The Freedom of the Press is the Bulwark of Liberty …
B. F. BACHE, EDITOR,
AURORA GENERAL ADVERTISER, 1790-17981693
Philadelphia, October 13, 1798.
Caesar Rodney
Sir, Mrs. Bache, having lain in [with her new child] only a few days before her husband’s decease and having nonetheless attended him day and night, has been obliged to retire to her father-in law’s [the farm called “Settle”] … The heavy calamity that afflicts this city would alone be a Sufficient cause for troubling you on the present occasion for the Small arrear due to this office; but the death of the late Editor & the State of his Family, with the general Stagnation of Circulation, are doubly pressing motives for paying the discharge of the following bill …
I promise that my effort shall be directed to emulate the former excellence of the Aurora, and to render it as it has hitherto been—the only authentic Source of genuine public information. Educated in the principles & admiration of Franklin and firmly attached to the true interests of my country, I venture to presume that the character of the paper will not Suffer under my guidance.
Wm Duane1694
October 15th, 1798
Tench Coxe, Esq. Philadelphia,
Sir, A report having been spread in town on Saturday that Mrs. [Margaret] Bache was dead, I thought it expedient to go to Settle and ascertain the course I had to pursue in the event of the report being true. I was happy, however, to find her, all children, and all the family in perfect health.
Your Queries to me (which I had forwarded to her as you desired) she returned …
1. About 700 Subscribers in Philadelphia.
2. About 5 to 600 [additional] in the country …
13. [F]rom some conversations which I had with Mr. B. I suppose that there is due south of the Delaware between 15 & 20,000 Dollars! Mark this plain observation from experience: Newspaper Debts are the worst of all others! …
15. Since the 1st of July there has been near 200 additional subscribers …
I am very anxious to see you and Mr. Clay [executor of Mr. B’s estate], if possible together, in order to mention some matters of the utmost interest to the Aurora.
Your faithful and grateful servant
Wm Duane1695
Peggy Bache and I will reopen the Aurora. Her name will appear on the masthead. I will edit and manage the paper. We each lost a spouse this year. Benny’s four children need a man to take charge of their inheritance. My children need the Aurora, too. My son, William John, now eighteen, has a job at the paper.1696 Besides, I find Peggy Bache a very attractive woman.1697
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
PUBLISHED (DAILY) FOR MARGARET H. BACHE …
Under the guidance of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN BACHE, this paper has for eight years maintained a character of freedom and intelligence, unrivaled … until calamity for a while arrested its career and deprived society of the Editor.
Of him and his paper—the principles were the same as those … which cherished the imperishable love of liberty in the hour of oppression and which … terminated in the humiliation of our tyrant and the establishment of our national independence. Upon those principles it was that the Aurora was established; upon those alone has it been, with tried constancy, hitherto conducted.
But he whose love of truth and of science, whose zeal to promote the true interest and happiness of his country and the common good of mankind—whose integrity and firmness gave birth and body to the Aurora, is no more …
After such a man … the most earnest efforts of subordinate talents must require a liberal consideration—Upon the principles of the Aurora, upon an undeviating adherence to the principles of our constitution, and an unwearied watchfulness against those eternal foes of republics, avarice, ambition, and corruption—the successor of Benjamin Franklin Bache in the editorial duty confidently relies for public candor and regard.
Efforts have not been wanting to destroy … the credit and interests of this paper—and either to suppress it forever or convert it into a vehicle of atrocious delusion.
Little did the enemies of republican freedom know that among the last and most solemn injunctions made by Benjamin Franklin Bache was that his paper should be continued with inflexible fidelity to the principles upon which it was founded and reared up—an injunction manifesting at once his integrity and the firmness of his mind at the hour of death—it was an injunction which love and honour must cherish and from which virtue could not depart—but such sentiments enter not into the bosoms of the enemies of equal freedom.
[The] moment when calamity had depopulated our city … was chosen by the publisher of a paper … to heap the most malignant aspersions upon the morals and reputation of Benjamin Franklin Bache—at a moment too when he no longer lived to expose the atrocity of the calumny … An apprentice belonging to this office had, soon after the death of the Editor, broke into a store in Market Street and stolen a considerable quantity of goods … Upon these facts, that person who, under the name of Peter Porcupine, confers so much ignominy on the American morals and literature, asserted that the apprentice above mentioned had been trained up to this nefarious mode of life by the late Editor, that the watch which had been stolen was found in this office or house, and that no person was employed in this office who did not carry pistols for such purposes …
[T]he late Editor’s reputation is too much above the reach of [such] detraction …
Matthew Lyon of Vermont has had the honour of being the first victim of a law framed directly in the teeth of the Constitution of this federal republic—the ancients were wont to bestow particular honour on the first citizen who suffered in resisting tyranny.
“Surgo ut prosim.” Today, almost two months after Benny’s death, the Philadelphia Aurora resumes publication. As our masthead motto proclaims, “I rise so that I may be useful. ”
While the Aurora was closed, Republican Congressman Matthew Lyon (whose congressional “spitting” incident prompted Federalist House Speaker Jonathan Dayton to regulate congressional reporting and to expel Benny from the House floor when he refused to cooperate) was in his home state of Vermont, campaigning for reelection to the House of Representatives. In the midst of this campaign, the federal government indicted Matthew Lyon for sedition (October 5), arrested him (October 6), tried him without legal representation (October 8), fined him $1,000, and sentenced him to four months in prison (starting October 9). His “seditious libel” was the claim that President John Adams has demonstrated “a continual grasp for power” and an “unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation, or selfish avarice,” &c.1698 Today, Vermont Republican Congressman Matthew Lyon is in jail.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
The Fever is Gone!
NO NEW CASES have occurred for the last 24 hours. We most heartily congratulate our Readers and the Public, upon this state of things, so long anxiously looked for.
Our lately exiled fellow-citizens are returning in crowds; and the Roads in the vicinity of the city, on every quarter, present an aspect resembling the rear of a retreating army [with its baggage and families].
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
One of the counts in the indictment against MATTHEW LYON is that he had insinuated that the President of the United States was devoted to fondness for “ridicule, pomp, idle parade, and selfish avarice.” (What was that Roman’s name that said Heliogabalus was not a plain man, and died for it?)
Should the French land a large army in Ireland, will they be more to blame in assisting the Irish to establish an elective government, like ours, than the English were in assisting … to restore the old absolute military despotism of France …? … If the Irish wish for an elective government and freedom for other religious societies besides the church of England … will they be more to blame in asking for and using foreign assistance than we were? Will the French who sent us a fleet, an army, clothing, arms, ammunition, and money be more blamable for giving the Irish such assistance? If Washington, Rochambeau and [La]Fayette took Cornwallis at York Town, why may not an Irish general and one or two French generals take Cornwallis in Dublin? If taxation and representation in 1775 were held to be inseparable for two millions of Americans who made many of their own provincial laws, why ought they not to be held inseparable for three millions of Catholics in Ireland who have not had (Great God of Liberty) a single vote ?
Thomas Adams, editor of the [Republican] Independent Chronicle at Boston, was arrested by Colonel Bradford, Marshal of that district, and brought before the Circuit Court to answer to an indictment found against him by the grand jury, for sundry libellous and seditious publications in his paper tending to defame the government of the United States …
While the Aurora was closed, the Adams administration moved to disable the nation’s next-largest1699 republican newspaper, the Independent Chronicle of Boston, Massachusetts, indicting Chronicle publisher Thomas Adams under the new federal Sedition Law for “sundry libellous and seditious publications.” The government arraigned Thomas Adams about a week ago (October 23) before Judges William Paterson and John Lowell at the Federal Circuit Court in Boston, where bail was set and Thomas Adams ordered to stand trial in June.1700
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
COMMUNICATION.
On Thursday, the AURORA again made its appearance to disgrace the city and heap indignities on our Government. The Aurora, I am informed, is conducted by one DUANE, a wretch, who not long since emigrated to this country, was some months ago turned out of the House of Representatives by the Speaker for his insolence … at a time when Duane [was] a short-hand writer;—this Duane is also said to be the miscreant who wrote, under the assumed name of [Jasper] Dwight, the infamous letter to our immortal WASHINGTON—and such a character as this, by Mrs. Bache and her friends, has been thought worthy of conducting the Aurora.
The first paper published for Mrs. Bache by this reptile contains the following observation —
“Matthew Lyon of Vermont has had the honour of being the first victim of a law framed directly in the teeth of the Constitution of this Federal Republic—the ancients were wont to bestow particular honour on the first citizen who suffered in resisting tyranny.”
We would have believed that Americans had submitted to indignities enough from the conduct of the French government … but it appears that our degradation was not complete, and the American people are to be obliged to Mr. Duane for coming to this country to inform them that a LAW made by their government, and declared to be a constitutional law by the Judiciary (the only constitutional judges) is a law …“directly in the teeth of the constitution.” … On the abandoned profligacy and unbounded insolence of this miscreant, I make no comment … Our government protects our property from the plunder of United Irishmen, our lives from the knife of the assassin; therefore, our government should be dear to us … [T]hose creatures coming into this country in a state of extreme wretchedness and, having acquired in their country a talent of defaming government, immediately begin here their trade in order to gain a subsistence, and this they call “the sacred liberty of the press.” … But alas! do we find every good American manfully stepping forward to crush this abandoned faction, formed of a few profligate Americans, late tenants of [N]ewgate [prison] and our own gaols; of United Irishmen, and fugitives from Scotland, of Frenchmen, and other restless foreigners, who have everything to gain and nothing to lose …
The friends of our government, believing its conduct to be just, wise, and upright, too much despise and disregard the vile slanders of a Duane, a Bache, and a [“Newgate”] Lloyd, while those creatures by our supineness are daily gaining ground …
AN AMERICAN
(I myself have read this first paper published in the name of MRS. BACHE … I by no means look upon DUANE or any other vagabond journalist newsmonger as the proper object of attack. The proprietor of the paper, the person whose name it bears, who causes it to be published, is the only one who is responsible for its contents either in the eye of reason or the eye of the law. That person, therefore, whether bearded or unbearded, whether dressed in breeches or petticoats, whether a male or female sans-culotte, shall receive no quarter from me … [William Cobbett])
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1798
War … Today, in the Atlantic, north of the French West Indies, a French privateer captures an armed American schooner. A report:
Thomas M’Connell, who was captured in the schooner Highlander, of Baltimore, mounting 12 guns and carrying 22 men … informed Captain Willis that, … in lat. 19, 10, long 59,00, he fell in with a French privateer, from Guadaloupe, mounting 12 guns, 9 and 6 pounders, with 96 men and 80 muskets, whom he engaged for three glasses. In the beginning of the action, M’Connell’s first mate was shot thro’ the right shoulder and his second killed; and owing to the superior number of men and musquetry on board the enemy, was obliged to strike. M’Connell had three seamen and one officer killed, first officer and one seaman wounded—The enemy had 8 killed, and 3 wounded and received much damage in the hull and rigging which obliged them to put into Bassaterre to repair, where they carried M’Connell and crew whom they immediately put into jail … Capt. M’Connell received the worst of treatment and bad language from the French during his confinement. The only name they called him and the rest of the prisoners was “John Adams’s Jack Asses.”1701
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
While the late editor of this paper lived, all the sluices of English vulgarity … were constantly pouring forth in torrents against him from the pen of the noted English corporal Porcupine, but with no other effect than … a sense of shame for the society that tolerated … it …
[T]he upholders of the present English government will never cease to hate the memory of Dr. Franklin, and they would carry their hatred into a curse on all his posterity, if possible, for his having torn, by the force of his genius, this new empire from the baneful bondage of Britain … [A]spersions o[n] that venerable man were resorted to with the varied view of pleasing the envious rivals of his former celebrity … and wounding the repose of his grandson; but with the like effect;—Franklin’s fame was no longer under the conservation of filial duty or family reverence; it belonged to his country and to history—upon the American nation every aspersion cast on Franklin must rest; when he ceases to be revered by his country, his country will cease to be respected …
[T]he English jackal [Porcupine] … pursued his grandson likewise to the grave—and endeavored to heap calumny on his memory whom he had not the courage to face while yet he lived. That calumny was exposed … in our paper last Thursday … [T]he assassin of the dead being exposed to public execration … comes forth with a threat, and against whom—a woman, and a widow—and for what? For defending the reputation of her husband …
One word more, and then let public shame perform the rest—Whenever the writer of the articles in Porcupine’s paper of Saturday thinks fit to call at this office, he shall see the person who wrote the defence of the late Editor published in last Thursday’s Aurora, who also is the writer of this; and who, whether in petticoats or breeches, will be ready to give him suitable satisfaction!
