SATURDAY, JUNE 7, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
THE PRESIDENT
Is gone—what! gone? Yes!—dead?—mortally, no; politically, aye? But he has left town—How? In his coach and four with the blinds up—Ah! that’s not a new thing, he has rode in the state coach with the blinds up for a long time … Did the blues parade?—No, what! not parade nor salute him whom the people delight to honor—the rock on which the storm beats—the chief who now commands? Did the republican militia parade?—no!
We have waited, hoping to hear something said about the public money which Brigadier General Dayton has held so long in his hands.
We have waited to hear what would be said concerning Mr. Pickering—and whether Mr. Wolcott or their friends would remain silent … The latter gentleman, as Secretary of the Treasury, ought to keep correct accounts …
The Gazette of the United States, it now appears, belongs to a kind of underhand agency, ostensively belonging to Mr. Caleb Wayne—we shall use the name of the publisher in the future to designate that paper, formerly called Fenno’s, apparently with like propriety.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
The President of the United States arrived at Georgetown on Tuesday noon last where he was received with every demonstration of joy … He was said to have made his entry into the city of Washington, the future seat of government of the union, on Wednesday last.
The alternate abuse offered both to Mr. Adams and Mr. Pickering in the Aurora … serves to show the base disposition of the Jacobins to divide and to destroy the Federalists … United we stand—divided we fall a prey to all the horrors which France and Ireland have experienced from the bloody fangs of the Jacobins.
MONDAY, JUNE 9, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
LETTER OF JOHN FOWLER, MEMBER OF CONGRESS FROM … KENTUCKY, TO HIS CONSTITUENTS
The election of a republican governor to the chair of Pennsylvania was the first intimation that the citizens of America still cherished the hope of preserving peace with France; yet notwithstanding this, the war party in Congress laboured incessantly, in conjunction with the executive administration, to force upon us the dreadful conflict. Our state [Kentucky] and Virginia remained firm: and the other southern states have joined us; and the accession of Pennsylvania would have given us a preponderance at the next election, had not a majority of six men, elected in the time of delusion to the [Pennsylvania] state senate, refused to concur in passing a law to prescribe the mode of electing the President and Vice President of the United States. The election of New York has now completely turned the beam …
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
It is reported, but with what degree of truth we will not pretend to say, that the Old Sorceress in Race street and Duane are mutually concerned in the publication of the Aurora—and that all the predictions … in that paper are to be accounted for in this way.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The senate requested Mr. Adams to institute a suit against the Editor of the Aurora; but it will not be expected that while he continues in his present critical situation, while the prospect of his re-election still exhibits the most gloomy aspect, he will gratify the resentments of the senate. However much he may participate in them, policy will dictate their concealment until they can be exercised with less hazard. Mr. Adams is not now “The ROCK on which the storm shall beat” in vain.
EPITOME OF THE TIMES.
(The Editor of the Epitome is mistaken: the suit is already instituted.)
Peter Porcupine will observe,
The Senate proceeded [against Duane]; but the Printer, by absconding till after the session was over, avoided the punishment intended for him … The Senate was never a very popular body; it was always regarded by the great mass of the people with a jealous eye. This attempt added to its unpopularity and cast on it an odium which it will not easily wipe off …1986
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
[Adv.] MACPHERSON’S BLUES
THE Members composing the Legion will assemble without uniform at the City Hall on Thursday next at 7 o’clock P.M. on Business of importance.By Order of Brig.Gen.Macpherson
THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Letters and newspapers must in future be directed to the respective officers of the Government at the City of Washington.
Tonight, at the City Hall in Philadelphia’s State-house, the “young men of Philadelphia” who compose the Macpherson’s Blues follow the President’s direction for army units to disband. At the time when the terror of faction was at the highest pitch in Philadelphia, this corps was the most active and willing to awe the people into silence and obscurity—The Theatre and every public place, even the churches, were crowded with this patriotic body—In fact the city of Philadelphia rather appeared under a military despotism than under a civil government …1987 This autumn, President Adams will pay for that despotism.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
Judge Chase, when about to pass sentence on Mr. Callender, observed that his offence against the laws was great … that Mr. Callender must have known that Mr. Adams was far from deserving the character he had given him … that the American people had repeatedly confided their most important concerns and dearest interests to Mr. Adams—that he was one of the principal characters in the revolution … That Congress … appointed him as a minister, in conjunction with two others, to make the treaty which terminated the war and established our independence, and that the best parts of that treaty of peace were to be ascribed to Mr. Adams … It was to be lamented … [t]hat Callender, avowedly for electioneering purpose, had ascribed to Mr. Adams a worse character …
FRIDAY, JUNE 13, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
James Thomson Callender further declared … that he shall be able to prove by the evidence of Stevens Thomson Mason and William B. Giles that John Adams, president of the United States, has unequivocally avowed in conversation with them principles utterly incompatible with the principles of the present constitution of the United States … [Callender] was sentenced by Judge Chase to nine months imprisonment and to pay a fine of two hundred dollars.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
For the satisfaction of all true friends to America, the three most active and most notorious foreign emissaries, Cooper, Duane, and Callender, have all at last been punished for their audacious attempts to involve the United States in one scene of confusion and blood. This we hope will discourage those who sent them across the Atlantic from any further attempts to destroy the government and independence of the United States.
