets directed to that Editor ARE SEALED WITH THE SEAL OF OFFICE.

BACHE, in his infamous paper of this morning, has published a copy of an affidavit which he has made before the Mayor, denying that TALLEYRAND’S LETTER was sent to him from France. On this subject, I would first ask: WHAT BOOK did Bache swear on? … [T]he reader will recollect that this same BACHE has for several years past been engaged in the cause of Infidelity and Blasphemy: that is, in inculcating a disbelief of and in villifying the Holy Scriptures on which he has now sworn … If I were to swear on Bache’s paper, would such an oath add any thing to the credibility of what I should assert on my bear word?

Could Benny’s publication of the Talleyrand letter deny John Adams his congressional majority for a declaration of war? Talleyrand appears ready to negotiate!

Today is the last day Jimmy Callender will write for the Aurora.⁴⁵¹ He must leave Philadelphia. Federalists are threatening his life. His wife died this spring. He can’t support the children.

AN ACT

Supplementary to, and to amend the act, entitled “an act authorizing the President of the United States to raise a provisional army.”

Be it enacted, &c., That the companies of volunteers and the members of each company who shall be duly engaged and accepted by the President of the United States [in the] … provisional army shall submit to and observe such rules [as] … the President of the United States is hereby authorized to make … And it be further enacted, That the President of the United States may proceed to appoint and commission … so many of the officers … for the raising, organizing, and commanding the provisional army of ten thousand men, as, in his opinion, the public service shall more immediately require …⁴⁵²

Dear Sir …

The prosperity of [my Administration] to the Country will depend upon Heaven and very little on anything in my Power … I have no qualifications for the martial part of it, which is like[ly] to be the most essential. If the Constitution and your Convenience would admit of my Changing Places with you, or of my taking my old station as your Lieutenant civil, I shall have no doubts of the Ultimate Prosperity and Glory of this Country.

In forming an Army, whenever I must come to that extremity, I am at an immense Loss whether to call out all the old Generals or to appoint a young List … I must have you sometimes for Advice … We must have your Name, if you in any case will permit us to use it. There will be more efficacy in it than in many an Army …

[JOHN ADAMS]⁴⁵³

The falling Surgo has filled up two columns of his paper with a vain and futile attempt to demonstrate his innocence … Whether he received the treasonable communication directly from his master or whether it was put into his hands indirectly by any of their secret or open agents in this country is a point of no consequence at all. It is sufficient that he received it in an improper manner. But until some more creditable testimony is opposed to the respectable testimony of Mr. Kidder … it will be impossible to doubt that there was received from the office of the old hobbling cut-throat apostate [French Foreign Minister Talleyrand] a communication for his humble servant and tool in this country …

Bache has published that our Executive, to answer the most nefarious and villainous purposes, kept back for a number of days Talleyrand’s letter to the Envoys and that he the said Bache extorted the publication at last. This is one of the most atrocious libels ever uttered by him or any of his gang; and if there is not vigor in the laws to punish him, the existence of society in the United States is a mere cobweb existence.

In times so alarming as the present, the residence of Volney [a French democrat] and other foreigners who, by a certain line of conduct, made themselves conspicuous strongly attracts the attention of every virtuous American … Americans now have everything in danger, morals, religion, independence, liberty, civil and religious, everything that can be dear to man as a social animal. Our country has been the resort of almost all seditious foreigners of every distinction … It is a matter of the most serious consideration in times so alarming; what is to be done with those vile miscreants …?

Returning to France aboard the chartered ship Benjamin Franklin, Volney, the French philosopher, is two weeks at sea.

[Adv.] NOTICE.

MOREAU de St. MERY … offers for sale:

A complete Printing office wherewith the publication of several works, whether in French or in English may be undertaken at the same time … The remnant of his assortment of books …

Moveables, and other articles too tedious to enumerate.

MOREAU de St. MERY lives at the corner of Front and Callowhill-street.

It is said by some tory papers that Dr. G.[eorge] Logan is gone to Europe … [I]t is said he is gone to persuade those terrible sans-culottes, the French, to come … and prevent us from fasting... But if he is really gone to Europe, how came he to let all those cunning rogues into his secrets?

[Fine-made Italian, that is, foreign) Cremona fiddles are to be ordered out of the kingdom under the Alien Bill: their [tones] being calculated to bring the constitutional music of organs and kettle-drums into contempt.

This morning’s “Cremona fiddles” satire proves Poor Richard’s observation,

The muses love the Morning.⁴⁵⁴

I wish our Legislature would set the example & make a sedition act to hold in order the base Newspaper calumniators.⁴⁵⁵

It is hardly worthwhile to notice that “skunk of scurrility” Bache … [H]is question of this forenoon—“How came the doctor (Logan) to let all these cunning rogues into his secrets?” … I will tell you Bache that the low cunning of the unsteady doctor prudently secreted his errand to Europe from the federalists, but did not the C[hie]f J[ustic]e [of Pennsylvania, Republican Thomas McKean] know it …? Yes, Bache, he did … Do you remember what your grand father Franklin wrote, that “part of the truth is worse than the whole truth”? …

This evening, prominent members of the Adams administration and other leading Federalists attend a rousing 120-person banquet dinner at Philadelphia’s fashionable O’Ellers’ Hotel in Chestnut-street for returning envoy John Marshall. The thirteenth toast is encored with particular enthusiasm:

“Millions for Defence, but not a Cent for Tribute.”⁴⁵⁶

Tonight, the leading merchants of Baltimore, Maryland hold a public dinner for Maryland’s Federalist U.S. Senator John Howard. The third toast volunteered:

A halter of strong hemp, in the place of a French pension, to Bache, printer of the Aurora.⁴⁵⁷

SHORT ADVICE TO BACHE,

In the words of the king of Prussia to the factious Baron Trenck.

“The thunder begins to roll, young man. Take care, for the [lightning] bolt may fall.”

The ire of the ministerialists at Philadelphia is roused at BACHE for having let the cat out of the bag—they can now fully establish their charges of “jacobinical, democratical, disorganizing, anti-presidential;” for doubtless it was all this, and even unconstitutional, to inform Congress and the people of their own business—but how to make it “Conspiracy” will puzzle …

THE PLOT UNRAVELLED

The latest artifice employed by the Tory faction to injure the Aurora has been the accusation directed against its Editor … that he was a French agent … It will be remembered that we were said to have received a letter of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs in a packet through Kidder, and when we proved that we did not, it was contended that there was in existence such a letter as Kidder described and that, as it was sealed with a French official seal, it must contain something treasonable. This mysterious packet … we at length received on Saturday from [Secretary of State Timothy] Pickering, the seal in appearance intact. We detained his messenger and kept [the packet] in his view till two gentlemen could be called in to be witnesses at its being opened, and the following is the result of the examination they made of its contents.

CERTIFICATE

We do hereby certify that, at the request of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN BACHE, we were present at the opening of a Packet … with a seal round which were inscribed the words “REPUBLIQUE FRANÇAISE” and at the bottom “Relations Extérieures” which packet was delivered to Mr. Bache by a messenger from the Secretary of State of the United States. The only things contained in the said Packet were two pamphlets … and, excepting the directions (and the receipts on the cover signed “Oliv. Wolcott” [Secretary of the Treasury] and “T. Pickering” [Secretary of State]), there was not a single word in manuscript …

MATHEW CAREY, JAMES CLAY

While this business of espionage was pursuing, another method was attempted to confound the Editor. Reports were industriously spread that he was arrested,—that he was in jail, that he had fled. Thro’ a channel, almost official, he learnt that the order was actually signed for his arrestation.

What was the object of these reports? It was hoped that they might intimidate; that … he would be induced to fly. But what was his conduct? … [H]e braved their most envenomed malice. When denounced on the floor of Congress, he did not truckle … Neither was the spirit of his paper cowed. His readers will testify that, from the dawn of this week’s presentation, it rose in its spirit—and so it ever shall; persecution shall only fan the flame of his detestation for those whom he considers the enemies of his country. They shall not make him abandon his post for fear of a trial before their tribunals. He will ever prefer death …

The letter directed to the Editor was his property. What right had [Secretary of Treasury] Oliver Wolcott to receive it? and then to send it to a third person [Secretary of State Timothy Pickering]? … And who are the persons who have taken upon themselves thus to violate and injure the rights and character of the Editor? They are officers not even known to the constitution; mere creatures of the executive, subject to his will and pleasure …⁴⁵⁸

Mr. Adams may … explain the creed of a cabinet faction that vindicates the principle … of intercepting letters. Wolcott and Pickering stopt one, addressed to Bache, and while it was in their own custody, while they knew that its contents were strictly innocent, the newspapers under their direction resounded all over America with charges of a treasonable correspondence between Bache and France …⁴⁵⁹

[T]he weather is so Hot and close, and the flies so tormenting that I cannot have any comfort. The mornings … are stagnant. Not a leaf stirs till nine or ten oclock I get up & drop in my chair; without spirits or vigor, breath a sigh for Quincy, and regret that necessity obliges us to remain here. It grows sickly, the city noisome … We have began the use of the cold Bath, and hope it will in some measure compensate for want of braceing air.⁴⁶⁰

Today, at Mount Vernon, George Washington responds to Senator James Lloyd’s June 18th letter concerning Bache’s Talleyrand letter:

I wonder the French Government has not more pride than to expose to the world such flimsy performances as the ministers of it exhibit by way of complaint and argument [in Bache’s Talleyrand letter]. But it is still more to be wondered at that these charges which have been refuted over and over again should find men … [illegible] The Editor of the Aurora … [illegible] and bolder! Whence his support?⁴⁶¹

AN ACT

CONCERNING ALIENS

Be it enacted, &c., That it shall be lawful for the President of the United States, at any time during the continuance of this act, to order all such aliens as he shall judge dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States, or shall have reasonable grounds to suspect are concerned in any treasonable or secret machinations against the government hereof, to depart out of the territory of the United States within such time as shall be expressed in that order …

SEC. 6. And it be further enacted, That this act shall continue and be in force for and during the term of two years from the passing thereof.⁴⁶²

First, John Adams makes it impossible for those who have fled despotism to become citizens, and now he gives himself a despotic right to expel them without notice, without a hearing, and for no better reason than that he “suspects” a “secret machination”! Like the coming sedition act, this alien act will intimidate people into silence. What non-citizen will criticize Adams when Adams can expel him on a whim?