Porcupine and Fenno will find me a tireless defender of Ben Franklin and the Baches. If we don’t take Peggy’s name off the masthead, however, Peggy will become the principal focus for Fenno’s and Porcupine’s attacks.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
It is either true or false that Mr. Adams has advocated the doctrine of hereditary rank and permanent office. If he has advocated such doctrines, it is high time the fact should be known and established … [T]he leaders of what is called the federal or government party have advocated the political conduct and principles of Mr. Adams … To decide, therefore, whether this approbation be given to acts founded on sound republican virtue or to those which may emanate from a principle destructive of the present form of our constitution, and unfriendly to the habits and feelings of the people, is an enquiry of infinite importance …
This afternoon, Jack Fenno in the Gazette of the United States:
Two young Widows have just commenced their Editorial careers … [O]ne cannot too much admire at the bungling stupidity of the logger-headed boobies … under the sanction of those ladies’ names …
The other “young Widow” who “commenced her Editorial career” is Ann Greenleaf, who is trying to continue the nation’s third-largest1702 Republican paper, the New York Argus, after the death of her husband, Thomas Greenleaf, on September 14th from yellow fever.1703
Tonight, William Cobbett in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
MOTHER BACHE.
Has published a second number of her infamous Gazette, with her name at the head of it. I now look upon her as having declared herself. Her friends (if she yet has any) can no longer plead her ignorance of her name being made use of, and I shall, therefore, treat her as the profligate Authoress of the Aurora.—Adieu, PEG, ‘till I have a moment’s leisure.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Philadelphia presents the novel case of a ruffian … standing forth before the public the avowed assailant of a feeble woman, when the wretch dares not meet the man who alone is responsible for what appears in this paper.
The proprietors of the Argus and Aurora have the misfortune to be left widows, and behold the age of chivalry is not past, neither their sex nor their misfortunes can shield them from the attacks of two military heroes, two corporals—corporal Fenno and corporal Porcupine.
Two blackguards at a time attacking even a man is at least too much—What must the condition of their morals and education be who attack a woman!
We are not surprized that corporal Cobbett should be particularly scurrilous against women, since he beats the woman who is unfortunately linked to the beast: we are only astonished that he shews any affection for children, particularly for Fenno, as it is well known that at Bustletown, [Cobbett) subjected his own infant to the knot.
It must not be thought that we in any way desire to derogate from the character of William Cobbett[. W]e only couple him with his co-corporal Fenno to elucidate the pretensions of the latter.
It would have been imagined, considering the youth of editor Fenno, that the late calamities of his own family would have made some impression upon his mind, and at least have taught him to respect the feelings of others. But he seems to have been so thoroughly bred in the school of vice, that even female grief cannot be respected by him.
In page 70, vol. Ist. [of Mr. Adams’ Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States] we find another testimony … to the excellence of the British constitution (of king, lords, and commons) … “I only contend (says the Doctor) that the English constitution is in theory the most stupendous fabric of human invention … and that the Americans ought to be applauded instead of censured for imitating it as far as they have …”
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
Luther Baldwin, of Newark, was arrested on Saturday last, by the marshal of the state of New-Jersey, under the late Sedition Act, for expressing a wish that the President of the United States was dead.
(Yes; the great wish, the longing desire of the French faction. THE PRESIDENT is almost the only bar in their way to general pillage.—God preserve his life!)
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
(The following is taken from a letter written by Col. [Matthew] LYON [of Vermont], since he was committed to gaol [prison], and directed to Gen. STEVENS THOMPSON MASON, of Virginia, Senator of the United States.
In Gaol in VERGENNES [Vermont]. October 14
DEAR GENERAL … I mourn with you the death of our good friend BACHE—he was too good a man to be tortured with the Sedition Law—God saw it in that light and took him to himself.
I shall trouble you no longer at this time than to request you to give my respects to my friends in Virginia … and to let them know the operation of the Sedition Law in Vermont … [MATTHEW LYON]
Under the British government, you could talk as you pleased, write as you pleased, censure King George the Third, if you pleased. But John Adams is not to be censured; he is immaculate ! Did you, or did you not, fight for LIBERTY? The causes of our revolutionary war appear in the present day as a dream … Unanimity in Judge, lawyer, and Jury ! A Judge appointed by John Adams, an Attorney appointed by John Adams, a Jury summoned, selected by a Marshall appointed by John Adams ! ! ! It is time—But, as Benedict Arnold says—HUSH !
A clerk in a particular office is specially appointed to search the obnoxious papers for suitable matter to cut them up at law—a wag, referring to the fact, observed that the clerk seldom searched the scriptures.
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
There is a vagabond Irishman or Scotchman, in the third parish of Dedham [Massachusetts], who has stirred up a few ignorant people to erect a liberty pole, with a painted board, and the words Liberty, Equality, no stamp act, no sedition or Alien bill, downfall to tyranny in America, peace and retirement to the President …
Many of the justices of the peace, on their way to the Sessions, had opportunity to behold this standard of insurrection against the laws and magistracy of the country.
Porcupine does not have to worry! Massachusetts Federalists have already brought charges under the new federal Sedition Act against David Brown, the middle-aged “vagabond” who stirred up the people to erect a liberty pole. Boston’s Federal Marshal Samuel Bradford is searching for David Brown with a warrant for his arrest.1704
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Extract of a letter from Doctor Logan, dated Bordeaux [France], September 9, 1798, to his Wife.
“I have the pleasure to inform you that I embark this day on board the ship Perseverance for Philadelphia and shall bring with me dispatches to restore that harmony, the loss of which has been so sensibly felt by both countries. All American vessels in the harbours of France have been released—all American prisoners have been set at liberty; and the most positive assurances have been made that France is ready to enter into a treaty for the amicable accommodation of all matters in dispute …
GEORGE LOGAN.”
The warhawks will be now more than ever distracted. The publication of a letter from Dr. Logan is a cruel blow … to the candidates for [military] contracts, commissions, and commissaryships !
The man who dares even to hint that the President of the United States is proud or avaricious is locked up in solitary confinement—Oh Liberty !!! … The place of victim Lyon’s confinement is without shelter from a freezing northern climate or fire-place to dispel the chilling damps—if he should be frozen to death, could an honest jury bring in a verdict ?—MURDER !
The [news]paper-searching clerk in a certain office may be appropriately compared with a familiar of the Inquisition—with this odd feature of resemblance; that as the latter is employed to support religion, so the other is employed to support liberty !
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
Now is the crisis advancing. The abandoned faction, devoted to France … have fifty thousand men, provided with arms, in Pennsylvania. If vigorous measures are not taken; if the provisional army is not raised without delay, A CIVIL WAR, OR A SURRENDER OF INDEPENDENCE, IS NOT AT MORE THAN A TWELVE MONTH’S DISTANCE …
The partizans of France are linked together in one chain, from Georgia to N. Hampshire. The seditious impudence of the Democratic Societies has given place to the dark and silent system of organized treason and massacre, imported by the UNITED IRISHMEN … And yet the pretended friends of America are asleep …
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
We are happy in perceiving the growing jealousy of foreigners. The inundation of suspicious characters, particularly from Ireland and France, should awaken the most serious concern …
We have now before us a file of “The Redacteur,” the French official gazette, almost every page of which contains some insult to our beloved President. In one we read … “John Adams has ordered a day of general fasting. This is truly laughable.”
Today about eleven o’clock, our beloved General [Washington] arrived in town. Detachments from the different troops of horse met him on the road, at and from Chester, and escorted him to the city … McPherson’s Blues [the Federalist volunteer corps of “young men,”] and Captain Hozey’s company were drawn up in the centre square, and, as he approached, he alighted from his carriage, and with his secretary Mr. Lear, passed the line uncovered to the usual salute of presented arms … Having got into his carriage again, he was escorted to Mrs. White’s in Eighth-street, where a guard from McPherson’s Blues was immediately mounted …
Major General Alexander HAMILTON and the Hon. James McHenry, Secretary at War, also arrived this day, and accompanied the Lieutenant General to his lodgings in Eighth street.
Tonight, after dark, George Logan arrives back at his farm in Germantown from his private peace mission to France. He has messages to deliver to the U.S. Secretary of State from the French Directory (France’s plural executive), and he will set out in the morning to find Timothy Pickering who has yet to return from Trenton, New Jersey, the temporary seat of the federal government while the yellow fever beset Philadelphia.1705
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The blues … have the honor of first testifying their loyalty and attachment to the hoary general; may they never encounter a worse duty …
It is hoped that the guard of state has been selected from those who are not subject to growing pains!
Why shouldst thou rail O Fenno! at thine enemies for laughing at the fastings of the federalists, ordained by thy beloved President, when the citizens of Philadelphia know that the day, “so holy,” was celebrated by thy fellow FEDS in riot, drunkenness, and assault. Only ask capt. Josey Thomas now—who at length returned to the bosom of his fond friends and the seat of his former federal and literary glories!
Though we may not think it quite safe to sum up the follies of the present day, still it may possibly be permitted a freeman born to amuse himself with recalling past scenes …
ANECDOTES.
[1.] AT a theatrical representation given at Versailles and to which the three American envoys were invited (not the late unsuccessful ones, reader) … a resemblance of the late Dr. Franklin, the selected commissioner of the three and with whom the court then had communication, was introduced … with a civic wreath. Whether the spectacle excited any disagreeable movements in the mind of a certain personage [Mr. Adams] … we cannot say. [W]e know, however, that it operated … to excite the animal power of locomotion [for his departure] …
[2.] Lieutenant General Washington, once General in Chief of Republic America, has in his possession a profile of himself … with a wreath and crown. This, together, with a profile of the late doctor Franklin, were presented to the doctor whilst in France. A certain personage [Mr. Adams] … was in Paris at the same time. It would be highly dangerous to accuse him even of envy, but … the complimentary crown offended his highness so much (perhaps because it was over the head of another) that he took great pains to dismantle the frame and cut off the offending object with his penknife. The deficiency is now observable in the portrait which is still in the possession of the late President.
Quere.—What may we think of a Person whose republicanism cannot even suffer the semblance of a crown to remain upon another’s image, but who at the same time may be hereafter shrewdly suspected of craving a real crown for his own knapper.