SATURDAY, JUNE 14, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
MACPHERSON’S BLUES
We understand that the Military corps commonly called Macpherson’s Blues had a meeting on Thursday evening and that it was resolved to dissolve the association on the 17th inst …
Their rise was at a season of alarm and political ferment, … [A]n advertisement calling upon the YOUTH of Philadelphia to meet at a public tavern … was couched in singular form, for the youth were explained to comprehend those between 16 and 23 years of age … [E]ffects not to be then foreseen arose from the example set by Philadelphia, for all the continent was taught, and the eulogy bestowed by the president on these youths of 23 gave our nether world, a high opinion of this queer begotten association, and the example was followed as we have seen …
Never was l’esprit de corps more strongly manifested than in the first months of its institution by this body … [M]en of sound republican principles but weak minds were seen enrolling themselves in ranks under the apprehension of their growing power and the consequent danger; and men … were seen disgracing the memories of their fathers and the independence of their country by the elevation of the black British cockade! …
This
corps, sanctioned by the President … gave a species of law to the public of this city.—Weak men feared them … The theatre—the public streets—and even the domestic sanctuary was infested with their folly or their violence …
The republican part of the community … found it necessary to guard against the accumulating danger; and as a necessary effect of this danger, the Republican militia legion was formed.
From the moment the legion first appeared under arms, the city was released from the heavy weight of just apprehension. With the growth of the militia Legion, public confidence and public security have now been restored …
The blues are now no longer a military corps … and we shall not enumerate or particularize acts of theirs which we could point out for blame. The returning sense of the country … [has] rendered it prudent in them to take the steps they have done …
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
The Gentlemen composing the Legion of Blues have been highly honoured in the Aurora of this morning by a torrent of abuse. They are accused of wearing the British cockade—of insolence—of alarming the peaceable inhabitants &c. &c. &c. They have only to reflect on the source from whence this abuse arises;—Washington, Adams, Pickering, Hamilton, Marshall & M’Henry, with innumerable other patriots and statesmen, have all received a share of abuse in that paper.
The Editor of the Aurora … asserts with his usual vulgarity “that History is but the record of the transactions and characters of men under three words, crimes, fools, and villains.” Had he placed the word Jacobin before “History,” he had been right for once in his life, and, as it is, he has given us his character in three short words, as well as Judge Chase or any upright Judge will do it for him hereafter.
SUNDAY, JUNE 15, 1800
Today, the first standing army of the United States of America, established in 1798 under the signature of its second President, John Adams of Massachusetts, is officially disbanded! A report of celebration from North Farms, New Jersey:
The fifteenth of this instant being the day appointed by the Legislature of the Union for Disbanding the Standing Army, [three hundred of] the citizens of this vicinity … in order to manifest that joy which every true American must feel on such a happy occasion, convened … at the house of capt. Thomas Baldwin at 4 o’clock P.M. where, after partaking of a genteel and wholesome collation under a shady bower, the following [sixteen] toasts were drank, each accompanied with the discharge of musketry … 8. May it never again be in the power of the Commander in Chief of the first division of New Jersey militia to say that a standing army is raised (to use his own polite language) to keep “the people under” … 15. The virtuous and persecuted DUANE, Editor of the Aurora—May his endeavors to unveil the secret plots of a crafty aristocracy, meet the approbation and reward of his grateful country. 3 cheers …1988
MONDAY, JUNE 16, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
WAYNE [in his Gazette of the United States] calls the facts which we published (and published mildly compared with the facts) ABUSE of the BLUES—but he has not shewn us that the black cockade is not the British cockade …
Great stress is laid by weak men and by wicked men upon the poverty of Mr. Callender and his being born in a foreign country, as if his poverty or his birth could alter the character and principles of JUSTICE or as if these circumstances could deprive him of a RIGHT established by the law of the land for which his enemies profess such veneration …
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States, Caleb Wayne writes:
MACPHERSON’S BLUES
THIS legion … has afforded to the Editor of the Aurora an opportunity of retailing, with his usual asperity, a string of falsehoods designed to injure its character …
That the [Republican] militia legion has recently increased in numbers we readily admit. And that the [Federalist Macpherson’s] Blues, as part of the army of the United States, is about to be disbanded, will not be denied. It is, however, far from being honorable to the former that, during the period when the danger of foreign invasion was most imminent, their impoverished ranks displayed no more than ten or twelve to a company; or that, at a moment when the dawn of peace and security was most certain, their files should obviously augment … But even Jasper [Dwight], who thus speaks of their swelling ranks, has never been able to assemble in his forlorn corps more than 12 or fourteen soldiers …
The Blues [unlike the Republican militia legion] have never outraged the honor and dignity of their country, or bidden defiance to its laws, by marching exultantly through its streets to the war tunes of a declared and actual enemy … [W]hen on the mournful occasion of performing homage to the memory of their illustrious fellow-soldier, Washington, they behaved with decorum and obeyed with implicitness the orders of the day … Can this be observed of certain of the corps of that Legion whose respectability has been contrasted with the Blues ?