AN ACT

To authorize the defence of the merchant vessels
of the United States against French depredations.

Be it enacted, &c. That the commander and crew of any merchant vessel of the United States … may oppose and defend against any search … [by] any armed vessel sailing under French colors … and may subdue and capture the same …

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That … such [captured] armed vessel … shall accrue one half to the owner or owners of the merchant vessel of the United States and the other half to the captors … in any court to which such captured vessel shall be brought …⁴⁶³

If there are any who plead the cause of France and attempt to paralyse the efforts of your government, I agree with you they ought to be esteemed our greatest enemies.⁴⁶⁴

[T]he “wayward splinter of old Lightening Rod” … Bache … has been an admirer of French politics—the organ of sedition—and the calumniator of WASHINGTON; in fact, the Aurora has been the focus where all productions inimical to the peace, happiness, and above all, the Independence of America centered.

Bache informs his readers that he has at last received a packet with Talleyrand’s seal of office! This packet … contained, they say, two pamphlets … Thus the fact of a correspondence with the enemies of the United States is fully ascertained. It yet remains to satisfy the public how the letter of Talleyrand got to Bache’s hands …

What can be a more complete refutation of all the charges against the sincerity and integrity of our government by Talleyrand, Bache, and Co. than the admirable answer of our ministers?

Today, the U.S. District of Pennsylvania’s federal marshal, William Nichols (whose son was among those who broke windows at the Aurora’s offices),⁴⁶⁵ enters the offices of the Philadelphia Aurora and, on behalf of the United States of America, arrests Benjamin Franklin Bache for the crime of sedition. He takes Benny to Philadelphia’s Federal District Court to answer an indictment for “libelling the President & the Executive Government in a manner tending to excite sedition and opposition to the laws, by sundry publications and republications.” John Adams hasn’t waited for a federal sedition law to pass. The government has based the indictment on Pennsylvania’s common criminal law of sedition, arguing that the U.S. Constitution has adopted Pennsylvania law as a “federal common law.” Benny’s lawyers believe no such “federal common law” exists, and Benny sees his primary defence as the First Amendment’s freedom of the press. Poor Richard believed,

Innocence is its own Defence.⁴⁶⁶

Judge Peters grants a delay until Friday and paroles Benny to the district marshal.⁴⁶⁷

The notorious BACHE, it is said, is at this moment before the honourable Judge Peters.

The President with good intent,

Three Envoys sent to Paris,

But cinq Tetes would not with ’em treat,

Of honor France so bare is …

Chorus Yankee doodle (mind the tune)

Yankee doodle dandy,

If Frenchmen come with naked bum,

We’ll spank ’em hard and handy …

That Talleyrand might us trappan,

And o’er the country sound it;

He sent his pill, t’ Aurora’s mill,

And Benny Faction ground it.

Yankee doodle, &c …

Bold ADAMS did in seventy-six,

Our Independence sign, Sir:

And he will not, give up a jot,

Tho’ all the world combine, Sir.

Yankee doodle, &c…

[E]very native of the United States who now stands opposed to the government thereof must be either a fool or a knave … I believe it will be readily granted that Mr. Bache is bad enough … [N]o doubt he is of the greatest use to [French] leaders in disseminating their poison. He works the most noted engine for throwing filth and spreads it over the continent like a blasting mildew in the pestilential pages of the Aurora which has been prostituted to the vilest purposes … I have no doubt that he will hereafter be execrated by the French as heartily as ever any of our internal traitors were by the English in the American war. They both, more or less, encourage the treason and, alike, despise the traitor. Like all true Americans, I am,

The Editor of the Aurora was yesterday arrested on a warrant from Judge Peters of the Federal Circuit Court on the charge of libelling the President & the Executive Government in a manner tending to excite sedition and opposition to the laws by sundry publications and republications. At the request of his counsel (who were not applied to till the very moment fixed for attendance at the Judge’s), the proceedings were postponed till Friday next, and the Marshall of the district held him upon his parole then to appear. So much may be stated, we presume with propriety, to satisfy the anxiety of the Public, and, for the same purpose, the Editor adds:

That the present prosecution cannot be supported in the Federal Court, according to the recent opinion of Judge CHASE against the opinion of Judge PETERS. He trusts, however, the ultimate decision will turn, not on the right of jurisdiction, but on THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS.

We hope sincerely for the honor of our country and the safety of the Aurora that, if [Mr. Bache] is innocent, he may most cordially prove himself so … We cannot be persuaded to believe that … any native American, much less a descendant of the illustrious Franklin … that HIS grandson has turned assassin and conspirator and aimed the first dagger at our vitals.—But time, we trust, will ere long develop the truth …

Daily Adv.

(We thank the editor of the Daily Advertiser that he was not so far led away by party spirit to condemn the Editor of the Aurora …)

Benny will return to court in two days. Republicans are frightened. Jimmy Callender will soon be gone. Many Republican senators and congressmen have already left. Non-citizens are leaving. Today, Thomas Jefferson leaves for Virginia.⁴⁶⁸

To THOMAS JEFFERSON, Esq.

SIR, I have accidentally heard today that you are about to return to Virginia immediately; pray stay a little longer … leave not your country at this critical period when it is seeking the most effectual means of self-preservation. But if considerations of this kind will not persuade you to tarry a day or two, recollect that your friend Bache is just now prosecuted for some of his false and scandalous stories concerning the Government of the United States which he has published in the Aurora—the same newspaper which you have seditiously endeavored to circulate among your countrymen and for which you have condescended to solicit subscriptions—the same which your fellow laborers on the iniquitous work of alienating the affections and confidence of the people from the administration of their government have used for their engine … &c.—Let me entreat you not to leave the city at a time so interesting to your friend, who you know is also a friend of Monroe, the friend of Logan the implacable enemy to the measures of America, and the devoted friend of France. I beg, I pray, I beseech you not to forsake him, but stay and assist him with your best advice—A friend in need is a friend indeed.

PLINY.

This afternoon’s Porcupine’s Gazette chronicles other occasions when Thomas Jefferson avoided danger:

MUCH has been said of MR. JEFFERSON’S celebrity as a philosopher … [I]t comes to shew … the use he has made of his philosophy, or rather, the manner in which it has operated upon him.

In the latter part of 1776 [during the American Revolution], Mr. Jefferson was elected … to go to Europe in order to solicit foreign alliances; the ocean was at this time covered with the British cruisers … [H]e declined the office.

In 1781, while he was governor of Virginia, the state was invaded by the [British] enemy, and the post of honor became a post of considerable danger … [H]e abandoned it … [T]he state of Virginia suffered very materially by the confusion, loss, and distress which such a sudden resignation produced.

At the close of the American war [of Independence], he obtained the appointment of minister plenipotentiary [to France] … But as soon as the French Revolution began to break out, the times grew too turbulent for his repose, and he returned to America …

[In the Washington administration, S]ecretary of State [Jefferson] … was obliged to speak [on the question of helping France] …; the office became irksome, and Mr. Jefferson most philosophically retreated from it at a period of the greatest difficulty and danger …⁴⁶⁹

Fenno and Porcupine have their point! Mr. Jefferson is an intellectual, not a fighter. Scribblers like Benny and me must take the risks. The general fault which Mr. Jefferson’s friends impute to him is that he is a quiescent and indifferent spectator of public measures … [H]is own friends blame him for too much inactivity, and with justice too … [W]hether Mr. Jefferson thinks his situation as Vice President precludes him from an active concern in politics or that he thinks the evil will work its own cure, he is censured by his most steadfast friends for his coldness and reserve on political issues.⁴⁷⁰ Jefferson won’t even write a “Letter to the Editor.”⁴⁷¹

Benny is frightened, but he’ll do what’s right. Today, he writes a childhood friend who wants to leave Switzerland and seek his fortune in America:

You are better where you are … At this moment, Frenchmen are leaving America in a crowd …

For my part, I have worked nearly eight years for what I believed was the good of my country, but I made no fortune. I have been exposed to political persecutions of every kind. I will triumph, I hope. Meantime, it’s a day of every difficulty. But I am determined to pay whatever the price of doing what I believe to be my duty as a printer who is a zealous friend to liberty.⁴⁷²

The nearest way to come at glory is to do that for conscience which we do for glory.⁴⁷³

