American Aurora
Page 76
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 hono
rable 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 …