Today, George Logan visits Secretary of State Timothy Pickering in Trenton, New Jersey. George Logan:
After a conversation of considerable length with Mr. Pickering, during which at times he manifested a great degree of irritation against the French, I took my leave; he waited on me to the door, on the threshold of which, with a voice altered by the agitation of his mind, he stammered out these words, too singular not to be related:
“Sir, it is my duty to inform you that the government does not thank you for what you have done. ”
Considering Mr. Pickering as Secretary of State and the Public organ of the executive, I was astonished at his folly. In this the most important transaction of my life, I had the approbation of my conscience. I never experienced a more perfect satisfaction than what arose from the reflection of having done my country so considerable a service.1706
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
If we do not speedily close our doors upon the hordes of ruffians yearly disgorging upon us, America will erelong be converted into one vast house of assassins.
If the revolutionary vermin of foreign countries should continue to encrease and fatten as they have heretofore done on the sufferings and distress of the community, it is not difficult to foresee the speedy dissolution of this … most enlightened republic. Then we should see committees of public safety and revolutionary tribunals composed of Callenders, Reynolds, Burks, and Duanes. The heads of rich men would roll down the kennels …
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
The President of the United States is expected at Trenton, on his way back to Philadelphia, in a few days. It must give pain to every one, Mother Bache and her gang excepted, to hear that Mrs. Adams will, from indisposition, be unable to accompany him.
ALARMING!
At a meeting of Herodsburg (Kentucky), present 200 citizens, resolves … were agreed to, censuring the late measures of the general government. Similar resolves have been entered into by the inhabitants of Montgomery county (K.), Madison county, and Lincoln county (K.)
We can account for these discontents and clamours. No papers circulate in Kentucky except the Aurora, that herald of Sedition …
(This article is taken from a New York newspaper … It seems to me that [the writer] has mistaken an effect for a cause. The preference given to the Aurora is proof of previous discontent … )
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The New York Gazette has long been afflicted with the incurable malady of dreaming about the Aurora … [A] story is now brought forth that “no paper circulates to Kentucky but the Aurora.” … [T]he plain truth is that three papers in this city have double or triple the number of subscribers in that state … [W]e have the pleasure to learn however that a large subscription to the Aurora has lately been made …
Today, in Lexington, Kentucky, the Kentucky senate concurs in resolutions passed three days ago by Kentucky’s house of representatives, including:
III. Resolved, That … [by] abridging the freedom of speech or of the press … the act of the Congress of the United States passed on the 14th of July 1798 [the Sedition Law] … is not law, but is altogether void and of no effect …
VI. Resolved, That … “An act concerning aliens” … to authorize the President to remove a person … on his own suspicion, without accusation, without jury, without public trial, without confrontation of the witnesses against him, without having witnesses in his favor, without defence, without counsel, is contrary to … the Constitution, … not law … void and of no force.1707
Kentucky’s attorney general, John Breckinridge, submitted these proposals, but Thomas Jefferson secretly composed them. Thomas Jefferson:
At the time when the Republicans of our country were so much alarmed at the proceedings of the federal ascendancy … it became a matter of serious consideration how head could be made against their enterprises on the Constitution. The leading republicans in Congress found themselves of no use there … They concluded to retire from that field, take a stand in their state legislatures, and endeavor there to arrest their progress …1708
Today, having returned to Philadelphia from Trenton, New Jersey, George Logan locates George Washington at Rosanna White’s Eighth-street boarding-house. George Washington:
Mr. Lear, My Secretary, being from our lodgings on business, one of my servants … informed me that a Gentleman in the Parlor below desired to see me … In a few minutes I went down and found the Rev. Doctr. Blackwell and Doctr. Logan there. I … gave my hand to the former; the latter did the same towards me … I was backward in giving mine … Finally, in a very cool manner and with an air of in-diffe[re]nce, I gave him my hand … I addressed all my conversation to Doctor Blackwell; the other [Dr. Logan] all his to me, to which I only gave negative or affirmative answers, as laconically as I could …
He observed that the situation … with respect to France has induced him to make the Voyage … This … induced me to remark that there was something very singular in this. That he who could be viewed as a private character, unarmed with powers and presumptively unknown in France, should suppose he could effect what these gentlemen of the first respectability in our Country, specially charged under the authority of the Government, were unable to do. With this observation he seemed a little confounded; but recovering … said that the Directory was apprehensive that this Country, viz. the Government of it or Our Envoys … was not well disposed towards France … To this I finally … asked him if the Directory looked upon us as worms; and not even allowed to turn when tread upon? … and I hoped the spirit of this Country would never suffer itself to be injured with impunity by any nation under the Sun. To this he s[ai]d he told Citizen Merlin [president of the French Directory] that if the U.S. were Invaded by France, they w[oul]d unite to a man to oppose the Invaders.1709
George Logan’s wife, Deborah, reports:
[A]t this interview, the general asked him what was the reason the Directors had treated him so well, when the government of France has assumed so different a tone to our commissioners? Doctor Logan replied that his own conduct, and not theirs, was all he could account for.1710
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
THE jacobins have taken up the trick of late, which they have borrowed from their friends, the French, of employing ladies in their wicked maneuvers … [T]he amiable daughters of America will lose greatly by mingling in the stormy element of politics … [T]his ill-chosen business, if you pursue it, will spoil your beauty, as well as mar your happiness; it will plant your bosoms with thorns, and deform your lovely faces with wrinkles before their proper time. Be warned; retreat, before it is too late.
A Friend of the Fair.
Tonight, windows are broken at the offices of the Philadelphia Aurora.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
PUBLISHED (DAILY) FOR THE HEIRS OF BENJ. FRANKLIN BACHE
Starting this morning, Peggy’s name no longer appears on the Aurora’s masthead.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Put out the light, and then put out the light. Shakespeare. That the Aurora office is still under the particular patronage of the tory federalists appears from their demolitions Tuesday night. It is no new thing that the aristocratic junto should admit the propriety of breaking windows, since they are not yet taxed.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
DOCTOR LOGAN … had the unpardonable effrontery to wait upon General Washington. Upon his introduction, he offered his polluted hand to the General who declined returning his fraternal salutation.
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
THE gentle and impartial Mr. Claypoole, in his Gazette … says “the raising of a provisional army … may be very justly called into question.” … [T]he attempt to spread abroad such an opinion is a most wicked Jacobin trick. The gentle Claypoole is, in fact, no more than the avant courier, the go-before, the entering wedge, of PEG BACHE.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Official accounts from Constantinople … [bring] advice that [British] Admiral Nelson attacked the French fleet [of Napoleon] before Alexandria [Egypt], and partly burned and sunk almost the whole of it.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
Our belief in the intelligence of the ruin of the French “Army of Egypt” … has since been completely justified by more recent intelligence … French cruizers will now be everywhere chased from the Mediterranean …
Here, let us not omit to enumerate the immense consequence of this victory to the trade of the United States … [H[ow great a load of reproach and ignominy we have escaped through the wisdom of one man [John Adams] who may with justice be styled (to copy the old Roman solecism) THE SECOND FOUNDER OF THE REPUBLIC … when the firmness of administration, as was foreseen and foretold, results in security and prosperity.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
A MEETING of the UNITED IRISHMEN in Philadelphia will be held at 7 o’clock on FRIDAY EVENING, 23d instant. Brethren will please to apply for cards of admission to citizen
D. CLARKE
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
IT has often been the lot of this Gazette to warn the people of the United States against those underhanded conspiracies which we had reason to know were forming … The following … justifies all our apprehensions …
A Meeting of the United Irishmen in Philadelphia will be held at 7 o’clock on Friday evening, 23d instant …
N.B. This “Notice” is copied from an obscure publication, called the Aurora, the same that was formerly carried on by a Mr. Bache.
The people of America have long been abused by a detestable banditti of foreign invaders who, through the medium of the press, have found constant means of libeling truth and honesty … Let them be brought to the bar of public justice and made to answer its demands …
Who but remembers the torpid state in which we slumbering lay, when the warning voice of Mr. Adams first roused us to behold the gigantic danger which threatened and surrounded us? Who but remembers the consternation produced by the war speech, and the howlings of the jacobins at that timely alarm ? They had till then succeeded in stifling the spirit of the country …
The Federalists, abandoning all tame and half-way measures, should act with a zeal worthy their cause and their country. Let us no longer “peep our swords half-out their scabbards,” but draw them forth and brandish them to vengeance.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Heretofore General Washington was wont to be called the second founder of the republic, as Franklin was the first. [W]e are now told, and it is confessedly a solecism, that our modest and unassuming President merits that title!
Let us no longer “peep our swords out of the scabbards” says young Fenno—“Twenty more, kill them,” says Bobadil.
Fenno deigns to think the Aurora “obscure,” perhaps through envy. Pity ‘tis, the compliment cannot be returned, but like the gallows maker in the play, he is eminently NOTORIOUS.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
THE man who doubts the organization of a party in this country to overthrow its constitution and government and to model both with the assistance of France must be a creature of doubtful gender …
Look at the Jacobins … take a lesson from them …
Let, therefore, ASSOCIATIONS be formed in every considerable City and Town of the United States (the example may be set in Philadelphia … ) let committees be appointed; funds raised, presses employed; let information be disseminated at cheap rates everywhere; let the ignorant be instructed; the wavering confirmed; the banditti watched in their uprisings and downyings; and I will offer my neck to the guillotine if, in twelve months after the scheme is brought into operation, they are not completely crushed.
The President left his seat in Quincy for Philadelphia on Monday week.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Much clamour is raised against Doctor Logan, by our Federal Aristocrats, for being the bearer of dispatches; and he was threatened with being arrested for treason … These consistent Federalists have been continually thundering out their anathemas against the French for capturing our vessels … but no sooner do [the French] stop the taking of our vessels and offer us restitution for those already taken than [George Logan,] the man whom [the Federalists] suppose has been instrumental in effecting this change of conduct in the French government, is charged of being a traitor to his country … A proof, this, that they are displeased with this manifestation of an amiable disposition on the part of France; that they wish for war; and that nothing short of war with France will satisfy them.
The Editor of the Boston Centinal exultantly mentions that lately a Liberty Pole (termed by him a Jacobin Pole) which had been erected at Dedham [Massachusetts], had been prostrated with the dirt; and that one FAIRBANKS, a deluded ringleader, charged with being an accessory in erecting this rallying point of insurrection and civil war, was apprehended by the marshal of the district, accompanied by several good citizens of a neighboring town, and carried to Boston for examination, part of which he underwent the same evening with Judge Lowell.
What! is it to be deemed seditious and considered an act of insurrection in our citizens to erect a liberty pole, reared in the commemoration of our dear-bought FREEDOM and INDEPENDENCE, purchased with their treasure and their blood ? … But so it is—“Hail Columbia, happy Land !”
Federal Marshal Samuel Bradford of Boston has yet to apprehend David Brown, the middle-aged “vagabond” who “stirred up” people to express their discontent by erecting a liberty pole in Dedham, Massachusetts, but Bradford has arrested, under the Sedition Law, Dedham farmer Benjamin Fairbanks, who was present during its erection. Mr. Fairbanks faces a June sedition trial at the Federal Circuit Court in Boston.1711
Today, George Washington writes Alexander Spotswood:
You ask my opinion of these [alien laws] …
Consider to what lengths a Certain description of men in our Country have already driven … matters and then ask if it is not time and expedient to resort to protecting Laws against Aliens (for Citizens you certainly know are not affected by that law) who acknowledge no allegiance to this Country and in many cases are sent among us … for the express purpose of poisoning the minds of our people and to sow dissentions among them, in order to alienate their affections from the Government of their Choice, thereby endeavoring to dissolve the Union …1712
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
CITIZENS OF PHILADELPHIA, A Meeting of the United Irishmen has been announced yesterday through the medium of Mrs. Bache’s newspaper—it is therefore asked what can be the intention of a meeting so designated? …
Americans beware! Look upon these United Irishmen, whatever appearances they may put on, even with cockades in their hats, as so many serpents within your bosom … [K]eep a strict watch over United Irishmen—be persuaded that they are your enemies …
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
[Adv]
To be had at this office
… GIFFORD’S HISTORY OF FRANCE …
IN THREE VOLUMES ROYAL QUARTO
With a continuation, containing the
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION
to the close of 1796.