Today, Benny’s French friend, Moreau de St. Méry, receives a letter from the French vice-consul in New York:

I am told your departure for France is at hand. I envy your lot … I had hoped to see you and say good-bye, but I must give that up. This disappointment is an added reason for me to damn all these busybodies, all these rascals, who are trying to throw this country into turmoil. All those who have no love for Robespierism [despotism] had better get out and get out quick!⁴⁷⁴

People acted as though a French invasion force might land in America at any moment. Everybody was suspicious of everybody else: everywhere one saw murderous glances.⁴⁷⁵

June 27th, cool, thermometer only 76°, at two P.M. Mark Miller died to-day under the care of Drs. Wistar and Hodge with symptoms of the yellow fever at Mrs. Reeves’s in Callowhill-street. He had been much fatigued and debilitated from loading a vessel at Almond-street wharf, a mile from his lodgings, in the heat of the day, to which he had walked daily for sometime.⁴⁷⁶

Drs. Hodge and Wistars who attended him declared it to have been a true case of yellow fever: the black vomit, one of its most sure and violent characteristics, appeared previous to death.⁴⁷⁷

A BILL …

Be it enacted … That the government and people of France … are declared to be enemies to the United States and the people thereof; and any person … giving them aid and comfort … shall suffer death …

And be it further enacted. That if any person shall, by writing, printing, publishing, or speaking, attempt to defame or weaken the government … or to defame the President of the United States … [he] shall be punished by fine … and imprisonment …

The foregoing bill was brought into the Senate by Mr. Lloyd [Federalist, Maryland] …

Under the late emanation of superlative wisdom making it high treason to aid, abet or comfort persons from France, will it be considered high treason to cure a Frenchman of the cholic?

The people may be gagged by alien and sedition bills; but at elections they will make their voice heard.

It is a curious fact, America is making war with France for not treating [negotiating] at the very moment the [French] minister for foreign affairs fixes … for opening negotiation with Mr. Gerry [the remaining American envoy in Paris].

“What” says a writer in the Daily Gazette, “are the heads of C.[allender] and B.[ache] …? [T]hey are far lighter (continues he) than smoke”—That is, in plain English, it would be as easy to assassinate them as for smoke to ascend! This tory, federalist … or terrorist (which are now become synonymous terms) is hereby informed that the heads of these respectable printers are of more worth, in the estimation of every honest man, than those of all the ministerial hirelings and tories on the continent.— Let this cowardly cutthroat or any other of the British faction touch a hair of their head, and the swift vengeance of the Republicans would fall like lightning on every pensioned [Federalist] printer in the United States—This should be another hint to the republicans to be armed against personal violence. A man must be blind indeed not to perceive that the leaders of the federalists meditate a blow against them …

It is highly interesting to see a nation, after invoking heaven in a solemn manner, a nation boasting of knowledge and religion, opening without any one visible motive a career of tyranny which blushes before high heaven and that must stink in the nose of all posterity!

[Adv.] SOUTHWARK LIGHT INFANTRY

CITIZENS of Philadelphia … are informed that the Committee of Election for the above Company meet every WEDNESDAY and SATURDAY evening, between 6 & 9 o’clock at No. 299, South Front-street, to receive applications from such as propose to become Members.

N. B. REPUBLICANS ONLY, are admitted.—–

Five advertisements for Republican militias appear in today’s Aurora. Benny carries a cane for personal protection.⁴⁷⁸ Republicans are in fear. So are their families.

Six months pregnant with her fourth child, Peggy Bache suffered mob attacks on her home in May, the arrest of her husband two days ago, and continuing threats of violence.⁴⁷⁹ Today, she writes her brother, Francis Markoe, on the family estate in St. Croix. Her brother will advise Peggy to abandon Benny Bache and come to St. Croix with the children!⁴⁸⁰

Whatever Peggy Bache does, Benny won’t leave Philadelphia. Perhaps he hears the whisper of his grandfather, Poor Richard,

Fear not Death; for the sooner we die,
the longer shall we be immortal.⁴⁸¹

Bache is desirous of knowing whether it would be high treason to cure a Frenchmen of cholic. This is a very pertinent question; the [Republican] party being at present violently convulsed with the gripes.

This morning, at ten o’clock, Benny Bache appears before Pennsylvania’s Federal District Court Judge Richard Peters. Benny’s lawyers are Moses Levy, a Republican lawyer of Jewish ancestry,⁴⁸² and Alexander James Dallas, a Republican lawyer of Scottish ancestry who is Pennsylvania’s state secretary. Mr. William Rawle, the federal district attorney, appears for the federal government.

Judge Peters sets bail at the extraordinary sum of $2,000 and demands two sureties of $1,000 each to guarantee Benny’s appearance on October 11th (when Federal Circuit Court reconvenes).⁴⁸³ Benny’s bail is put up by Philadelphia tobacconist Thomas Leiper (Jimmy Callender’s good friend) and by Israel Israel, a Philadelphia tavernkeeper and stableowner, also of Jewish extraction.⁴⁸⁴ (Benny defended Israel Israel, in February, against lawyer Joseph Thomas and other Federalists who wrongfully denied him a seat in the Pennsylvania state senate.)⁴⁸⁵ Two other friends of Benny, Robert Smith, a hatter, and Colonel Barker, a tailor, also appear.⁴⁸⁶ Jimmy Callender:

If Bache had not been able to give surety, he must have remained in jail for probably six months before he was brought to trial. The interval is sufficient for bringing many people to ruin.⁴⁸⁷

Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States, John Fenno ridicules Benny’s friends:

What a group! What a concatenation of characters! How … birds of a feather flock together! I question whether a farrago of such pure, genuine Jacobinical democratical spirits could be selected and collected, as was exemplified at the Judge’s—and are seen held up to public observation as the anti-federal Printer, the two Law-ware men, the Scottish Quarrier alias quarrelsome man, the Synagogue stabler, and would-be Senator, the warlike Taylor and the Don Quixote Hatter. Reader! bless thyself that thou art not like one of these men but one who believeth that justice and truth will always be an over match for treason and rebellion.

LIBERTY OF THE PRESS … The French faction are working like devils to persuade the people that the federal government is acting against them with rigour and with partiality. I shall therefore remind the public …

As to [Tom Paine’s book against established religion,] AGE OF REASON, its publication by BACHE … is too notorious a fact to be for a moment dwelt on … Christianity is part of the law of the land… [T]o deride and blaspheme it is punishable by the common law …

BACHE, in his paper No. 1460, calls the Honourable John Jay … “that damned arch traitor JOHN JAY” … I could name here at least one hundred of the greatest and best men that this country ever produced who have been vilified by this reprobate descendant of Old Franklin, but … I shall forbear the enumerations and content myself with the instance of two of his attacks on the character of GENERAL WASHINGTON for which every good man, in every part of the world, must and will execrate the libeller and his supporters.

He published PAINE’S letter to the GENERAL of which he claimed an exclusive copyright … In this work, GENERAL WASHINGTON … is called, “the patron of fraud,”—an “impostor,” or an “apostate.”— Yet the vile printer was never “bound over.”

The day the GENERAL closed his public labours (the 4th of March, 1797), BACHE, after announcing his retirement from the office of President, says: “If there ever was a period for rejoicing, this is the moment …”

Yet, we are not all the worst: for on the 13th of March 1797, this viperous Grand Son of Old Franklin, accused the same eminent person of murder! brought forward a long, formal, and circumstantial charge of cool, deliberate assassination, “committed by GENERAL WASHINGTON, late President of the United States.”

The Aurora, after having attacked both Presidents of the United States in succession, and the majorities of both Houses of Congress for several years past, pretending all the time to the most violent Republicanism, has at last attacked the whole American people. The following libel is proof in point and is copied from the Aurora of Thursday last.

“It is highly interesting to see a nation … opening, without any visible motive, a career of tyranny …”

Tonight, congressional Federalists caucus at U.S. Senator William Bingham’s mansion at the corner of Spruce- and Third-streets in Philadelphia. The subject: a Declaration of War against France.⁴⁸⁸

Edward Livingston’s June 21st speech in Congress occupies most of the editorial space in today’s Aurora.

I nominate George Washington, of Mount Vernon, to be Lieutenant-General and Commander in Chief of all the armies raised or to be raised in the United States.⁴⁸⁹

George Washington will lead America’s new federal army against our former French ally!

Today, Federalists caucus again on passing a formal Declaration of War against France.⁴⁹⁰

To the … Inhabitants of the town of Rutland, in … Vermont. GENTLEMEN, I THANK you for this address … The words “Republican Government” have imposed on many who had very imperfect ideas under them—as there are none in our language more indeterminate, they may be interpreted to mean anything …

JOHN ADAMS

To-morrow being the Anniversary of INDEPENDENCE, the next publication of this Gazette will not take place till Thursday.

The union of the People of the United States in support of their Independence and Government at the present crisis is greater than it was in the year 1775— and the preparations and provision to defend all that is dear and sacred much more extensive; and yet, monstrous impudence! a few desperadoes vomit thro’ the medium of the Aurora a perpetual cascade of abuse against the people, their government and its administration.

This day will be celebrated as the Great Jubilee of Americans. We ask a Holiday; in consequence of which the next number of the AURORA will appear on Friday.

In a republican government, freedom of sentiments and a right to deliver such sentiments on every subject has been held essential to true liberty, but when that freedom is by whatever means restrained, despotism will most probably be the consequence.

