American Aurora
Page 8
TUESDAY, MARCH 27, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
John Fenno [in the Gazette of the U.S.] is very angry at the Aurora for having yesterday copied an article from a Connecticut newspaper hinting that the old soldiers were not fond of a French war. He affirms, on the contrary, that there is not one officer whose conduct in the late war will bear scrutiny, who is to be found among the “base hireling crew of calumniating Jacobins.”
Looking into Congress, we find many respectable military characters opposed to the present plan for war, such as General Smith of Baltimore, Colonel Parker of Virginia, Gen. M’Dowell and Col. Gillespie, of North Carolina. It is needless to multiply further examples.
War measures … Today, John Adams approves and signs into law the first piece of war legislation against France:
AN ACT
For an additional appropriation to provide
and support a Naval Armament.
Be it enacted. &c. That there be, and there hereby is, appropriated a further sum, not exceeding one hundred and fifteen thousand, eight hundred and thirty-three dollars to complete and equip for sea, with all convenient speed, the [armed] frigates, the United States, the Constitution, and the Constellation.214
Today, in the U.S. House of Representatives, Republicans try to thwart the move toward war. The Annals of Congress report:
RELATIONS WITH FRANCE
Mr. SPRIGG [Republican, Maryland] rose and observed … he should offer the following resolutions …
Resolved, That … under existing circumstances it is not expedient for the United States to resort to war against the French Republic.
Resolved, &., That provision ought to be made by law for restricting the arming of merchant vessels …
Mr. GALLATIN [Republican, Western Pennsylvania] said … the United States had arrived at a crisis … in which it was necessary for Congress to say whether they will resort to war or preserve peace … [B]efore measures are taken which will lead to war, the House ought to decide whether it is their intention at present to go to war …
Mr. J. WILLIAMS [Federalist, New York] … thought it very extraordinary, as no one was found to bring forward a resolution to declare war, that a gentleman would introduce a resolution of its being inexpedient so to do. He was persuaded that this negative mode of proceeding was calculated to draw on a debate, to set the people against the Executive … He had himself seen gentlemen write upon the late Message of the President, for the purpose of sending to their constituents, “A war message against France”…
A call to order took place; and a motion was made … to rise [adjourn], and carried.215
Today, in Philadelphia’s Northern Liberties district (which is north, along the Delaware), Federalists are recruiting young men into a private militia, the Macpherson’s Blues, to combat what they call America’s “false, perfidious friends, both at home and abroad.” Their notice calls young men “to arms.”216
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
Callender, in the Aurora of this morning, has printed … “Looking into Congress, we find many respectable military characters opposed to the present plan of war, such as General Smith [&C] …” Has Callender the audacity to insinuate that … the above gentlemen are Jacobins? Or is it a “precious confession” of his employer Bache?
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
The peace-makers, WEATHERILL, the fighting Quaker, and Dr. [George] LOGAN, the particular friend of Monroe … [and] Bache … were yesterday employed in handing out their factious [peace] petition. They generally met with a very cold and sometimes with a very rough reception … They have got the names of a number of Democrats, and they will get as many of them as they like; but this is not what they wanted. They wanted respectable names; and these they will not get …
A word about Quaker peace-petitioner George Logan … George Logan and Benny Bache share old family ties. George’s grandfather, James, was secretary to Pennsylvania’s founder, William Penn, and helped Benny’s grandfather found the Library Company of Philadelphia about seventy years ago. At forty, George Logan still lives on an old family farm, Stenton, that his grandfather built in Germantown (northwest of Philadelphia) back in 1728.217
Despite the prestige of his old family name, George Logan maintains a very simple Quaker lifestyle, once chastising his attractive wife, Deborah, for serving George Washington a fancy dessert,218 championing the small farmer (the “yeomanry”) against Federalist schemes of big government and big taxation,219 and generally sympathizing with Republican causes. He resented the Jay Treaty and Washington’s treatment of France,220 organized a welcome dinner for James Monroe when the ambassador was recalled,221 and, now that war has become the question, finds equal determination in his Quakerism and his Republicanism that there must be no war with France.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
A petition to be presented to Congress is in circulation for signatures in this city, praying that every honorable and possible means may be used to prevent the country from being involved in the calamities of war.