By WILLIAM DUANE.
The four volumes bound … PRICE 20 Dollars
The Revolutionary history may be had separately …
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
The United Irishmen in Philadelphia who are to assemble tonight, we are credibly informed, are composed of disaffected, illiterate Irish, Scotch, Dutch, and even—Americans!—Hence it would be no bull to say citizen Logan is an United Irishman.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
In 1776 you fought against Britain and for liberty; and now you are unwilling to fight for Britain and John Adams. In 1776 you fought for the right of raising your money as you pleased, and now you are against John Adams raising it for you. In 1776, you fought in principle against parliament imposing sedition bills upon you, and now that your own representatives have done it, you murmur … In 1776, you fought for the right of speaking and publishing your sentiments as you pleased, and now that the Congress has determined that it is expedient of you to give up this right or to suspend the exercise of it, instead of submitting like good citizens, you seem determined to make greater use of your tongues than ever. These alone, independent of many other proofs which might have been adduced, manifestly shew … depravity …
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
The PRESIDENT arrived in the city last evening about eight o’clock. The vessels of war, the troops of horse, artillery, &c. were prepared to receive him with due honors. The horse went on to meet him but returned with the news that he would not arrive ‘till to day. In the meanwhile, he came in as privately as possible.
This day, at twelve o’clock, CAPTAIN DECATUR, from the Delaware sloop of war fired a federal salute on the occasion, which was accompanied by a salute fired by the 9th artillery, and by a peal from the bells of Christ Church.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The President of the United States arrived in town Friday evening … The Bells were not rung for the president on his arrival on Friday owing to his well known dislike of parade and empty adulation.
The address of the United Irishmen shall have a place about the close the week. [I]t was received too late on Saturday for this day’s paper.
This morning, George Logan visits John Adams at the President’s House in Philadelphia. President Adams:
I knew [Mr. Logan] had been … a zealous disciple of that democratical school which has propagated many errors in America and perhaps many tragical catastrophes in Europe … After his return [from France], he called upon me and, in a polite and respectful manner, … to express the desire of the Directory as well as his own to accommodate all disputes with America …
But the testimonies of … Mr. Logan … would have had no influence to dispose me to nominate a minister [to France], if I had not received authentic, regular, official, diplomatic assurances …1713
George Logan’s wife, Deborah:
The President asked him many questions, all of which he answered with his usual candour. Nor did the President show to him any of that irritability of temper … [O]nly a little sally escaped him when the assurances of the Directory that they would receive a minister were repeated to him. He arose from his chair, and, with a characteristic action used when in earnest, “Yes,” said he, “I suppose if I were to send Mr. Madison … or Dr. Logan, they would receive either of them. But I’ll do no such thing; I’ll send whom I please.”1714
Today, Thomas Jefferson writes Virginian John Taylor:
I owe you a political letter. Yet the infidelities of the post office and the circumstances of the times are against my writing fully & freely, whilst my own dispositions are as much against mysteries, innuendoes & half-confidences. I know not which mortifies me most, that I should fear to write what I think, or my country bear such a state of things. Yet Lyon’s judges and a jury of all nations are objects of rational fear …1715
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
The public attention has been called during the past week to the flagrant and atrocious fact of the existence of a society of United Irishmen in this City … Every United Irishman ought to be hunted from the country, as much as a wolf or a tyger.—For a more bloody and remorseless band of organized assassins never polluted the fountains of society …
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Dr. LOGAN we understand took the earliest opportunity of paying his respects to the President of the United States with whom he had a long conference yesterday morning.
The important information which we presume has been communicated by Dr. LOGAN to the Executive will, we doubt not, tend to secure us from the evils of a calamitous and fruitless war with which we were so imminently menaced.
Those who remember how much America is indebted to the patriotism and disinterested services of La Fayette … during our revolutionary war against the tyranny of Britain … will hear with pleasure that he has … written to General Washington … to prevent hostilities from taking place between the two Republics …
We shall not wonder if now that La Fayette has endeavored to secure the peace of America, the tory presses should teem with scurrility and abuse against him.
War is the Federal Cry, and behold the presidential and ambassadorial solecism—we are told we must go to war in order to prevent war—That is something like the man who cut his own throat in order that he should not die before his time.
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
ADMIRAL NELSON’S VICTORY [over Napoleon’s fleet at the Battle of the Nile in Egypt is] a bone too big for the Democrats to swallow … MOTHER BACHE swears bloodily it is all a lie. PEG knows better; but she … is letting the weight down upon her gang little by little … They now behold the power of France cut off, and with it all their hopes of plunder.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
THE United Irishmen of Philadelphia … have, it seems, AN ADDRESS on the anvil … What have Americans to do with the Addresses of Irishmen?
Poor Logan and his dreams of peace seem both alike to have vanished.—Sunk, quite sunk in oblivion. It is cruel after a man has traveled so many thousands of miles for the public good, to meet no other salutation than “How foolish you look!”
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Fenno asks what have Americans to do with the addresses of Irishmen? … A question might be asked better founded, however, what had Irishmen to do with the addresses of Americans, with the addresses of the American Congress, in 1776?
The tories will never forgive Dr. Logan for his endeavors to prevent a war: any more than for being a republican !
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
The Officers of M’Pherson’s Blues yesterday waited on the PRESIDENT to pay their respect to him on his return to the city.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The [French] Directory, in releasing the American ships and cargoes, have at least manifested such a disposition to peace with America they have never condescended to shew towards their most sacred and excellent Majest[ies] of Europe.
If a party or faction, whoever small, whether designated by the epithet of federalists or tories, uniformly oppose measures calculated to produce peace … and strenuously advocate the expediency of an alliance with Great Britain, the happy effects of a war with France, the propriety of abolishing the liberty of the press, to destroy the use of free speech, and deprecate the idea of an individual’s saving his country from the horrors of an impending war, such a faction cannot have the real interests of their country at heart: This is Treason against the People; and the authors of it should be immediately ousted from the confidence of their supporters, and driven from their strongholds, with the punishment due to their evil machinations.
The object of the journey of our illustrious General Washington to Philadelphia, we learn, is to hold a Council of Officers on the military arrangements of the United States;—and he has already had communications on the subject with Major-Generals HAMILTON, and the Secretary at War. The General, it is said, will not leave Philadelphia until he has paid his respect to the PRESIDENT of the United States, and taken his commands, on the object of his journey.
The grand council which has been assembled in this city for some days, consisting of a selection of military officers, it is reported, have manifested a disposition to advise the organization of a large STANDING ARMY. If this should prove to be the fact … the people of America must look to their LIBERTIES …
Standing armies once established, a great and despotic body is created in the state, with interests hostile to the public liberties and, living under despotic laws, inconsistent with the spirit of a free government in any other circumstance than that of actual war.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
Public expectation waits on tip toe for the results of that august assemblage which now graces the city by its presence. It seems to be a thing of general expectation, however, that the Provisional Army will be raised and appointed …
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Standing mercenary armies were first established in France in the fourteenth century—In America they were first attempted to be permanently established near the close of the eighteenth.
An enormous and unnecessary army—an equally unnecessary navy—and the institution of heavy taxes … has no doubt produced a species of influence where offices and appointments have been held out … and this influence … has given birth to a volume of adulation that will be, to future times, a painful monument [to] our rapid debasement from the sincerity of republican citizens to the humiliating manners and idiom of monarchical subjects …
The Presidential speech for the opening of Congress is said to be already on the Federal anvil—it is likely to undergo many severe strokes before it is fit for the public ear.
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
PEG BACHE, I hear, begins to cry, “peace in Europe!” She is like all the Poissarde crew [lower-class market women] … when they once feel the point of your shoe or the lash of your horsewhip, they instantly call out for a cessation of hostilities. MOTHER BACHE and her gang have tried what threats of war can do … [T]hey now wish to persuade people that Great Britain is going to make peace and that poor America will be left in the lurch …
PEG lies like her husband … However, if Great Britain is about to make peace, don’t you think, PEG, that we had better make peace along with her? And in order to be entitled to do that, don’t you think we had better join her in the war now? Lay the Poissarde aside a bit; leave talking bawdry, and give me a civil, modest answer.
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
A very staunch Federalist, and who in our revolution displayed the strength of his British attachments, being asked his opinion of a standing army, said it was absolutely necessary to frighten the Virginians and Kentuckians !
At a very numerous meeting of the people of Orange, State of Virginia; at their court house … to take into account the alarming situation of the United States … Whereupon, the following address was presented …
TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF … VIRGINIA …
Shall we act, or shall we perish ? Shall usurpation threaten us by war into its measures? Is it necessary to submit to one of these evils as the very means of escaping the other ?
Tonight, William Cobbett in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
There is no making any good of them … Once a Jew, a Jew always, and once a Jacobin, a Jacobin forever.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The echoes of our ministerial oracles assert that the army of mercenaries contemplated to be raised are intended entirely for home service—this declaration is as surprisingly candid as important.
Yesterday an armed brig in our harbor, in discharging her guns, sent a cannon ball thro’ the roof of Mr. Elgar’s store in Greenwich street … The ball entered the south side of the roof, went clear throughout the opposite side, and lodged at the door of the house No 74, opposite the circus. It is next to a miracle that no further injury was done.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
The people of the United States will cease to wonder at the increased vilification heaped on Great Britain from the press of the Aurora when they learn that the present “doer” of that infamous paper is a miscreant whose conduct as a Printer in the East-Indies had been such as to call for the most rigorous interposition of the government—
Lord Cornwallis found it necessary to put the forger “Jasper Dwight” in Irons with an intention of sending him to his account in England—from this situation the culprit contrived to escape to this country—
Quere. Does not the treaty with Great Britain provide for surrendering Fugitives from justice ? Or did the vagabond arrive in America anterior to this salutary provision ?
The Cornwallis who placed me in irons in India is the same Cornwallis whom America defeated, with French help, at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781 and the same Cornwallis whom Ireland failed to defeat, despite French help, two months ago on the Heights of Balhnamuck. Cornwallis was Governor-General of India when I published my newspaper in Bengal Province (1791–1794) before coming to America. My paper, the Bengal World, endorsed the French Revolution, criticized British slavery practices in Africa, disclosed abuses in the British East India Army, and, for such seditious writings, got me imprisoned at Fort Williams (site of Calcutta’s Black Hole) and, in January of 1795, deported in irons.1716 Whether Governor General of India, Viceroy of Ireland, or commander of the British army in Virginia, Charles Cornwallis is a soldier of the British monarch and an enemy to America, to Ireland, to France, and to me!
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Only one reporter was suffered to take the debates in the House of Representatives last session; it appears that there are to be two in the present … Be it remembered that the most important debate which took place in the House of Representatives last session, has not yet been published,— to wit, the debate on the execrated Sedition Bill.
By the management of affairs in the House of Representatives with regard to reporters, the party that puts the Speaker in the chair can always manage to have debates on odious measures suppressed by prohibiting any but a favored reporter who, though he may be the most able and honest man in the world, is liable to be influenced by the apprehension of a loss of bread for disobedience !
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
The Dagger-Men, it seems, had prepared something which was called, “the address of the United Irishmen.” This was put into the hands of Jasper [Dwight] in order to be pruned of its barbarities. He promised at the beginning of last week to give it place in the course of that week. But the keen indignation of the public, excited by the daring designs of these villains, has deprived them of their wonted assurance. The piece has not appeared.