TO IRISH EMIGRANTS AND PARTICULARLY THAT CLASS DENOMINATED ALIENS—

A Bill respecting Naturalization is passed into a law. By this law, fourteen years residence in the United States are necessary to obtain the rights of citizenship … An alien bill is on its passage … By this law the President of the U.S. is vested with a discretionary power of seizing on, confining or transporting your persons beyond the territories of the United States …

The United States are largely indebted for their independence to the exertions of the Irish both in Europe and America. The Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware Lines were almost entirely composed of natives of Ireland … And what is the return they have met with? A Naturalization Law, an alien law, a sedition law topped off with the most opprobrious obloquy and abuse that ever disgraced a legislative body.

Today, America celebrates its independence. At Hartford in Connecticut, Thomas Day delivers an oration to Revolutionary War veterans on the dangers of faction (“party spirit”):

Among those means which are calculated to destroy a free government, none will be found more efficient than PARTY SPIRIT …

[T][he present Vice President of the United States … has ever been the great Manager of the Gallico-Anarchic-Democratic Force … [H]e has countenanced and recommended a Gazette Edited by Bache, teeming with all that is virulent and abusive against the government and its administration …⁴⁹¹

Mr. Jefferson’s celebrated letter to Mazzei made its … first charge … that “a party has arisen … to impose on the people the substance of the British government.” This assertion has often been boldly made by the profligate printer of the Aurora …

[I]f the French Councils, by any means whatever, should gain an ascendency over our government … our Independence will be at an end.⁴⁹²

O Liberty! how has thy name been perverted by our Democratic disorganizers … May they, with Bache, that secret emissary, whose press has teemed with abuse and poured forth a flood of calumny against the guardians of our nation, be learnt and learn … that our federal soil will not nourish their felonious practices …

What nation, what kingdom, what empire, can boast of a better Executive Department than the United States of America? Great ADAMS, the illustrious Chief of that noble order, faires like a star of the first magnitude and may be justly compared with the Sun in the political world …⁴⁹³

At the Presbyterian Church in Newark, New Jersey, David Ogden speaks to an “Association of Young Men”:

Suspect the motives of those who would persuade you [the President] is not the friend of his country. Your fathers, in their glorious struggle for Independence, entrusted him with the management of some of their dearest interests.⁴⁹⁴

In Philadelphia, the “Young Men” of the Macpherson’s Blues parade. The Gazette of the United States reports:

The military assembled on the occasion consisted of some small detachments of a few of the militia companies, infantry and artillery, and of the whole body of newly formed volunteer corps in full uniform—These, with the several troops of horse, formed a most brilliant military procession.

From the center square, the whole marched down High-street and passed in review of the President of the United States, the officers paying the proper marching salute. The President appeared greatly delighted …

At noon a federal salute was fired by Guy’s Artillery. The bells of Christ Church were rung at intervals thro’ the day …⁴⁹⁵

[A] Glorious sight … 400 Young Men all in uniform and 60 Grenadiers none of whom exceeded 22 years marching in review as volunteers whose services had been tendered to their Country in a free will offering to the Chief Executive … To the committee of young men … I presented a cockade in the middle of which is a small Silver Eagle, being the arms of the United States … [T]he whole volunteer corps have adopted them.⁴⁹⁶

[T]here were some turbulent malicious spirits … The splendid and military appearance of the Volunteer Horse and foot was what mortified them most. As a force ready to support government and to oppose all its intestine as well as foreign enemies, it was a galling spectacle to the eyes of a Jacobin.

Several fellows of this description, but two more particularly, attempted to insult the first troop of Light Horse, commanded by Capt. Dunlap, as they were returning up High-street in the evening. The horses were moving remarkably slow, four abreast, and of course filled most of the ground between the butchers shambles [of the covered market] and the foot pavement. One of the fellows had been daringly insolent, but both became outrageous … poured out torrents of abusive language, advanced up to the horsemen, flourished their bludgeons, and at length struck one of the horses several heavy strokes. This provoked one of the riders to draw and to strike the aggressor with the flat of his sword … I expected to see both of them cut down …⁴⁹⁷

At Williamsburg in Virginia, William and Mary College students burn John Adams in effigy. Peter Porcupine reports:

[T]he burning of the President’s effigy at Williamsburg was not the work of the mob, nor of the inhabitants of the place in general; but of the learned, polite, and patriotic students of William and Mary College. A precious seminary! I wonder who is at the head of it! Some bitter, factious, envious wretch, I will answer for it; if not some philosopher of the infamous tribe of the illuminati. One of the great objects of these plotting villains was to thrust their members into all places of education in order to be enabled to corrupt the youth. They have succeeded at William and Mary clear enough. I would sooner put a child of mine under the tuition of a common thief than send him amongst this rascally seditious crew.—I shall once more remind my readers that these base blackguards, who now insult their president, actually had the courage a few years ago to behead the statue of the founder of their college because he was an aristocrat.⁴⁹⁸

Senate Federalists want to associate the sedition act with the nation’s independence and, therefore, to pass a bill today. Republican Senator Stevens T. Mason of Virginia:

[T]here seemed to be a particular solicitude to pass it on that day … The drums, Trumpets and other martial music which surrounded us drown’d the voices of those who spoke on the Question. The military parade so attracted the attention of the majority that much the greater part of them stood with their bodies out of the windows and could not be kept to order. To get rid of such a scene of uproar and confusion, an attempt was made at adjournment and then of a postponement of that question. These were both overruled and the final decision taken …⁴⁹⁹

Today, with Senator Theodore Sedgwick (Federalist, Massachusetts) acting as U.S. Senate president for the absent Thomas Jefferson and with more than one third of Republican senators also absent, the United States Senate passes a sedition bill, 18 ayes to 6 nays, including a provision,

That if any person shall, by … writing, printing, publishing, or speaking … create a belief [that] … the said Legislature, in enacting any law, was induced thereto by motives hostile to the Constitution … the person so offending … shall be punished by a fine, not exceeding two thousand dollars, and by imprisonment not exceeding two years.”⁵⁰⁰

Later today, the sponsor of the Senate’s sedition bill, U.S. Senator James Lloyd (Federalist, Maryland), writes George Washington:

Sir … You will have heard before this reaches you that you were … by the unanimous vote of the senate, appointed Lieutenant General & Commander in Chief of the Armies of America …

The packet for Bache, sealed with the seal of the minister of foreign relations fell into the hands of Government and I believe it is pretty certain [that it] did not contain Talleyrand’s letter to our Envoys. Whether he received it immediately from Talleyrand or from Letombe, the consul [general of France at Philadelphia], or from one of our French-Americans is uncertain.

Your Excellency has probably seen in the papers a bill which was introduced into the Senate, to define & punish the crimes of Treason & Sedition. This bill … passed the Senate … 18 to five, & will certainly pass the ho. of Representatives. I enclose the bill as amended …

I fear that Congress will close the session without a Declaration of War, which I look upon as necessary to enable us to lay our hands on traitors …⁵⁰¹

[The French] have been led to believe by their Agents and Partisans amongst Us that we are a divided People, that the latter are opposed to their own Government, and that a show of a small force would occasion a revolt, I have no doubt; and how far these men (grown desperate) will further attempt to deceive and may succeed in keeping up the deception is problematical …⁵⁰²

[My principles] would not suffer me in any great emergency to withhold any services I could render, required by my Country, especially in a case where its dearest rights are assailed by lawless ambition … with obvious intent to sow thick the Seeds of disunion for the purpose of subjugating the Government and destroying our Independence and happiness …⁵⁰³

The Golden Age never was the present age.⁵⁰⁵

Today, the House of Representatives considers the sedition bill that the Senate passed yesterday. The Annals of Congress report:

PUNISHMENT OF CRIME

A bill was received from the Senate …

Mr. ALLEN [Federalist, Connecticut]. Let gentlemen look at certain papers printed in this city and elsewhere, and ask ourselves whether an unwarrantable and dangerous combination does not exist to overturn and ruin the Government by publishing the most shameful falsehoods …

In the Aurora of the 28th of June last, we see this paragraph “It is a curious fact, America is making war with France for not treating, at the very moment the Minister for Foreign Affairs fixes upon the very day for opening a negotiation with Mr. Gerry. What do you think of this, Americans!”

Such paragraphs need but little comment …

I will take the liberty of reading to the House another paragraph from the same paper [on July 2d] … published as the speech of the same gentleman (Mr. [Edward] LIVINGSTON) when we were discussing the Alien bill … “If there is, then, any necessity for the system now proposed, it is more necessary to be enforced against our own citizens than against strangers; and I have no doubt that either in this, or some other shape, this will be attempted. I now ask, sir, whether the people of America are prepared for this? … Whether they are ready to submit to imprisonment or exile, whenever suspicion, calumny or vengeance, shall mark them for ruin? No sir, they will, I repeat it they will resist this tyrannic system! …”

Sir, is this a just picture? The gentleman attempted, in this instance, to persuade the people … that opposition to the laws, that insurrection is a duty whenever they think we exceed our constitutional powers …

In the Aurora of last Friday, we read the following:

“The period is now at hand when it will be a question difficult to determine, whether there is more safety to be enjoyed at Constantinople or Philadelphia!”