Today, in the U.S. House of Representatives, Republicans vainly attempt to stop the push toward war. The Annals of Congress report:
RELATIONS WITH FRANCE
The House again resolved itself into a committee of the Whole … propositions as to the inexpediency or resorting to war against the French Republic being under consideration …
Mr. PINCKNEY [Federalist, South Carolina] rose and said … [t]he gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. GALLATIN) … says the adoption of the resolution will go to prevent the taking of any measures which may, in their tendency, lead to war … [T]he adoption of the resolution would not only declare that we will not go to war but that we will not take any measures for the defence of our property …222
A word about “Mr. GALLATIN” … Since last year, when James Madison (Republican, Virginia) retired from Congress and took his young Quaker wife, Dolley, back to Virginia, Albert Gallatin (Republican, Western Pennsylvania) has emerged as undisputed Republican leader in the U.S. House of Representatives.223 One might think, on reading Peter Porcupine, that Al Gallatin arrived just yesterday from Geneva, Switzerland. He’s actually been here eighteen years. He hasn’t lost his French accent,224 however, so Porcupine mocks him, for example, as follows:
When Mr. Gallatin rose from his seat … there was an old farmer sitting beside me … “Ah, ah!” says he, “what’s little Moses in Congress?” I sharply reprimanded him for taking one of our representatives for a Jew: but to confess a truth, the Gentleman from Geneva has an accent not unlike that of a wandering Israelite.225
In a similar vein, Porcupine has popularized the taunting accusation that, in leading congressional Republicans, Al Gallatin wants to, “stop de wheels of de gouverment.”226
THURSDAY, MARCH 29, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
[O]ur president has issued a proclamation for a fast and thanksgiving both in one day [May 9th] … Mr. Adams wants to have … every pulpit resound with declamations against France. He chuses to take for granted … that Mr. Adams is exactly in the right and the French Directory are entirely in the wrong … While John Fenno continues to publish his daily libels against France, nobody in consistency with common sense can believe that his patron, Mr. Adams, is desirous of soliciting the good will of the [French] Republic.
[F]or refusing to suffer this press being muzzled by order of the Speaker [of the House of Representatives], the Editor … was directed by the Speaker to leave the place actually allotted to the reporters. The … question was brought up to decide whether the Speaker should retain this power … Had the grievance of which the Editor (in common with other reporters) complains been clearly and directly before the committee … [t]hey never would have countenanced their Speaker … to be indulged at the expense of the most valuable right of freemen—the liberty of the Press.
Today, President Adams confers
a special honor on someone who is well known227 for having brutally assaulted Benjamin Bache less than a year ago. The assault put Benny in bed for two days.228 Secretary of State Timothy Pickering writes Clement Humphreys of Philadelphia:
SIR, The President of the United States having directed that a special messenger should be engaged to carry a letter to the Envoys from the United States to the French Republic, you have been selected for that service. You are to embark forthwith in the United States brigantine Sophia, whereof Captain Henry Geddes is master.229
Clement Humphreys led shipyard workers to attack Benny Bache while Benny was inspecting the 175-foot, forty-four-gun U.S. Navy frigate United States, then under construction in the Humphreys family shipyard which is along the Delaware in Southwark (Philadelphia’s southern district). Benny describes the attack:
The Humphreys’ shipyard in Southwark, Philadelphia’s southern district, with a U.S. frigate under construction.230
I took a walk with two friends into Southwark. It was proposed by one of them that we should step on board the frigate which we did, having first obtained leave from the guard. The workmen were at their dinner. While we were looking at the river from the windows of the upper cabin, we perceived some pieces of cork thrown toward us thro’ the hatchway from below. We concluded that they were thrown out of playfulness by some acquaintance or perhaps by some persons belonging to the frigate who might have mistaken us for acquaintances. The intention, however, was probably to provoke us to an altercation or induce us below on the main deck. We took no notice of the throwing, several minutes elapsed without it being repeated, and I had quite forgotten it.
The bell on the upper deck was struck. My friends walked toward it. I stood on the gangway looking at it. Immediately some 12 or 15 of the workmen came upon the deck from the stage and stood along the gunwale. I supposed at the time that the bell was to summon them to their work, but probably it was struck to get them on deck to stand by the assassin in case of need.
I was thus standing, alone as I thought, still looking at the bell, when I felt a violent blow on my head. My first thought was that something had fallen on me; I then received a second blow, and immediately after, perceived the cowardly ruffian before me in a menacing attitude. Stunned as I was with the violence of the two blows, which must have struck from behind, I was unable to defend myself against a third, much less to return them. About this period in the assault, I heard several broken sentences uttered such as that I had, in my paper … “abused the President on the day of his resignation …” … The perpetrator of this act of cowardly assassination, I have been since informed, is HUMPHREYS, son of the builder of the frigate.231
It is too dangerous for Benny to wander unprotected. Poor Richard advised,
He that scatters Thorns,
let him not go barefoot.232
John Adams’ appointment of Clement Humphreys promises presidential rewards for anyone who attempts to silence Benjamin Bache!
Today, the Common Council of Philadelphia enacts the following:
AN ORDINANCE FOR THE
Regulation of the Market
HELD IN HIGH-STREET
Be it therefore ordained … that within half an hour after the time of sun rising, on every market day, strong chains, well secured, shall be stretched across the passages [onto High street] … to prevent any horses, cattle, carts or carriages from entering or passing … leaving nevertheless intervals in proper and convenient places for the passage of persons on foot …233
At last Benny and the rest of us in the lower part of High-street will be protected from the market day animals.