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Where are the soldiers for a mercenary army [of the federal government] to be had? … [S]ay the good federalists, we can raise an army of Irish emigrants—and these to a man are United Irishmen; there are dilemmas on all sides, but one thing is certain, we can find officers enough, so that an army of 20,000 officers may be a handsome military establishment—if the people will consent to pay them !
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Matthew Lyon, it appears, has been with astonishing generosity allowed to purchase a stove and fire wood, and most condescendingly permitted to have them in prison with him.
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
A Hint to the Federal Government on the subject of the ALIEN BILL … [Y]esterday, the … legacy of the molten Lightening Rod tells us that America cannot look … for a STANDING FORCE … to Ireland—for “ALL THE IRISH EMIGRANTS IN AMERICA ARE UNITED IRISHMEN.”—Nota Bene !
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
KENTUCKY LEGISLATURE …
The [Kentucky] House … moved the following RESOLUTIONS …
I. Resolved, That the several states composing the United States of America are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government … that whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force …
Today, President Adams delivers his Second Annual Address at the opening of the Third Session of the Fifth Congress of the United States:1717
Gentlemen of the Senate and Gentlemen of the House of Representatives …
[N]othing is discoverable in the conduct of France which ought to change or relax our measures of defense. On the contrary, to extend and invigorate them is our true policy. We have no reason to regret that these measures have been thus far adopted …
[T]o send another minister [to France] without more determinate assurances that he would be received would be an act of humiliation to which the United States ought not to submit … [W]hether we negotiate with her or not, vigorous preparations for war will be alike indispensable …
We ought without loss of time to lay the foundation for an increase of our Navy …1718
MONDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
OF THE SPEECH …
[T]he speech says “nothing is discoverable in the conduct of France which ought to change or relax our measures of defence.” The plain English of this is that France is not desirous of peace with us … [W]e must unquestionably discredit the speech, for the free relinquishment of our property [American ships] to the amount of half a million of dollars, was a something in which a man not short-sighted or blind, must discern a disposition to peace …
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
The Dagger-Men shall hear from me again, anon.
N. B. If Jasper is determined to suppress the promised “Address of the United Irishmen,” bring it to me, and I will give it place.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The arrangements for the [President’s] speech on Saturday, whether by accident or otherwise, were remarkable; on the President’s right were the British minister [to the U.S. Robert Liston] … and, on the British minister’s left, General Washington; on the President’s left were … the general officers [of the new federal army], and, in their rear … the political and civil functionaries … [T]he poor devils of short-hand writers were, by order of Mr. Speaker, shoved still further in the rear merely to prove the strength of their oracular and intuitive faculties.
[PHILADELPHIA.] On Saturday evening, Lankford Heron, Brick-maker, a native of Virginia, was taken out of his house in Hickory Lane, sign of the Liberty cap and pole, and brought before alderman Jennings who committed him to the city gaol for damning the President, all that took his part, and that wore the Black Cockade, &c.
Today, in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Annals of Congress report:
ALIEN AND SEDITION LAWS.
MR. HARPER [Federalist, S. Carolina] said no member of this House could be ignorant of the use made of [the alien and sedition laws] … No one could be ignorant of the ferment which had been raised and sedulously kept up on account of those laws. I do know, said he, of a certainty that this ferment has been raised and is kept up by a misrepresentation of the content of those laws … In order, therefore, to enable the people to judge for themselves … he offered a resolution …
“Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives, That the Secretary of State be, and he is hereby authorized, to cause to be printed and distributed throughout the United States —–copies of two acts [the Alien and Sedition Acts] …”1719
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
When General Washington came into Congress Hall to hear the President’s Speech, the members of both houses rose to him—an honor never paid to any but the President himself.
We are happy to learn that measures are pursuing to bring to justice the hardened villain who charged one of the most illustrious characters of our city with the horrid crime of MURDER. Indeed it is high time this infamous Jasper had resumed that iron situation which he fled from.
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 12, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The French vessels Jaloux [captured September 5th] and Le Sanspareil [captured August 23rd], having been condemned as lawful prizes, are to be sold by the Marshal at the Coffee house on Saturday next.
A letter received by way of New York … dated the 11th of October, says that the whole of [Ireland] was at that time in a general convulsion … The letter further adds that [British] General Lake had been defeated in several actions, and that the Irish rebels were carrying everything before them …
Today, with a gibe at George Logan, President Adams issues a public reply to a message from the United States Senate, including:
I have seen no real evidence of any change of system or disposition in the French Republic toward the United States. Although the officious interference of individuals without public character or authority is not entitled to any credit, yet it deserves to be considered whether that temerity and impertinence of individuals affecting to interfere in public affairs between France and the United States, whether by their secret correspondence or otherwise, and intended to impose upon the people and separate them from their Government, ought not to be inquired into and corrected.1720
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Mr. Harper having moved without success for the printing of several thousands of the Sedition Bill in order to have them dispersed through the United States, as the Aurora has at this time the most extensive circulation of any Daily American Paper, we are solicitous to shew our readiness on any occasion, where the member [of Congress] is in a reasonable disposition, to agree with him—We, therefore, republish the Sedition Bill, commonly called
THE GAG BILL
[Complete text of the Sedition Act follows.]
Today, George Washington writes the Secretary of War:
Nothing has been communicated to me respecting our foreign relations to induce the opinion that there has been any change in the situation of the country as to external danger which dictates an abandonment of the policy of the law in question … [N]o decisive indications have been given by France of a disposition to redress our past wrongs and do us future justice …1721
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
It was observed that the President’s reply to the Senate was “confoundedly confused”—upon which it was neatly remarked that it was hastily written. No praise could be more decisive than what DR. LOGAN has received in the form of an implied censure—for having rescued his country from a wanton and fruitless war.
Today, in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Annals of Congress report:
ALIEN AND SEDITION LAWS.
The House having again taken up Mr. HARPER’S proposition for printing 20,000 copies of the above laws …
Mr. DAWSON [Republican, Virginia] would move [an amendment] to have printed with these laws all parts of the Constitution which appeared to him to relate to the subject …
Mr. HARPER [Federalist, S. Carolina] desired to pass by the extreme futility of publishing to the people, at this day, parts of a Constitution which had been in force ten years …
Mr. GALLATIN [Republican, Pennsylvania] … was convinced that there was as much necessity for the proposed amendment [to publish the Constitution] as for the original resolution [to publish the Sedition Act]; and that, therefore, if the resolution was adopted, the amendment ought to be adopted also …
The question on the original resolution was then taken and decided in the negative—yeas 34, nays 45 …1722
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The reply of the President to the Senate … merits a serious regard … The interference of an unauthorized person [Dr. Logan] to save his country from the horrible evils of a war is not only censurable but also ought to be corrected, says the public servant of the people.
It is wondered how [Mr. Adams] will reconcile his own conduct whilst in Europe in 1778, during our revolutionary war, when trying to impress into our service a state to which he was not sent. In that case, was he not also an unauthorized individual endeavoring to bring an unconnected nation into the situation which all abhor?
A majority of the house of representatives, having refused to circulate copies of the constitution with the unconstitutional [alien and sedition] bills, a subscription was opened yesterday evening for the circulation of a suitable number [of constitutions]—One hundred and eleven dollars were directly subscribed. Subscriptions received by the editor of the Aurora.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
Yesterday morning, Lieut. Gen. WASHINGTON left this city on his journey to Mount Vernon, Virginia.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The Legislature of Virginia it appears have granted leave for the introduction of a Bill for “securing the members of the Legislature from prosecutions under the Sedition Bill in case they should think proper, in the course of their proceedings, to charge the Congress with an infraction of the constitution in the passage of it.”
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
FABRICATING.
The other day Mother Bache’s paper … contained a letter fabricated by some United Irishmen of New York. This letter stated that the French had made a successful landing in Ireland, that they were joined by numerous friends, that they had … beaten General Lake in three separate engagements.
Those who first fabricated and published this knew well that nobody but rabble would believe it …
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
What is a United Irishman? May not Irishmen unite as well as we ? Look to Ireland for his character, and behold it is written in blood … An Irish gentleman is one of the finest characters in nature. The rest of the nation is represented by the bulk of those who came to this country—such men as Burke, Lyon, Reynolds … and Duane, the bare mention of whom is sufficient without the trouble of elucidation …
By carnage and plunder they subsisted there: in massacre and ravage they can be happy here … The scheme, in its rude outline, is to bring on a revolutionary state in America … They coalesced with the Jacobins (most of the leaders of whom have actually been admitted within the pale of the society) … Do I hear some one cry, “Name them! Name them!”
Lend me your patience and I will … They should have a dissemination as wide as the extent of the evil …
List of UNITED IRISHMEN …
Samuel Wiley, Teacher in the College; John Black, Ditto Thomas M’Adams, Schoolmaster; John O’Reilley, Ditto —– Moffat, Zachary’s Court —– Reynolds, Robert Bronston —– Duane, alias Jasper Dwight; Matthew Lyon of Vermont, … Andrew Magill; James T. Callender, Lloyd of Newgate; J[ohn] D[aly] Burke, late delegate from N. York …
Teachers and journalists are on the Gazette of the United States’ list of America’s enemies. I am on it. Other Aurora people are on it. Jimmy Callender, Jimmy Reynolds, and my most important friend and assistant Newgate Lloyd1723 all contribute to the Aurora.
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The Tories, when they find a man’s public conduct so steadfast in the cause of the Constitution and civil liberty as to wound their feelings,—resort to the stale trick of calling him an Alien or a Frenchman or an Irishman—the nature of these aspersions, it must be confessed, is rather flattering, considering whence they come and what is the cause of the assertion.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
Our government is under a moral obligation to DECLARE WAR against France …
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
There is not an advocate for monarchy in this country who does not mingle professions of veneration for republican principles with the incessant efforts to subvert the constitution and to destroy liberty.
Today, from her home in Quincy, Abigail Adams writes her nephew, William Shaw, the President’s new private secretary:
I receive the papers regularly which will now become more interesting as Congress proceed in business … The Aurora shows that tho Bache is dead, he yet speaketh, or rather that the party which supported him are determined to have a press devoted to them. Whether the influence is foreign or domestick, or both together, it is of consequence that it should be made to keep within the bounds of decorum and … yeald to the laws. I expect we shall have to use some of the tribute [money] due to Talleyrand before the daring Spirit of Kentucky and its mother State will be quiet …1724
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
Newspaper Jacobinism is in a hectic in the United States—The saffron-coloured Aurora, enveloped in murkey clouds and deceptive fogs, is now the only harbinger of delusive mock-suns. Old [New York] Argus, who once had pretensions to an hundred eyes, is now a cyclop with one and that blurry:—and the [Boston] Chronique—alas!—“sans wit—sans sense—sans sous.”
It’s true. The nation’s two other leading republican newspapers, the New York Argus (now managed by Thomas Greenleaf’s widow) and Boston’s Independent Chronicle (whose publisher, Thomas Adams, has been ill since his indictment under the Sedition Act) are fragile!
FRIDAY. DECEMBER 21, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
TO THE FREEMEN … OF PHILADELPHIA
[Today] will be an election for a Representative in the [Pennsylvania] General Assembly. It is of importance that you should appear and give your suffrages,—and these should be given to a man who is a friend to your Liberties, to your Constitution, and to your peace … GEORGE LOGAN … Convince the world that you still love liberty, and that those who would rob you of it have your contempt and execration,—Peace ! Peace ! Peace !