This, sir, is … announcing to the poor deluded readers of the factious prints the rapid approach of Turkish slavery in this country …

At the commencement of the Revolution in France those loud and enthusiastic advocates for liberty and equality took special care to occupy and command all the presses in the nation; they well knew the powerful influence to be obtained on the public mind by that engine; its operations are on the poor, the ignorant, the passionate, and the vicious … The Jacobins in our country, too, sir, are determined to preserve in their hands the same weapon; it is our business to wrest it from them …

This paper (the Aurora) is the great engine of all these treasonable combinations, and must be strongly supported, or it would fall long ago.

Mr. W.[illiam] CLAIBORNE [Republican, Tennessee] interrupted Mr. A.[llen] and asked him whether he did not subscribe for it, and so become one of its supporters?

I do, said Mr. A.[llen]. I take it under the rule of the House at the public expense. I take it for the purpose of seeing what abominable things can issue from a genuine Jacobinic press but this is not supporting it with my name and influence [as Thomas Jefferson does]; this is not giving it the authority of my opinions; I do not walk the streets arm-in-arm. I hold no mid-night conference. I am not daily and nightly closeted with its editor. I may say, sir, this paper must necessarily, in the nature of things, be supported by … certain great men.⁵⁰⁶

Mr. GALLATIN [Republican, Pennsylvania]: … The Gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. ALLEN) … had communicated to the House—what? … a number of newspaper paragraphs … His idea was to punish men for stating facts which he happened to disbelieve, or for enacting and avowing opinions, not criminal, but perhaps erroneous … The gentleman from Connecticut had also quoted an extract of a letter … published in last Saturday’s Aurora. The style and composition of that letter did the highest honor to its writer. It contained more information and more sense and gave more proofs than ever the Gentleman from Connecticut had displayed or could display on this floor …

This bill and its supporters suppose, in fact, that whoever dislikes the measures of the administration and of a temporary majority in Congress and shall either by speaking or writing, express his disapprobation and his want of confidence in the men now in power is seditious, is an enemy, not of Administration, but of the Constitution, and is liable to punishment. That principle, Mr. G[allatin] said, was subversive of the Constitution itself. If you put the press under any restraint in respect to the measures of the members of Government; if you thus deprive the people of the means of obtaining information of their conduct, you render in fact the right of electing nugatory; and this bill must be considered only as a weapon used by a party now in power in order to perpetuate their authority and preserve their present places …⁵⁰⁷

Mr. ALLEN [Federalist, Connecticut] laid a resolution upon the table to the following effect,

“Resolved, That a committee be appointed to consider upon the expediency of declaring, by Legislative act, the state and relation subsisting between the United States and the French Republic.”⁵⁰⁸

I do not … conceive that a desirable set [of officers for the new army] could be formed from the old Generals, some … from their opposition to the Government or their predilection to French measures …⁵⁰⁹

It is with great satisfaction that I announce to my readers the appointment of GENERAL WASHINGTON TO BE LIEUT-GENERAL AND COMMANDER IN CHIEF of the Armies of the United States. I understand that he offered his services to his country at this trying moment.

Today, the House of Representatives continues to consider a Declaration of War. The Annals of Congress:

Mr. ALLEN [Federalist, Connecticut] then called up his resolution …

Mr. HARRISON [Republican, Virginia] … He hoped gentlemen would bring forward their declaration of War at once. He had always been and should now be opposed to war, but he wanted to put his negative upon it … Seeing, however, that no member is ready to make the declaration which has been so often spoken of, [Mr. ALLEN] should withdraw his motion …

Mr. SITGREAVES [Federalist, Pennsylvania] thought it would be proper first to go into a consideration of this resolution. We are, said he, now in a state of war …

The question on the resolution was put and negatived without a division [roll call].⁵¹⁰

T]he people throughout the United States … called for the declaration to be made from various quarters of the union, but the majority in Congress did not possess firmness and decision enough to boldly make it …⁵¹¹

Did publication of Talleyrand’s letter make the difference? Is it important? With or without a Declaration of War, John Adams will have his war against France!

AN ACT

Respecting Alien Enemies

Be it enacted, &c., That whenever there shall be a declared war … or an invasion or predatory incursion … shall be perpetrated, attempted or threatened … and the President shall make a public proclamation of the event, [then] all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government being males of the age of fourteen years and upwards … shall be liable to be apprehended, retrained, secured and removed as alien enemies …⁵¹²

AN ACT

Providing arms for the Militia throughout the United States.

Be it enacted, &c., That there shall be provided at the charge and expense of the Government of the United States thirty thousand stand of arms which shall be deposited by order of the President of the United States at suitable places …⁵¹³

Today, two Federal marshals enter the offices of the New York Time Piece and arrest its editor and co-proprietor, John Daly Burk. He is charged with seditious utterances against the President of the United States. The other Time Piece owner, Dr. James Smith, is also taken into custody. After the newsmen post bail of 2,000 dollars and provide sureties of 1,000 dollars each, Judge Hobarton frees the newsmen, pending trial. New York Republican leader Aaron Burr and Colonel Henry Rutgers are the sureties.⁵¹⁴

The Aurora Printer has been so hard pressed … that he has at length been obliged to confess that he is in frequent correspondence with the office of foreign affairs in France. It is said, however, by some that he will not BE HANGED.

Today, unaware that John Daly Burk of the New York Time Piece was arrested yesterday, U.S. Secretary of State Timothy Pickering writes New York Federal District Attorney Richard Harrison:

It appears that the Editor of Time Piece is an Irishman and alien … If Burk be an alien, no man is a fitter object for the operation of the alien act.⁵¹⁵

AN ACT

To declare the Treaties heretofore concluded with
France no longer obligatory on the United States …

Be it enacted &c. That the United States are of right, freed and exonerated from the stipulations of the treaties and of the consular conventions heretofore concluded between the United States and France …⁵¹⁶

By signing this law which abrogates the Franco-American Treaty of Alliance of 1778 and the Franco-American Treaty of Amity and Commerce of 1778, John Adams commits an act of war against the Republic of France. Even without a formal Declaration of War, Adams has us at war with France!⁵¹⁷

War … Tonight, the fighting begins! Just off Egg Harbour, New Jersey, the United States Navy’s twenty-gun, 180-man Sloop of War Delaware, under Navy Captain Stephen Decatur, fires on, pursues, and captures a twelve-gun, seventy-man privateer schooner, La Croyable, which flies the flag of the French Republic. Captain Decatur brings his prize into the Port of Philadelphia.⁵¹⁸ A report:

The Captain of the French privateer … seemed astonished, when he went on board of Capt. Decatur’s sloop of war, at his being taken by an American vessel, and said he knew of no war between the two republics … The Frenchman seemed to be vastly mortified at seeing his Colours hauled down and wished he had been sunk.⁵¹⁹

War measures … Today, John Adams approves and signs into law an act which anticipates the imposition of war taxes:

AN ACT

To provide for the valuation of land and dwelling-houses and the enumeration of slaves, within the United States.

There will be a property tax, so each state must value and list the property of its inhabitants, evaluating homes, for example, on “their situation, their dimensions or area, their number of stories, the number and dimensions of their windows, the materials whereof they are built, whether wood, brick or stone, the number, description, and dimensions of the outhouses … [&c.]”⁵²⁰

AN ACT

Further to protect the commerce of the United States

Be it enacted, That the President … is hereby authorized to instruct the commanders of the public armed vessels … to subdue, seize, and take any armed French vessel … on the high seas …

Sec 2. And be it further enacted, That the President … is hereby authorized to grant to owners of private armed ships and vessels of the United States … authority for the subduing, seizing, and capturing [of] any French armed vessel …

Sec 5. And be it further enacted, That all armed French vessels … shall be forfeited and shall accrue to the owners … officers, and crew by whom such captures are made …⁵²¹

We don’t have to wait for France to land soldiers on American shores! The President will commission, within the next eight months, more than 350 American privateers, carrying more than 2,700 guns, to seek out, attack, seize, and sell for profit any French merchant ship which has the misfortune to be armed.⁵²² By year’s end, America will have more than four hundred armed vessels at sea.⁵²³

Let the vipers cease to hiss. They will be destroyd with their own poison. Bache is in duress here …⁵²⁴

[T]he Delaware sloop of war, Capt. Decatur … captured a French privateer schooner of 12 guns and 70 men, close in with Egg-Harbour [New Jersey] … [S]he was obliged to surrender after a pretty long chase to the Delaware and several shot being fired at her …

The Historian, who is to record the events of the present times, after relating the long suffering of America; the injuries and insults and cruelties she has received at hands of the perfidious French … will then say … “on the 7th of July, 1798, the first blow of that conflict, which preserved the independence of America and finally brought France to her feet, was struck by Captain STEPHEN DECATUR, who, in the sloop of War DELAWARE, attacked and brought into the Port of Philadelphia, a French privateer of 12 guns and 70 men.”—This, I hope, will be the language of History.

Today, John Adams issues instructions, through his Navy Secretary, to commanders of all armed vessels belonging to the United States:

You are hereby authorized, instructed, and directed to subdue, seize and take any armed French Vessel or Vessels sailing under Authority or Pretence of Authority from the French Republic which shall be found within the Jurisdictional Limits of the United States or elsewhere on the high Seas: and such captured Vessel … to bring within some Port of the United States …⁵²⁵

Today, the U.S. House of Representatives passes the sedition act, 44 ayes to 41 nays. To become law, the bill only requires John Adams’ signature. This can hardly be in doubt. Confirming Republican suspicions that the sedition act serves John Adams’ party purposes rather than any national emergency, the bill is written to expire at the end of John Adams’ term of office!⁵²⁶

AN ACT

For establishing and organizing a Marine Corps.