Duane calls the Black Cockade a British Cockade … [B]ut as we gained our Independence with black cockades in our hats, we shall not now give them give them up to please a wretch who was with the Enemy during the whole of our struggle for Independence and who is still a base foreign emissary.
TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
PUBLIC PLUNDER.
We have at length so far succeeded as to possess ourselves of a long and black series of abuses and waste of the public money …
We had some time ago stated that [former Secretary of State] Timothy Pickering had drawn on the 18th of April last the sum of 50,000 dollars from the public treasury. We now repeat the fact, and that at the time, he had in his hands unaccounted for the enormous sum of 300,000 dollars and more on the same account …
For this time we shall dismiss Mr. Pickering, because we have about FORTY other friends of regular government to bring in review …
Tomorrow we shall give Jonathan Dayton’s account at large.
Timothy Pickering superintended the federal government’s sedition actions against Benny and against me. Jonathan Dayton barred Benny and me from the House floor. It is time for them to be held to account!1989
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
A Secretary of the Treasury negligent, incompetent, or corrupt, may suffer or cause the public to be robbed to an immense account … If it shall appear that the public money has been withheld from the public coffers while immense sums have been borrowed at enormous interest—if it shall appear that those who have held those public monies have been speculating in princely estates while they possessed those public monies, then if they can say: these things ought to be so … we have mistaken the true meaning of oaths, of public obligations …
Mr. Dayton was considerably indebted to the U.S…. Jonathan Dayton held in his hands a balance of Dols. 8,611 60 from the 3d March 1797, to the month of July following, and then he held in his hands the small balance of Dols. 90,917 52 from the month of July, 1799, to the 22d January, 1800, and so far as his accounts are settled at the Treasury Department, he appears still to hold in his hands the sum of Dols. 18,142 and 52 cents.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
The very affectionate reception and respectable addresses which have everywhere met our venerable and vigilant President on his tour to and from Washington has greatly encreased the malignity and chagrin of the Jacobins, in consequence of which Duane has furnished a double stock of lies from his chaldron of this morning.
THURSDAY, JUNE 19, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
BALTIMORE, June 15. His excellency John Adams, president of the United States, arrived in town yesterday … It is regretted that business of an urgent nature required his departure so early as to induce him to decline the civilities and honors intended him by our citizens.
Yesterday departed from their political existence, the military corps called M’Pherson’s Blues—wishing not to disturb the ashes of the defunct, we wish the rege
nerated citizens a more peaceful and useful, durable and happy, progress thro’ the vale of life than they have experienced as soldiers.
There are two public officers in Boston who hold the handsome sum of 300,000 dollars of the public money—and one of them is a bankrupt! O rare friends of regular government!
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
More Jacobin and United Irish Arithmetic.
Duane in accounting for his nine unaccountable buckram millions, goes on thus: June 17. Timo[thy] Pickering to pocketing– 8,000,000. [June] 18. Sharp Delaney, to d[itt]o 86,000 Jonathan Dayton 320,000 [June] 19. Another Collector, 117,000 Mr. Winder, a Clerk 2,500,000 Sundry accounts in former papers 5,000,000 [Total] 16,023,000 … Query, for Jasper—how many times 16 in nine !
FRIDAY, JUNE 20, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The attempt in [Caleb] Wayne’s paper to disguise a vast scene of wickedness is more truly characteristic of the anglo faction than any thing we have lately seen …
Queries addressed to … Oliver Wolcott, secretary of the treasury of the United States … Why, since the month of July 1799, when you settled Jonathan Dayton’s account at the treasury, and he acknowledged a balance of 18,142 dollars and 52 cents, have you permitted that sum of the public money to remain in his hands until this day ? … [Mr. Dayton] has lately purchased 24,000 acres of land …
American Aurora Page 107