FRIDAY, MARCH 30, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
In [Tuesday’s] Aurora, a reply was made to one of Fenno’s Snip-snap paragraphs wherein he said that no officer whose conduct in the late war will bear scrutiny is to be found among “the base hireling crew of calumniating Jacobins.” Not knowing precisely what John meant by Jacobins, we ventured only to say that “many respectable military characters opposed the present plan of war.” We named four members of Congress … John replies [on Tuesday] with great spirit: “Has Callender,” says he, “the audacity to insinuate that either of the above Gentlemen are Jacobins, or is it a precious confession of his employer Bache.” … John … speaks of precious confessions … When Hamilton printed his PRECIOUS CONFESSION [of adultery], a pamphlet the most infamous and even one of the most stupid that ever disgraced any age or nation, John Fenno secured the copy right!
At a legal meeting of the Freeholders and other
Inhabitants of the TOWN of ROXBURY [MASS.] …
The following motion was regularly made and seconded …
The inhabitants of this Town … hear with deepest concern that it has been proposed to allow the Merchants to Arm their vessels … [W]hen it is obvious that between Arms in the hands & the commencement of Hostilities there is but a [short] span, we deprecate … the prospect of the Peace … being suspended on so precarious a tenure … [This is] confiding the decision … not to the cool deliberate determination of Congress; but to the Pride, Caprice or Passion of an individual …
A true copy.- Attest,
STEVEN WILLIAMS,
Town Clerk [Roxbury, Massachusetts].
Mr. Bache, I have been much edified by reading the Proclamation of the President, appointing the 9th of May as a day of general fast throughout the United States … [T]he dangers which threaten [our country] have principally arisen from our Administration and … it is it that ought to fast, reform, and repent … The good American people are only guilty of one fault which, although light and trifling if the intention is weighed, has been dreadful in its consequences, it is that of having elected Mr. Adams their President …
A good Christian …
Poor Richard wrote,
The Bell calls others to Church,
but itself never minds the Sermon.234
Today, in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Annals of Congress report:
RELATIONS WITH FRANCE
MR. ALLEN [Federalist, Connecticut] … proposed the following resolution, to which he hoped there would be no objection:
Resolved, that the President of the United States be requested to communicate to this house the dispatches from the envoys extraordinary of the United States to the French republic, mentioned in his message of the 19th inst …
Mr. GALLATIN [Republican, Pennsylvania] could not see how the information … could influence the vote … [T]he Message of the President had produced … the effect of a declaration of war …235
Tonight, William Cobbett in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
Being yesterday in the Northern Liberties, I accidentally saw, lying on a table, “An address to the Youth” … proposing to them to form a company of infantry and another of artillery; to disciple themselves and to be ready to march at the command of the government.—I am sorry I have not room for this address today; but it shall have a place tomorrow.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
The acknowledgment of a Deity and a superintending providence is so contrary to the practice of the rulers of France, Tom Paine … Bache and Callender that blasphemy and slander respecting the President’s proclamation [for a day of prayer] from these foreign agents was a thing of course.
Bache … tells Callender to dub the friends of the constitution and government of the United States—Tories [supporters of monarchy]—but I would ask … if they … suppose the people of the United States will ever believe that the present or late President of the United States … who effected the independence of this Country are Tories?
SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
In yesterday’s Aurora there appeared the copy of resolutions entered into by the town of Roxbury in Massachusetts … against arming our merchantmen …
We would ask … whether the conduct of the townsmen of Roxbury does not show that, even in the native state of our presi
dent, there is a numerous party who entirely disapprove of his harangues in favor of war.
A few weeks ago, we published a short statement of the amount charged the United States for building and equipping the three frigates United States, Constitution and Constellation. [T]hese frigates were in ‘94 ordered to be built in order to protect our trade against the Algerines [Barbary pirates] … The delay [in completing the ships] … rendered it necessary, in order to have a treaty, to promise the [Algiers] Dey’s daughter a FRIGATE by way of douceur [bribe] … Here we have then the whole cost … 9,878,362.53.
Today, Abigail Adams writes her sister,
Bache you see is striving to render the Proclamation [for a May 9th prayer day] ridiculous and, with his Atheistical doctrines, spreading the French principles far and wide. But I trust and hope we may as a people … never forget that it is Righteousness which exalteth a Nation, whilst Sin is their Reproach.236
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
AN ADDRESS
To The Young Men of the Northern Liberties
[District of Philadelphia].
YOUR country calls for your assistance—the hour of danger is arrived … The mask is taken from the face of our false, perfidious friends, both at home and abroad … Shall the youthful arm of America be unnerved in the hour of danger …? No, rise up, gird on the armour of defence …