Be it enacted, &c., That in addition to the Present military establishment, there shall be raised and organized a corps of marines … to do duty in the forts and garrisons of the United States, on the sea coast, or any other duty on shore, as the President, at his discretion, shall direct.⁵²⁷

The Aurora of this morning, (a thing quite new) calls the government a party and says the President is supported by a party, &c. Verily, these words must be true; for they proceed from the pen of a man who never told a lie !! All America is, however, at this moment testifying to the contrary.

Today, President Adams revokes U.S. government recognition (exequaturs) for French Consul General Joseph Philippe Létombe (Philadelphia), for French Vice-Consuls Rosier (New York) and Arcambal (Newport), and for French Consul Charles Mozard (New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island).⁵²⁸

It was not possible for me to remain ignorant of, or indifferent to, recent transactions. The conduct of the Directory of France towards our Country … their various practices to withdraw the affections of the people from it; the evident tendency of their Arts and those of their agents to countenance and invigorate opposition;… could not fail to excite in me corresponding sentiments with those my countrymen have so generally expressed in their Affectionate addresses to you. Believe me, sir, no one can more cordially approve of the wise and prudent measures of your Administration.⁵²⁹

Today, at this dark hour in our country’s history, a great personal tragedy befalls my family. Today, in our meager living quarters next to a hot, smoke-filled alley, my wife, Catherine, dies of cholera.⁵³⁰ Three of us got cholera this year, Catherine, William John, and I.⁵³¹ Now Catherine has died from it, and I must be father and mother to the children. When we married in Ireland twenty years ago, Catherine was only seventeen, and I was nineteen. She was Protestant; I was Catholic. After our wedding, my mother shunned Catherine and disinherited me. Mother died a few years later.⁵³² During nine of the last twelve years, Catherine and I lived apart, she remaining in Ireland while I worked for newspapers in India and England. We reunited for the trip to America, but it hasn’t turned out well for Catherine.⁵³³ As Poor Richard said,

My son, William John, now 18, can help with the other children, and William John has a job with Benny Bache as a clerk at the Aurora (where I am now working full-time).⁵³⁵ The Baches are good friends to the Duanes, and the Duanes will be good friends to them. Especially in times like these, as Poor Richard wrote,

Jimmy Callender is gone. Though Jimmy Callender has insulated himself from the Alien Acts by citizenship, President Adams will sign the Sedition Act tomorrow. Jimmy has said his “good-byes,” left his four children in the care of his tobacconist friend Thomas Leiper, and is the first Republican scribbler to flee the federal government.⁵³⁷

ENVOY CALLENDER

Left this city on a tour to the westward. His business or destination is not known. But he was seen a few days since, near the 22d mile stone, on the Lancaster road … DRUNK.

FOR THE AURORA ADVERTISEMENT EXTRAORDINARY! ! !

Orator M u m takes this very orderly method of announcing that a THINKING CLUB will be established in a few days at the sign of the MUZZLE in Gag street. The first subject for cogitation will be

“Ought a Free People to obey laws which violate the constitution they have sworn to support?”

N. B. No member will be permitted to think longer than fifteen minutes.

The Editors of newspapers in this city are requested to insert this important information.

The Constitution of the United States says that “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press,” but Congress have passed a law abridging the freedom of the press and therefore the Constitution is infracted. Quere, of what efficacy is a law made in direct contravention of the Constitution?

AN ACT

In addition to the act entitled
“An act for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States.”

Be it enacted, &c., That if any persons shall unlawfully combine or conspire together with intent to oppose any measure or measures of the government of the United States … [&c.]

Sec.2. And be it further enacted, That if any person shall write, print, utter, or publish … any false, scandalous, and malicious writing or writings against the Government of the United States, or either House of the Congress of the United States, or the President of the United States with intent to defame … or bring them, or either of them, into contempt or disrepute; or to excite against them, or either or any of them, the hatred of the good people of the United States … or to impede the operation of any law of the United States … or to resist, oppose or defeat any such law or act … then such persons, being thereof convicted, before any court of the United States having jurisdiction thereof, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars and by imprisonment not exceeding two years …⁵³⁸

With Adams’ signature, it becomes a federal crime for any American to print, write, or speak criticism of the President, the federal government, or the Congress (though one can still criticize the Vice President!).⁵³⁹ Like the British monarch, John Adams now has Alien and Sedition Acts to silence his critics. John Adams:

I knew there was need enough of both, and therefore I consented to them …⁵⁴⁰

AN ACT

To lay and collect a direct tax within the United States.

Be it enacted, &c., That a direct tax of two millions of dollars shall be, and hereby is, laid upon the United States … under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury … assessed upon dwelling-houses, lands, and slaves, according to the valuations and enumerations to be made pursuant to the act, entitled “An act to provide for the valuation of lands and dwelling-houses, and the enumeration of slaves, within the United States” [signed by the President on July 9th].⁵⁴¹

I received a passport for myself, my wife and the children.

Antagonism against the French increased daily.

I was the only person in Philadelphia who continued to wear a French cockade.

Soon thereafter the Republicans, fearing acts of violence on the part of the Federalists, met secretly and took steps to defend themselves. Since I was a party to these meetings, I was given keys to two shelters in which I and my family could take refuge in case my own house should be attacked.⁵⁴²

“Envoy Callender” is gone to the Westward; and Fenno says he was met a few days ago near the 22 mile stone, DRUNK … [T]o do historical justice, he must bring himself under the gallows tree; and in that case, I hereby promise to put a finishing hand to the performance and publish it for the benefit of his friend BACHE, the Grandson of Old Franklin.

AN ACT

To make a further appropriation for the additional naval armament.

Be it enacted, &c., That the sum of six hundred thousand dollars shall be, and hereby is, appropriated … to cause to be built and equipped three ships or vessels, to be of a force not less than thirty-two guns each …

AN ACT

To augment the Army of the United States, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted, &c., … That the President of the United States be and he is hereby authorized to raise, in addition to the present Military Establishment, twelve regiments of infantry and six troops of light dragoons, to be enlisted for and during the continuance of the existing differences between the United States and the French Republic …⁵⁴³

Today, the Second Session of the Fifth Congress of the United States of America adjourns (though the Senate will remain in executive session for three days to receive the President’s nominations of army officers). Republican congressmen who have remained at their posts, such as Edward Livingston (New York), Matthew Lyon (Vermont), and Albert Gallatin (Western Pennsylvania), will now depart.⁵⁴⁴ President and Mrs. Adams will also leave. Benny and I will remain.

TO the disgrace of our state, the spirit of opposition still runs high. The anti-governmental party … revives the animosity against our government. To accomplish these objects, our members of Congress have deluged the state with Auroras … Through the same channels of calumny, we have lately been informed that “JOHN ADAMS WAS AT THE HEAD OF THE MOB WHO ATTACKED BACHE’S HOUSE.” …

The Legislature of the United States closed yesterday a very long and important session …

The misunderstanding between the United States and the French Republic is made use of to justify the enaction of odious laws. But what has this misunderstanding to do with a sedition or an alien bill? Will a sedition bill repress French aggressions or an alien bill make the Directory listen to our terms? … What has their conduct to do with our constitutional or our republican principles? … Let us not forget ourselves in our attention to others, and while our eyes are fixed upon distant dangers, let us not omit to turn them likewise to those which may menace us nearer home …

Persons pretending to the utmost liberality, professing the most unbounded toleration, and perpetually blubbering out praises on liberty, justice, and the rights of private opinion, are yet hourly supporting persecution for opinion’s sake… Dr. Franklin, in his celebrated examination, briefly told the English parliament that men’s opinions are not to be conquered !

Today, U.S. marshals arrest William Durrell, Republican editor of the Mount Pleasant Register in upstate New York, for criticizing the President of the United States. After posting a $4,000 bail, Durrell is released pending trial. Today’s edition of the Mount Pleasant Register is the last that will ever appear.⁵⁴⁵

LIBERTY 1776 JUSTICE
THE CONSTITUTION INVIOLATE …
NO SEDITION ACT.

We hear that others have been erected at Blooming Grove, Montgomery, Goshen, Fish-kill, &c.

The ensuing trials for libels will determine whether the press is to be the palladium and centinel of liberty or the mere vehicle of madrigals, rhebus’ [pictures] and lampoons on the people …

[Adv.] PARLIAMENT SHIP FOR BORDEAUX

THE naval vessel ADRASTUS … currently at BRIGHT’s WHARF, between Sassafras and Vine streets, will depart for BORDEAUX [France] during the course of this month. Its construction is very solid … very appropriate for these crossings. Those who wish to profit from this favorable occasion will wish to act and engage passage at MESSRS. BOUSQUET Bros., No. 117 South First Street

I engaged a passage on the Adrastes. Shortly afterwards, we learned that Mr. Adams, the President of the United States, has made a list of French people to be deported and that the list was headed by Volney … myself, etc., etc. I was sufficiently curious to question Mr. Adams through Mr. Langdon, [U.S.] senator from New Hampshire, to find out what I was charged with. He replied, “Nothing in particular, but he’s too French.” Now Mr. Adams had often come to my house, to my study and to my shop during his term as Vice President, and we had exchanged our books as gifts. But after he became President, I never saw him.⁵⁴⁶

Believing the letter received this morning from General Washington will give high satisfaction to the Senate, I transmit them a copy of it…

DEAR SIR:…[W]hen everything we hold dear and sacred is so seriously threatened, I have finally determined to accept the commission of Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of The United States …

Gentlemen of the Senate:

I nominate Alexander Hamilton, of New York, to be Inspector General of the Army, with the rank of Major General.

Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, of South Carolina, to be a Major General …

Jonathan Dayton, of New Jersey, to be a Brigadier General …

William Stevens Smith, of New York, to be adjutant General … [&c.]

JOHN ADAMS⁵⁴⁸

John Adams is nominating leading Federalists to command the new federal army. Alexander Hamilton, founder of the Federalist party, will be second in command (behind Washington). C. C. Pinckney is the Federalist whom Washington appointed and France rejected as James Monroe’s successor as minister to France. Jonathan Dayton is the Federalist Speaker of the House, who expelled Benny Bache and me from the House floor. William Smith is John Adams’ son-in-law.

No light or trivial cause would have given you the opportunity of beholding your WASHINGTON again relinquishing the tranquil scene in delicious shades.—To complete the character of French philosophy and French policy at the end of the eighteenth century, it seemed to be necessary to combat this PATRIOT and HERO.⁵⁴⁹

On Monday last, in consequence of an order from the PRESIDENT to the French Consul in New York to cease his functions, the arms of the Grande Nation were taken off from over his door.

Benny will neither bow nor run. Not so with New York Time Piece publisher James Smith. Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:

Doctor Smith and Burk. The two editors of the Time Piece it seems have had a squabble … Last Friday morning, it seems Burk had written for one of the papers a most violent invective against the President, had got it set in type, and was proceeding to correct the proof sheet when Dr. Smith came into the office. Burk, being delighted with the production began to read it aloud to his coadjutor, but he had not more than finished the first paragraph before Smith interrupted and told him it would not do, it was going too far and would even work a forfeiture of their recognizance [guarantee to the court of their good behavior]. Burk flushed up in the face and told him his fears were childish, that as to the forfeiture of their recognizance, suppose it did, it was nothing to them, it would not be left for them to pay, that the piece was well written … Smith shook his head and said it was indeed going too far … in short that it should not appear in the paper … Burk … swore by G-d the piece should appear. Smith pulled off his spectacles and called Burk a dam’d rascal and an unprincipled alien … Burk gnashed his teeth and retorted the language with tenfold recrimination … On this Smith laid hold of a handful of types all covered with ink and threw them dab into Burk’s face—Burk returned the compliment with the same ammunition … Burk in his zeal to defend himself had not once thought of his piece which in the end he found scattered all over the office and was irretrievably distributed; it became necessary instantly to repair the loss with other matter, and this accounts for the late hour at which the Time Piece was delivered last Friday morning.

The government’s prosecution of James Smith has intimidated him. As Poor Richard observed,

Without justice, courage is weak. ⁵⁵⁰

Today, the Time Piece of New York City announces its demise as a Republican newspaper:

The Subscribers to the Time Piece are … to take notice that no libelous or inflammatory matter shall be inserted in [this] paper in [the] future … and that [I] will not be answerable for any debts contracted by Mr. [John Daly] Burk on account of the Time Piece from the date hereof.

JAMES SMITH

There was a time, Citizens, when … we flattered ourselves that the liberty of the press was a right too dear to Americans to be resigned with tameness and too firmly secured to be violated with impunity. We will not say that time is past, but we will say that, under … an exaggerated and mischievous system of alarm and pretexts of order and submission to the Laws, we have seen a system maturing, openly hostile to the spirit of freedom, and measures carried in the face of our Constitution;—for what?—to screen from scrutiny the conduct of your own government … To the laws of our country we owe that profound submission which a Republican will never withhold. But to the constitution … we owe duties still more sacred, and these we will never violate …

Such are our sentiments with respect to the present unwarrantable system of legalized terror with which we are menaced. But this is not all;—personal violence is threatened and insolent suggestions held up to deter! … [T]hey will come in vain …

A number of boys a few evenings ago collected a band of HURDY gurdys, conch shells, pot lids and salt boxes with a view to compliment an amiable young lady … but the musicians were prevailed upon to retire—to the great joy of the young lady and the neighborhood!

A few days ago, a French citizen, in passing Water street, was assaulted by four or five persons … From his hat they tore a [tri-colour] national cockade forcibly away … [T]his gentleman … served with distinction in our revolutionary war and was twice wounded. At the storming of an important redoubt [fortified emplacement] at Yorktown, he was the first who leapt into the entrenchment … Americans, be just … Reflect that those Frenchmen now among you have many claims on your humanity …

Federalist crowds pursue Republican leaders. Today, Vermont Republican Congressman Matthew Lyon encounters one crowd after another as he passes through New Jersey in his return to Vermont. The Gazette of the United States reports:

LYON, whose endeavors, like those of his associate and fellow-laborer [New York Republican Edward] Livingston, tended to excite mobs and riots for the overthrow of the government and constitution, has become himself the object of popular contempt. On his arrival at Trenton [New Jersey], an immense concourse of people attended him with their compliments, and the spirited sound of sundry rattling drums to the tune of the “Rogue’s March” revived the grateful recollection of his warlike exploits at the wooden sword redoubt on Onion river. On resuming his seat on the stage, the admiring populace, with loud acclamations, still followed the redoubted knight, and the drums … fairly drummed him out of town. The hisses and hooting of the crowd were loud and universal. At Brunswick [New Jersey] the same honor awaited our renowned hero, this pink of chivalry, gentility, and knighthood.⁵⁵¹

This evening, in the Porcupine’s Gazette, Peter Porcupine suggests some Jeffersonian adultery:

It is said that JEFFERSON went to his friend Doctor Logan’s farm and spent three days there soon after Dr. Logan’s departure for France. Quere: What did he do there ? Was it to arrange the Doctor’s valuable manuscripts ?

Soon after the departure of my husband, I received a visit from Thomas Jefferson who told me he had been greatly concerned for me … and advised me to evince my thorough consciousness of [my husband’s] innocence and honour by showing myself in Philadelphia as one not afraid nor ashamed to meet the public eye. He said … [t]hat he was himself dogged and watched in the most extraordinary manner; and he apologized for the lateness of his visit (for we were at tea when he arrived) by saying that, in order to elude the curiosity of his spies, he had not taken the direct road, but had come by a circuitous route by the Falls of Schuylkill … He spoke of the temper of the times and of the late acts of the Legislature with a sort of despair, but said he thought even the shadows of our liberties must be gone if they attempted anything that would injure me …⁵⁵²

Bache has thought proper in several instances to make Macpherson’s Blues the objects of his dull ridicule and [on Saturday] … affects to make merry with the serenade given by them in compliment to the young lady … Mr. B. must not consider the liberty of the press infringed or endangered if some of these boys resent a personal insult in a personal way and kick his breech.

We learn by the Aurora [on Saturday] that a Sansculotte Frenchman has recently had the audacity to walk the streets bearing the bloody emblem of French Fraternity. Some spirited citizen very meritoriously struck the tri-color from his chapeau.

Bache’s pipes on the subject of the serenade have been stopped, and he knows how—A poor sneak! he tells a falsehood in an ambiguous shape, and when called to account for it, evades the danger by another. But the best of the joke is that he would throw all the blame on Mr. Fenno’s malicious construction …⁵⁵³

He makes a Foe who makes a jest.⁵⁵⁴

Callender is gone. Jefferson is gone. Congress are gone. This morning, the Adamses secretly depart.⁵⁵⁵ Benny and I remain. We face a rising tide of political violence and the season for yellow fever. Will we be strong enough? Poor Richard said,

The absent are never without fault, nor the present without excuse.⁵⁵⁶

Today, as President and Mrs. Adams pass through Newark, New Jersey, on their journey home, a local resident violates the Sedition Act. From reports:

[T]he approach of the President of the United States was announced—Great preparations were made for his reception by the true Federalists … The honorable exclusive friends of their country, with [black] cockades in their hats, paraded … The “very respectable part of the young men,” (who had informed the President that they were surrounded by enemies of the government who were endeavoring to blast the buds of their patriotism) … procured a piece of cannon of the Company of Artillery, distinguished themselves in their new livery consisting of a blue jacket, not forgetting the emblems of all emblems, the adorable [Black] Cockade … and displayed flags from three conspicuous places in town.