Today, at noon, the majority of Pennsylvania’s Federalist-controlled House of Representatives delivers an “ADDRESS to John Adams, President of the United States:”
Sir, … We have seen … the unlimited ambition of the rulers of the French people—that the Atlantic itself gives no bounds to their projects of subjugation; and that the United States of America are threatened … not so much with open hostility … as with a division, by means of a dark and insidious policy, of the people from the government of their choice … That you, Sir, have been constantly aware of the effects of this policy … must be highly gratifying to the patriotic pride of every independent mind …1725
John Adams answers:
The insidious and malevolent policy [of France] of dividing people and nation from their government is not original; the French have not the credit even of the invention of it …
Candor must own that our country lies under a reproach … of producing individuals who are capable not only of dark interferences by usurpation in our external concerns, but also capable of forgetting or renouncing their principles, feelings and habits in a foreign country and becoming enemies to their own … Whether this is owing to a want of national character or a want of criminal law, a remedy ought to be sought.
The solemn pledge you give to co-operate with the general government in averting all foreign influence and detecting domestic intrigue is very important to the common welfare of our country and will give great satisfaction to the Union …1726
Tonight, Jack Ward Fenno in the Gazette of the United States:
UNITED IRISHMEN.
There came last night to my House two ruffians, one of whom lurked about the porch, while the other, as I stood at my own door, struck me on the head with a bludgeon. Amazed at such baseness, I turned into my office to seize a stick, instead of pressing on the assailant, whereby I might have promptly punished his audacity … I went after the nocturnal assassin this morning to return his domiciliary visit. A woman came forward to say he was not at home. He will not, however, pass unpunished … and if these Dagger-Men choose to push things to extremities, they will find me better prepared. JOHN WARD FENNO.
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1798
Today, Abigail Adams writes her nephew, Presidential Secretary William Shaw:
You sent me two Auroras one of which containd a most insolent comment upon the president’s speech. A Friend also sent me the [Boston Independent] Chronicle. It certainly has not taken its lesson …1727
MONDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Friday evening the election of a member to the seat … in the Pennsylvania Legislature closed, when upon counting up the votes in the several districts … the numbers appeared to be
| Total for George Logan | 1,256 |
| For F. A. Muhlenberg | 769 |
| Majority for Logan | 487 |
The election of Dr. Logan is the best reply which could have been given by the people to the President.
Franklin declares all power to be in the people when the servants violate their duties or when they violate the constitution.
Today, in Richmond, Virginia, the Virginia state senate concurs in resolutions passed three days ago by the Virginia House of Delegates, including:
First. Resolved, That the General Assembly of Virginia doth unequivocally express a firm resolution to maintain and defend the Constitution of the United States …
Fourth. That the General Assembly doth also express its deep regret that a spirit has in sundry instances been manifested by the Federal Government to enlarge its powers … the obvious tendency and inevitable result of which would be to transform the present republican system of the United States into an absolute, or, at best, a mixed monarchy.
Fifth. That the General Assembly doth particularly protest against the palpable and alarming infraction of the Constitution in the two late cases of the “Alien and Sedition Acts,” passed at the last session of Congress …
Sixth. That this State … by its convention which ratified the Federal Constitution expressly declared, among other essential rights, “the liberty of conscience and of the press cannot be canceled, abridged, restrained, or modified by any authority of the United States” …
Seventh. That the good people of this Commonwealth … doth hereby declare that the acts aforesaid are unconstitutional …1728
James Madison drafted these resolutions for Virginia, just as Thomas Jefferson drafted similar resolutions for Kentucky. Together, they’ll be known as the “Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions.”
Tonight, William Cobbett in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
Madame Bache is constantly congratulating her jacobinic horde on the inestimable blessings resulting from the late embassy of the notorious Logan: to him she says they may look as their saviour … They say this Logan has effected the raising of the embargo; that he has induced the Directory to cause a momentary suspension of depredations on our commerce, &c … I do believe he was the envoy of Jefferson and Co … but it is not to Doctor Logan nor Thomas Jefferson that we are indebted; it is to the energetic measures of our government—which they opposed and would have prevented had it been in their power …
UNITED IRISHMEN …
I did regret that Mr. Fenno brought his list of disaffected Irish forward so soon; but it seems to have produced a most excellent effect. It has awakened the attention of every body in the city, and there is good reason to believe that it will have the same effect in distant places. All that is wanted to crush the enemies of government is to make them well known …
Every discovery, every fact … is an eulogium on the wisdom of Congress in passing the Alien and Sedition Laws …
To return to the United Irishmen … [T]heir views in both countries were and are the same; to excite a rebellion to be supported by France.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1798
[CHRISTMAS DAY]
Today, from Mount Vernon, George Washington answers a letter from the French hero of the American Revolution the Marquis de Lafayette:
It is equally unnecessary for me to apologize to you for my long silence …
To give you a … view of the politics and situation … a party exists in the United States, formed by a Combination of Causes, which oppose the Government and are determined (as all their Conduct evinces), by Clogging its Wheels, indirectly to change the nature of it and to subvert the Constitution … The friends of Government, who are anxious to maintain its neutrality and to preserve the country in peace and adopt measures to produce these, are charged by them as being Monarchists, Aristocrats, and infractors of the Constitution … [T]hey arrogated to themselves … the sole merit of being the friends of France … denouncing those who differed in opinion, whose principles are purely American …
You have expressed a wish … that I would exert all my endeavors to avert the Calamitous effects of a rupture between our Countries … But France … whilst it was crying peace, Peace and pretending that they did not wish us to be embroiled in their quarrel with great Britain, they were pursuing measures in this Country so repugnant to its sovereignty and so incompatible with every principle of neutrality, as must inevitably have produced a war with the latter. And when they found the Government here was resolved to adhere steadily to its plan of neutrality, their next step was to destroy the confidence of the people in and to separate them from it; for which purpose their diplomatic agents were specially instructed; and in the attempt were aided by inimical characters among ourselves, not … because they loved France … but because it was an instrument to Facilitate the destruction of their own Government …
After my valedictory address to the people of the United States, you would no doubt be surprised to hear that I had again consented to Gird on the Sword … I could not remain an unconcerned spectator …1729
Even were it true that France’s “diplomatic agents” (such as its first Minister to the U.S., Edmond Genět) were “pursuing measures in this Country so repugnant to its sovereignty and so incompatible with every principle of neutrality,” how would this have been different from what Ben Franklin did in France in 1777 to end France’s declared neutrality and to force her into America’s war with Britain? And Franklin had no alliance to justify his behavior! Has Washington forgotten ?
Today, George Washington also writes U.S. Minister in The Hague William Vans Murray:
The Alien and Sedition Laws are not the desiderata in the opposi-[t]ion … [S]omething there will always be for them to torture and to disturb the public mind with their unfounded and ill favored forebodings.1730
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The people of France, after centuries of slavery, altered their form of government from a monarchy to a republic. This certainly was not a new project, for we had only eleven years before … done the very same things but with the difference of six or seven centuries less of provocation.
On Tuesday evening arrived in town the author of the Declaration of American Independence—Thomas Jefferson, Vice President of the United States.
The results of the election in the country is galling to the tories … notwithstanding every artifice and calumny which could be devised to render Dr. Logan odious to the eyes of the people …
Matthew Lyon [of Vermont] we understand has obtained a majority of 664 votes in the recent election for member of the next Congress. The good man Roger [Griswold, Federalist Congressman from Connecticut] has undertaken to wipe the saliva off the face of the odious Sedition Billit is the misfortune of some folks to be always employed upon dirty work.
George Washington refuses to shake hands with George Logan, yet Pennsylvanians elect George Logan to their state assembly! John Adams jails Matthew Lyon for sedition, but Vermonters reelect Matthew Lyon to Congress! Flickers of hope!
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
Mr. FENNO, The very judicious observations of a writer in your paper on the tenor of the Aurora advertisements also accounts for an odd circumstance which occurred a few days ago. Upon an order for the publication of a Bankrupt’s notice, application was made to the court to point out some medium for publication. “Extremely well thought of,” said his honor: “it is highly proper that the court should direct in such as case; suppose we say Claypoole’s, Bradford’s or—or—or—The Aurora.” …
[I]t must on all hands be allowed “highly proper” that those who find themselves already bankrupted by jacobinism can no where else so appropriately figure as in a Gazette the principles of which tend to bankrupt the whole community.
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
AN ADMONITION TO YOUNG FENNO
It ought to be remembered that Fenno deceas’d was an insolvent in Boston before he became printer …
Before the young gentleman consigns to infamy all the unfortunate, he should wipe away the stain which equally belongs to his own family.
[H]ow just must the President’s observation be that we have persons among us of no character—but is it the nation or administration to whom this best applies ?
The United Irishmen stand precisely in the same odious circumstances with relation to England that John Adams stood 20 years ago—they consider George III an intolerable tyrant now, as he did then.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
Extract of a letter from Northampton County, state of Pennsylvania, dated December 17th, 1798.
“As to politics, they run very high here; and there is much disturbances among the people of Northampton county in particular in regard to the taxation. They have plainly told the assessors, on the peril of their lives, not to pretend to execute the orders of assessment, in consequence of which the assessors have returned their warrants to the commissioners … How far this matter will be carried God only knows.”
MONDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The farmers of Pennsylvania have generally become alarmed by the attempt made by the federal assessor to feel the depth of their pockets … for war money !
The farmers suspect that the executive administration is somewhat extravagant when it asks for a house tax … at a time when their apprehensions of a war with the French Republic have ceased …
Before the designs … to do away [with] the concern of every individual in the freedom and peace of his country can be accomplished, there must be a gag bill to stop the press and voice and a standing army to dragoon us to obedience … [W]e must be as destitute of virtue, the love of liberty, of republican government, and of everything that gives us a national character;—but we are told we have not a character,—there is some consistency at least in the projects of some people.
Today, John Adams writes Abigail:
Logan’s election to the legislature will give the Jacobins a triumph … Logan seems more fool than knave. It is thought the V. P. stays away from very bad motives. I am told he is considered here as the Head of the opposition to Government both in the old Dominion [Virginia] and Kentucky. He is certainly acting a part that he will find hard to justify …1731
Today, an Episcopal Minister, John Cosens Ogden, presents John Adams with a petition from three or four thousand Vermonters who beg a presidential reprieve for their reelected congressman, Matthew Lyon.1732 John Adams responds to the Rev. Ogden that, “penitence must precede pardon” and warns, “as for you, sir, your interference in this business will prevent your receiving any favours from me.”1733
As the year draws to a close, Alexander Hamilton, who is now second in command of America’s new federal army, warns Brigadier General Jonathan Dayton:
The late attempt of Virginia and Kentucky to unite the State legislatures in a direct resistance to certain laws of the Union can be considered in no other light than as an attempt to change the government. It is stated, in addition, that the opposition party in Virginia … have followed up the hostile declarations … by an actual preparation of the means of supporting them by force; that they have taken measures to put their militia on a more efficient footing—are preparing considerable arsenals and magazines … Amidst such serious indications of hostility, the safety and the duty of supporters of the government call upon them to adopt vigorous measures of counteraction. It will be wise in them to act upon the hypothesis that the opposers of the government are resolved, if it shall be practical, to make its existence a question of force …
To preserve confidence in the officers of the general government by preserving their reputations from malicious and unfounded slanders is essential to enable them to fulfill the ends of their appointment … Renegade aliens conduct more than one of the most incendiary presses in the United States—yet, in open contempt and defiance of the laws, they are permitted to continue their destructive labors. Why are they not sent away?1734
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
THE AURORA
MR. FENNO, … Citizen Jasper is not the man I took him for … I am told the Aurora is so hampered with debt and disgrace that it must soon sink …
CHARITY
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
Fellow Citizens, New Year’s eve is approaching when it is feared that the idle practice which has for some time prevailed in the City and Liberties of Shooting out the Old Year and Shooting in a New One, as it is absurdly called, will be repeated which has often been attended with dangerous and alarming consequences … [T]he constables and watchmen are particularly enjoined to be vigilant and active in arresting such daring violators of the public peace …
ROBERT WHARTON,
Mayor [of Philadelphia]
TUESDAY, JANUARY 1, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The little old man who got his two sons [Thomas and John Quincy Adams] established at Berlin and who has his nephew [William Shaw] fixed in his Secretaryship, wanted his son-in-law, Col. S.[mith] appointed adjutant-general … Timotheus has been canvassing for “the Chief,” and it is understood that son-in-law will get a regiment …
Today, Secretary of State Timothy Pickering writes the U.S. district attorney for New York that President Adams wants the editor of the New York Time Piece to leave the country:
I have laid before the President of the U. States your letter of the 28th relative to the prosecution against J.[ohn] D.[aly] Burke for a libel. All circumstances considered, the President thinks it may be expedient to let him off, on the condition … that he Burke forthwith quit the United States. The vessel in which he embarks should be known, with her destination. Such a turbulent, mischievous person ought not to remain on this side of the Atlantic …1735
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 2, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The close of the old and the opening of the new year were celebrated by a chearful party of republicans who, having spent the last hours of 1798 in rational conversation, proceeded to the lodgings of Thomas Jefferson with a band of instrumental music. On their way, they were met with another party of republicans engaged in the same festive purpose.