[A]bout 11 o’clock A.M. the President’s carriage was seen at the lower end of the town. The discharge of cannon commenced, a general peal from the bells joined … when to the astonishment and mortification of the self-constituted federalists, the President pushed his horses into full speed, kept the curtains of his carriages down, and passed the assembled friends to good order in a second, without even deigning to drop a nod of approbation …⁵⁵⁷

Luther Baldwin happening to be coming toward John Burner’s dram [of liquor] shop, a person that was there says to Luther, “there goes the President and they are firing at his a–.” Luther, a little merry, replies that he did not care if they fired through his a–. Then exclaims the dram seller, “that is sedition”—a considerable collection gathered—and the pretended federalists, being much disappointed that the president had not stopped that they might have the honor of kissing his hand, bent their malice on poor Luther, and the cry was that he must be punished …⁵⁵⁸

Luther Baldwin will be punished. The U.S. Federal Circuit Court of New Jersey will find Luther Baldwin guilty, under the new federal Sedition Act, of “seditious words tending to defame the President and Government of the United States” and order him to pay a fine of $400; $250 for speaking those words and $150 for costs and expenses.⁵⁵⁹

This evening, after President Adams arrives in New York City, a more violent incident occurs. Porcupine reports:

[A]bout half past ten in the evening, 5 young men were walking on the battery. Animated by the presence of our illustrious President who had … entered the city under the display of flags and the thunder of cannon, amidst the glitter of swords, a forest of bristling bayonets, and the shouts and acclamations of assembled thousands—they were singing, as is very common throughout the town, the Federal song, “Hail Columbia.” A much larger number of boatmen and low fellows from the wharves and docks immediately collected, and, instigated by the deluding demon of French jacobinism … approached our young men, singing in opposition … the infamous French song “Ça Ira.” … Both parties quickly met, and it was not long before the alien crew … began the dastardly attack and first insulted, and then beat and bruised them in a most shameful manner … Meantime, several watchmen and a number of people assembled, and the ruffians desisted from their purpose.⁵⁶⁰

A wag, practicing on Benny’s gullibility and self-love, has sent him a list of toasts, said to have been drank at a democratic dinner in Maryland which the zealous editor of the Aurora has published in this paper of this morning without adverting to the ridiculous names of the persons by whom they are said to have been given—Among others … Benjamin Franklin Bache [is toasted] by Peregrine Letherbelly. Risum teneatis amici? [May you bear the laughter of your friends?]

General WASHINGTON Commands !!

HARK ! the DRUM beats to arms !!…

Nothing need be advanced to induce the young men … to re-enter the service when they learn they will be commanded by the great, illustrious, magnanimous General WASHINGTON … Your country, my boys, is threatened with invasion! Your houses and farms with fire, plunder and pillage! and your wives and daughters with ravishment and assassination by horrid outlandish sans-culotte Frenchmen !!! … To arms then, my dear brave boys! …

JAMES HAMILTON, Recruiting …

Jeff[erson] is gone away. He is unquestionably the very soul of the party. His connexion with Bache, Logan, and others … leaves no doubt … The day after the last dispatches were communicated to Congress, Bache … &c, &c … were closeted with Jeff[erso]n.

It is no wonder that Bache snarls at our young serenading “cockade gentry” who, by a sympathy natural to musical minds, struck on the Rogue’s March at passing the door of a Jacobin.

War … Today, Secretary of the Navy Benjamin Stoddert asks John Adams to approve a naval expedition against France in the West Indies:

At this season of the Year, and during the Months of August & September & part of October, the British armed-Ships are less alert in the West Indies … Our own force, on our own Coast … is well known to the French—And … it is not to be apprehended that our Coasts will be much molested by their Cruisers … unless, indeed, they could send a Force from Europe which is far from being probable.—The French islands, having no authorized intercourse with the United States, must depend in a great degree upon Captures for supplies of Bread & Salt meat…

Under such circumstances, and impressed … that our Force should be employed, while the French have but little force, in destroying what they have and in producing a scarcity of Provisions and the consequent discontent flowing from such a source in their islands, I have the honor, Sir, to submit … to send a cruise among the islands … ⁵⁶¹

President Adams will approve this expedition against the very French islands America had promised to defend.⁵⁶²

Letters were received in town from New York yesterday, about two o’clock, containing … details of a vast, universal, and decisive revolt of the Irish People against the English Government. The rising is stated to have been on the same day and form throughout the whole Island; that a fierce action had been fought between a numerous body of the English & Hessian [German mercenary] troops and the revolters, in which great obstinacy was manifested on both sides and the slaughter dreadful.

A man must sing “Hail Columbia” and wear a black cockade or he is called by [the governmental party) a disorganizer, a Jacobin, a pensioned tool of the French … It would seem really the view of some of the loudest vociferators for union to excite a civil war in our country; they cannot expect that, by their denunciations, their insults & their abuse, they can bully the republicans into silence or an acquiescence in their sentiments or measures.

Last evening marched into town the guard from Macpherson’s Blues who escorted the French prisoners [from the French privateer CROYABLE] to Lancaster …

THE proposed law for the punishment of libels will have an excellent effect, and I hope its first operation will be upon the infamous Bache and his associates who have been long in the habit of abusing the worthiest characters in the country … [I]f we are to suffer war, they may in the end retire … to the territory of the power whose interests they traitorously prefer to those of the United States.

A JERSEYMAN

We may judge of federal ideas of respect … by their behavior towards [Republican Congressman Matthew Lyon] … Were a posse of people to meet President Adams on the public highway and insult him for his public opinions and in a manner that would disgrace even an English mob, we should never hear the end of it…

On Friday evening last, a number of young friends of order assembled [in New York City] … It was conjectured … they intended offering an insult to [New York Republican Congressman] Edward Livingston … [A] fracas ensued …

Fenno attempts to make it believed that, in the affray in New York, the Republicans were the aggressors. This does not appear … We do not remember that a citizen was ever attacked from behind and in a situation to endanger his life without provocation, with premeditation, without warning, and merely on account of his politics except the editor of this paper, and this assault was surely not committed by a Republican. What house belonging to a tory has been attacked by stones and clubs ? We all know that that of the Editor of this paper was. Have any of the tory members of Congress been insulted by playing the Rogue’s march before their doors? This feat was also reserved for the friends of order …

[T]he French … have been deceived in their calculations on the division of the People, and the powerful support they expected from their [Republican] party is reduced to uncertainty; though it is somewhat equivocal still whether that party who have been the curse of this country and the source of the expenses we have to encounter may not be able to continue their delusion.⁵⁶³

I was returning from Leesburg … when about three miles from that village, I was overtaken by a man at full gallop. He enquired my name and said that he had orders to apprehend me. Leesburg is a little molehill of aristocracy and the junto had declared that if I came there they would find some means or other of using me ill. I returned with the courier. It was by this time dark …⁵⁶⁴

From the late lawless proceedings of the young men who wear the [black] American cockade, a doubt can no longer exist that it is the intention of the federalists to introduce into this country the system of [terror] … Anonymous letters—midnight insults and riots—and the sanguinary and abominable publications which daily issue from the press of Porcupine and other ministerial prints evince their diabolical design. [T]he republicans should not lose a moment in concerting a plan for their mutual defense …

We understand the chief magistrate of this city has given such reproof to the noisy brawlers who nightly infest our streets that our citizens have some prospect of reposing henceforth in quiet … The wearing of a [black] cockade is not sufficient to justify continual insolence, impertinence, and outrage.

I went to Leesburg before breakfast to confront this awful tribunal … I entered the hall of audience with a crowd at my heels … I answered all their questions with a ready indifference and asked in my turn for the … warrant against me … The warrant was made out in consequence of a complaint from Jonas Pott, overseer of the poor, and undoubtedly a worthy yoke mate to the rest of the gang. He represented that I was a vagrant … They told me I must either give some security for not becoming cumbersome or go to jail … They asked me what I meant to do? I told them that, as they would not let me send for bail, I could do nothing …

An acquaintance of mine went to town … but not to give bail. He enquired how the court came to maltreat any person living under the protection of General [and Republican U.S. Senator from Virginia Stevens T.] Mason … [T]here the matter stuck [and I was freed] …⁵⁶⁶

MR. FENNO … The debate in the Senate upon annulling the Treaties with France was published by Bache.—The speeches of the Jacobinic members were dressed in their best robes while those of the Federalists were grossly misrepresented… [T]wenty and thirty of [the Aurora] … came in one mail by S. T. Mason to different characters here [in Virginia]. Mr. Mason, I must not withhold … [has] taken to his bosom … the notorious CALLENDER who is now with him at his house.

Today, Maryland Republican Congressman Samuel Smith sends last Saturday’s Gazette of the United States—with its report of Jefferson’s meetings with Benny Bache —to Thomas Jefferson.⁵⁶⁷

SEDITIOUS VIRGINIANS

Fredericksburgh [Virginia], July 21. Serious Information. It is said that the legislative body of this state will be called together immediately … for the purpose of taking into consideration the sundry acts of the second session of the fifth Congress … [T]hey will readily declare the acts alluded to unconstitutional and oppressive, which, [it] is to be feared, will be the cause of Virginia, the Southern and Western States … (How pretty these indolent, factious, despicable wretches will look if the French should, one of these days, set the negroes to cut their throats! … )

CARLISLE [Pennsylvania, July 4] … [T]he following toasts were drunk … 8. Peter Porcupine; may his quills gain keenness and strength by their exercise. 9. Confusion or conversion to all the whelps of the spitting Lyon. 10. May the harbours of America be ever shut against United Irishmen and other traitors. 11. May the American Eagle strangle the French cock … (I would not have inserted a list of toasts containing one in favour of myself, had not the circumstance been misrepresented by that abominable miscreant BACHE. In his dirty poverty-struck Aurora of the other day, he made his stupid readers believe that “ADAMS, WASHINGTON, and PORCUPINE were the only persons toasted” on this occasion … )

CHAPTER FOUR

AMERICAN TERROR