A letter from Vergennes in Vermont says—Colonel [Matthew] Lyon continues under as strict a state of confinement as before. At his own expence, he has provided a stove with firing and put four squares of glass to the window. Nevertheless he is reelected by a majority of between eight and nine hundred votes. His conduct on any occasion has not been more praiseworthy than in preventing, by his entreaties and arguments, the violence which the people were about to commit upon his confinement. He opposed several proposals for liberating him by force …
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
From Mother Bache … and such people, it is natural to expect to hear the government of Great Britain continually stigmatized as a tyranny and the rebels of Ireland applauded as combatants in the glorious cause of [freeing] their country from oppression …
To defend the conduct of Great Britain with respect to … Catholic Emancipation … I will tell you a real and true impediment … to the admission of Romanists into either house of [the Irish] parliament or into the executive offices of the state … is that Romanists refuse to take the oath of supremacy … The kings and queens of this realm, and their successors, are declared to be supreme heads, that is, governors of the church of Ireland … It is very notorious that all Irish Romanists acknowledge the authority, pre-eminence, and jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome …
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
It is said the French have a Frigate in their Navy called Le Bache.
On Monday was presented to the President of the United States, by a citizen of Vermont, a petition from Matthew Lyon, one of the representatives in Congress for that state, (now confined in prison in consequence of a conviction of seditious practices), praying for a remission of the punishment to which he has been sentenced.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 3, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
TO THE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES …
I embarked for Europe; on my arrival at Hamburg, I met with the distinguished friend to our country, General La Fayette. He procured for me the means of pursuing my journey to Paris. Regarding himself equally the citizen of the United States and of France, he views with particular anxiety the existing difficulties … and has written to general Washington … [C]itizen Merlin [chief of the Directory] … informed me that France had not the least intention to interfere in the public affairs of the United States; that his country had acquired great reputation in having assisted the United States to become a free Republic; they would not disgrace their own Revolution by attempting its destruction. He observed that with respect to the violation of our flag, it was common to all Neutrals and was provoked by the example of England and intended to place France on an equal ground with her …
GEORGE LOGAN
Today, Abigail Adams writes her nephew, William Shaw:
I would have you continue to send me the papers as you have done, and Mother Bache’s … The re-election of Lyon and the choice of Logan are mortifying proofs that “there is something rotten in the State of Denmark,” that a low groveling faction still exists amongst us … I was much diverted with your account of Logan’s visit—1736
SATURDAY, JANUARY 5, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Mr. Adams says the American character is equivocal—the following toasts, given by a party of his warmest admirers, are not of the equivocal character,—
“Confusion to emigrant patriots” …
the first example among mankind in which patriotism is made an object of reproach …
Tonight, Jack Ward Fenno in the Gazette of the United States:
The measure of raising a subscription from the friends of government to prolong the existence of the dying Aurora is too selfish for men of honor to promote. The writhings of the nate dea [risen goddess] are, to be sure, diverting enough to make us wish for a continuation of the amusement—but in charity we should remember that the Goddess will, after all, have to say, “this may be sport to you; but it is death to me.”
Democracy howls with a louder and more piteous cry as it advances toward its trials.
MONDAY, JANUARY 7, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
War or peace with France is the important, the awful question which now agitates the public mind …
Tonight, William Cobbett in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
Among the circumstances of the glorious [British] Victory of the Nile, two have tickled my risible faculties. The one is the capture of [the French ship] Le Franklin, the old lightening-catcher; and the other is the clatter that there must have been among the mathematical, chemical and philosophical instruments while the British Tars were pouring their thunderbolts … If Raynal, Voltaire, Rousseau, and the rest of the tribe has met with such a fate as soon as they began to vomit forth their poison, how happy would it have been for the world!
TUESDAY, JANUARY 8, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
During the recess of Congress, the Secretary [of Congress] made a bargain with a printer who had married the sister of Mr. Senator Goodhue of Massachusetts to print the business of the Senate. Fenno executed this work before … Some senators, finding this out, spoke to the Secretary and threatened if the printing was not given to Fenno, the matter should be brought before the house … and the Yankee printer lost his job to the great profit of master Fenno …
SATURDAY, JANUARY 12, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
TO THE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES …
Whilst I was in Paris, Mr. Skipwith, the Consul General of the United States, received officially from the government in France an Arrette by which the embargo was removed from all American vessels in French ports, accompanied by another directing the release and kind treatment of all our seamen … On my arrival in Philadelphia, I embraced the earliest opportunity of waiting on the Secretary of State, with the public dispatches entrusted to my care … I also waited on the President of the United States. GEORGE LOGAN
This morning, the Aurora’s compositors and pressmen write Peggy Bache:
Madam, In Saturday last, we learned from Mr. Duane, with regret and surprise, of your intention to lower the wages of your Compositors to seven dollars per week … also refusing another hand at Press.—Our astonishment is certainly justifiable when we look to the daily increase of the Paper in popularity, its circulation more than usually extensive, and its friends so respectable and numerous;—it must truly be allowed that the Aurora has, for esteem and merit, in a few short weeks established itself unrivaled …
Madam, the Compositors … say that if they were by the piece … the charge for the matter daily composed would actually amount to the same … allowed by every office in the city … However we except [Fenno] and Cobbett (but God forbid they should be precedent to you in any case), even these execrable furnaces of abuse allow their Compositors to be worth seven dollars, although their composition is not so great as ours by a third and they seldom, if ever, light candles …
The pressmen … the toil we bear at night will scarcely admit of us to renew the next day’s labour.—We must, therefore, in consideration of our health, repeat to you our former request, that is,—“another hand at press, and the present salary.”
| — Compositors – | — Pressmen — |
| John H. Robertson | Jacob Franck |
| Samuel Starr | Bartholomew Graves |
| George White | John Alexander |
| Jos. Robinson | |
| Robert Crombie1737 |
Peggy answers the compositors and pressmen:
M. H. Bache has given every consideration … Hitherto the Aurora has certainly not done more than support itself … [S]he would rather increase than lessen the establishment of every person employed in the Office, but she fears she cannot give more than what is given to compositors in the Printing Offices whose papers are more profitable from advertisements. She does not wish or expect that the pressmen should exert themselves beyond their abilities. The Editor must, however, determine, for she is inadequate to the task, how many Pressmen are absolutely necessary …1738
TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The Pressmen and Compositors of this office, having unwarrantably and without cause, neglected to perform their duty, the paper is unavoidably published in this form [half-size without advertisements].
PRINTERS.
FOUR COMPOSITORS and TWO STEADY AND
WILLING PRESSMEN WANTED, at the Aurora office.
And TWO SMART LADS as APPRENTICES.
This morning, the Aurora’s compositors and pressmen write Peggy Bache:
Madam, … A fact we will submit to your consideration.—Mr. Graves, one of your pressman, with due respect to the Official Capacity of your Editor, informed him, agreeable to his promise of a fourth pressman, that there was one out of employ and conjured him … to employ this person. At this, he got passionate for an alleged assumption of power and discharged him …
We have concluded, in our minds, that if your goodness had been consulted, his discharge would not have taken place;—at the same time, we must say—that we have pledged ourselves to each other that if a reasonable cause was not assigned … we all would be obliged to quit our employ …
The late Compositors and Pressmen of the Aurora.1739
Peggy immediately answers:
M. H. Bache informs the late Pressmen & Compositors of the Aurora that the conduct of the Aurora Office is entirely under the direction of Mr. Duane & and that she cannot interfere in any shape whatever. 1740
Today, George Washington expresses his displeasure with opposition to the Sedition Act:
Unfortunately, and extremely do I regret it, the State of Virginia has taken the lead in this opposition … though in no State except Kentucky (that I have heard of) has Legislative countenance been obtained, beyond Virginia …
But at a crisis as this, when every thing dear and valuable to us is assailed; when this [Republican] party hangs upon the Wheels of Government … when every Act of their own Government is tortured by constructions … into attempts to infringe and trample upon the Constitution with a view to introduce monarchy … ought characters who are best able to rescue their Country from the pending evil to remain at home? …
[I]f their conduct is viewed with indifference … their numbers, accumulated by Intriguing and discontented foreigners under proscription, who were at war with their own governments; and the greater part of them with all Government, their numbers will encrease, and nothing short of Omniscience can foretell the consequences …1741
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
Duane was at Pole’s auction on Saturday evening last. On the same evening at the same place, a gentleman lost his pocket-book containing about 40 dollars.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
A list of names was some time ago published in the Gazette of the United States whereto was prefixed a variety of heinous charges against the society of United Irishmen … [S]everal … who were not members of that body … stept forward to demand a justification from the editor of that paper … Mr. Brobston … in consequence of justice not being done him as he wished, took upon himself to take satisfaction. An altercation ensued, and Mr. Fenno received a blow which felled him to the ground. A prosecution was commenced by Fenno … The Defendant pleaded guilty … The Court in consideration that the defendant had taken the law into his own hands, declared that he should be fined, but in consideration of the atrocity of the provocation, made the fine only 15 dollars.
This is the case about which Fenno … made so much noise and roared about assassination and “to arms”!
This morning, Benny’s doctor brother, William Bache, delivers to Jack Fenno, at the Gazette of the United States, the following note:
SIR, I have seen your paper … — In what were termed “A List of United Irishmen,” recourse was had (to evade the laws) to the pitiful artifice of printing my surname with a blank prefixed … I, Sir, feel it no insult to be called an United Irishman. I glory in the illustrious epithet; but the above calumnies on me … gave me the right to demand the satisfaction due for any personal insult …
My friend who bears this is in possession of my further sentiments.
JAMES REYNOLDS.1742
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
What ought we to think of the honorable provision made for the heirs of Benjamin Franklin Bache, when the Compositors and Pressmen refuse to be concerned in the dirty business?
It is reported that a dispute took place some few days since, among the writers in the Aurora, on the subject of the merits of their respective essays; and that, upon their appealing to the proprietor, she very modestly decided in favor of the Irishman’s performances.
Jack Fenno is on dangerous ground when he puns about Peggy’s being pleased with my “performances.”
THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
On Tuesday Fenno took some liberties with the name of a gentleman [Dr. James Reynolds, who] on this occasion … condescended to bring himself down to the level of Mr. Fenno’s gentility and to demand reparation or satisfaction—but this military non-commissioned hero declared with great trepidation and obviously with truth that he really was not in the habit of acting like a gentleman. He must be a coward indeed who can suffer himself to be called to his beard a coward—Contempt is the cheap protection of such infamy …
Forty-one days have elapsed since the President promised a communication to Congress relative to our situation with France … In the meanwhile, a considerable loan with a heavy interest is saddled on our backs, a tax is to be collected … with all the dangers arising from an augmentation of a standing army …
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
A splendid Ball was given last evening at the Theatre in honor of the President of the United States … [A] flooring had been thrown over the Pit, forming a very handsome area for dancing …
At about 8 o’clock, the President entered, music playing the march. The dancing then commenced and continued ‘till about 11, when the painted Cloth was rolled up and displayed the supper tables on the stage, elegantly arranged and decorated. General Macpherson presided—on his right sat the President … After supper, the company returned to dancing and about one separated without an occurrence to mar the pleasure of the entertainment.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 18, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The following is a copy of a paper posted up in the public Coffee-room of this city, yesterday at two o’clock, in the presence of Robert Moore, esq. and several of the gentlemen who usually assemble there.
Philadelphia, January 17, 1798.
In Consequence of the unprovoked calumnies continually issued against me by John Ward Fenno, editor of the Gazette of the United States, I was induced to waive the consideration of my place in society and to put him on the footing of a gentleman. Upon Tuesday evening I sent a letter and message to him by a friend, demanding a proper apology or a meeting. He refused to give either. I am now therefore reduced to the necessity of suing him at law—(but my views are not mercenary)—or of again putting myself on a level with him—(by attacking him like a ruffian in the streets) or of thus posting him as a LIAR, a SCOUNDREL, and a COWARD. JAMES REYNOLDS
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States, Jack Fenno writes:
The … note was handed me by Dr. William Bache on Wednesday morning … I told the messenger that I was resolved to hold no terms with such a man as his friend. On which he replied that he then must have recourse to personal satisfaction. To which I rejoined that I was prepared to meet him on any ground. He said he would bear my answer to his friend.
I have not since heard from him. I am informed that he stole into the Coffee-house last evening and attempted to post up a hand-bill, containing a number of opprobrious epithets. This piece, conveying the false implication that he had challenged me, proves him to be a Liar. The pitiful trick he has practiced shews him to be a most filthy coward: To elucidate his character further on this score, he has been publicly horse-whipped. He is, moreover, a traitor and an outlaw.
The Gallows, it thus appears, is at issue with him: to place one’s self in a situation to take his life would therefore be partaking his crime in cheating the vengeful monster of what ought to be its undisputed claim.
I thank my God that the tongue of a perjured villain, a proven coward, a traitor and an outlaw, slit as it is by the undeviating hand of public justice, can make no impression to my prejudice.
JOHN WARD FENNO.
Philadelphia, Jan. 18
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette, Peter Porcupine writes:
CONSOLATION
For Reynolds … Lloyd, and Mother Bache …
Wolfe Tone, who was to head the French troops destined for Ireland, had been taken and was to have been tried as a rebel but gave the government the slip by cutting his own throat …
SATURDAY, JANUARY 19, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Dear Sir … I send you the following statement of my interviews with J. W. Fenno … WILLIAM]. BACHE
I called upon John Ward Fenno … and when he read the letter which I presented, he asked me what Dr. Reynolds expected—this question however strange I replied to, “that he must retract what had been asserted in his paper or Give the Dr. that satisfaction which every gentleman had the right to respect.” He replied that he would not give the Dr. the satisfaction …
This morning, Jack Fenno has his associate, Richard Oswold, deliver the following note to Benny’s brother, William Bache:
FOR the shameful and studied falshoods with which you have assailed my character, in a publication under your signature, I demand satisfaction. My friend, Mr. Oswold, who bears this note, is authorized to take any necessary stepts on my behalf.
JOHN WARD FENNO1743
This afternoon at three, Jack Fenno posts two announcements at Philadelphia’s Merchants’ Coffee House:
Dr. William Bache, having traduced my character by the most shameful and studied falsehoods, and having refused me satisfaction when called upon, I hereby publish him as a Liar, a Coward, and a True Democrat.
JOHN WARD FENNO
James Reynolds, commonly called Doctor Reynolds, having asserted that I refused to fight him, when I had not received a challenge, and having neglected to answer a defiance which I sent him, I do hereby publish him for an infamous Liar and Coward …
JOHN WARD FENNO1744
SUNDAY, JANUARY 20, 1799
Today, from Mount Vernon, George Washington writes the Rev. Mr. Bryan, Lord Fairfax:
[T]hat [Republican] party … have been uniform in their opposition to all measures of Government … torturing every act, by unnatural construction into a design to violate the Constitution, introduce monarchy, and to establish aristocracy … [W]hat is more to be regretted, the same Spirit seems to have laid hold of the major part of the Legislature of this State, while all the other States in the Union (Kentucky, the child of Virginia, excepted) are coming foreword with the most unequivocal evidence of their approbation …1745
MONDAY, JANUARY 21, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
TO THE EDITOR.
John Ward Fenno, having refused to give Dr. Reynolds the satisfaction of a gentleman, having suffered his real conduct to be exposed …, I have refused to meet with him … It is sufficient for me that John Ward Fenno is now sufficiently notorious. WILL. BACHE
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
B.[ache] told Mr. Oswold, “that until I had answered the challenge from his friend Dr. Reynolds, he should have nothing to say to me,—after which he was at my service.” As it was utterly impossible that I ever could meet Reynolds, I considered this reply as a dastardly evasion and proceeded to post him … in the Merchants’ Coffee-House at 3 o’clock, P.M. [on Saturday] … At about 11 o’clock at night, two men rushed into the Coffee House and awakened the bar keeper who, being ordered to set up alone for a club, had fallen asleep. On examination, he found, after they had ran out, that they had removed the … papers.
Nothing changes! Last June, William Bache opposed Irishman Jimmy Reynolds’ dismissal from the Philadelphia Infirmary and, for this, got himself dismissed as well. Now William intercedes to defend Jimmy Reynolds against the Fennos. Can you understand how I feel about the Baches?
TUESDAY, JANUARY 22, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
TO THE READERS OF THE AURORA
The compositors and pressmen who lately took themselves out from this office have appealed to our readers. The tribunal before which they have arraigned themselves demands respect …
They have stated their case—hear the other side.
This paper for several years has yielded a very slender revenue from a variety of causes. A large sum has been sunk in its establishment by the late editor. The expence of the office since its establishment has been greater than that of any other office in the United States … The paper having nearly doubled in number and circulation since its revival, the labor became greater on the pressmen … It was agreed that an advance of wages should be made where the labor had increased, but that a reduction should be made to the standard of other offices where the labor was equal …
On the 14th instant, they were called upon (as they have been every Saturday since the paper has recommenced and duly paid) to make their bills according to the new regulations … [B]oth pressmen and compositors left the office without any notification of their purpose …
The paper was thus left unfinished—and the copy that had been given out by the editor was either accidentally or purposely mislaid, so that the business could not be accomplished by any other persons at that time. Under a representation of these circumstances, the editor was authorized to accede to any terms they should dictate—and they were on Sunday expressly informed …
On Monday they came to business as usual … One of the pressmen … received notice to provide himself at the end of the week with another situation.
Soon after, the compositors and pressmen, one by one, took themselves off, without even the usual notification of a week, or even saying whether they would return or not. At two o’clock on Monday, nothing had been done at press or case for Tuesday’s paper … and the paper appeared without any advertisements on Tuesday …
The editor informed them that not one man of them should return on any terms.
And now those men are angry! …
The readers will now judge …
THE EDITOR
As there is no tax laid upon windows by the house and land tax and as there is an admeasurement of windows carrying forward throughout the states, it is to be presumed we shall soon have a tax upon day light …
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 23, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
FOREIGN INFLUENCE
THE public attention has been employed for some time on the danger of foreign influence … From what foreign quarter [is] the greatest danger of influence … to be apprehended? … The conclusion with me is … Great Britain …
[T]he most powerful, perhaps, of all her motives is her hatred and fear of the republican example of our governments … The same acute and predominant feeling … has displayed itself, with all its force, in its instant alarm at the propagation of republican principles into France …
The truth is Great Britain, as a monarchy … must view with a malignant eye the United States as the real source of the present revolutionary state of the world … It will consequently spare no effort to defeat [our] success by drawing our Republic into foreign wars, by dividing the people among themselves, by separating the government from the people, by establishing a faction of its own in the country, by magnifying the importance of characters among us known to think more highly of the British government than of their own … The MEANS of this influence are as obvious as the motives …
[T]he great flood-gate of British influence—British Commerce. The capital in the American trade … [t]hree fourths of this is British …
As a vehicle of influence, the press … must be allowed all its importance … The inland papers, it is well known, copy from the city papers; this city more particularly, as the centre of politics and news. The city papers are supported by advertisements. The advertisements for the most part relate to articles of trade and are furnished by merchants and traders. In this manner, British influence steals into our newspapers and circulates under their passport …
ENEMY TO FOREIGN INFLUENCE
James Madison wrote1746 and Thomas Jefferson submitted1747 this morning’s article on “Foreign Influence.” Republicans must persuade America that British influence, not French influence, jeopardizes the country.1748
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
Lieutenant General Washington, having contemplated every martial arrangement necessary at this crisis, has returned to Mount Vernon. The permanent army will be forthwith organized and, though the French should not advance, may have the opportunity to avenge their country if the sedition of … Kentucky should rise to overt rebellion. The late resolutions of the motley banditti of that state are of unexampled audacity … At this eventful period, Virginia is like [the volcano] Hecla of Vesuvius, exploding the most fiery particles. Angry remonstrances, seditious speeches, and rash resolutions abound …
SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
DISSENT of the Minority of the Senate of this State [of Pennsylvania] from the Address … to the President of the United States …
WE Dissent from this address … We hear from different parts of the union, and we know that even in the very neighborhood where we are assembled, numbers of people are discontented; that the Acts of the last Session of Congress have agitated the public mind to a violent degree..
Today, Thomas Jefferson writes a friend,
I shall make to you a profession of my political faith … in confidence …
I do then, with sincere zeal, wish an inviolable preservation of our current constitution … and I am opposed to monarchising it[s] features by the forms of its administration with a view to conciliate a first transition to a President & Senate for life, &from that to a hereditary tenure of these offices, & thus to worm out the elective principle … I am not for transferring all the powers of the States to the general government, & those of that government to the Executive branch. I am for a government rigorously frugal & simple … and not for a multiplication of officers & salaries merely to make partisans, & for increasing, by every device, the public debt on the principle of it[s] being a public blessing. I am for relying, for internal defence, on our militia solely, until actual invasion … and not for a standing army in time of peace which may overawe the public sentiment … I am for free commerce with all nations … I am for freedom of religion & against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another; for freedom of the press & against all violations of the Constitution to silence by force & not by reason the complaints or criticisms, just or unjust, of our citizens against the conduct of their agents. And I am for encouraging the progress of science … To these I will add that I was a sincere well-wisher to the success of the French revolution and still wish it may end in the establishment of a free & well-ordered republic … [T]hough feeling deeply the injuries of France, I did not think war the surest means of redressing them..
These, my friend, are my principles; they are unquestionably the principles of the great body of our fellow citizens …1749