American Aurora
Page 108
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
By recent accounts from Virginia, the good people of that state begin to be alarmed at the late daring attempts of the Foreign Jacobins resident among us to destroy our Government; Callender is already punished by them, and they expect Pennsylvania will pay the same attention to his accomplice here …
Duane seems at last justly convicted, fully aware of his own base and contemptible situation in life, when he presumes that but one Federalist could be found to notice his innumerable absurd falsehoods, but true as this may be in general, the wretch has taken such high ground of late, in his charges against many of our most upright public officers for vast mal appropriations of the public monies, that we trust he will soon find to his cost that there will be sufficient notice taken of him by all parties. In any other country, such conduct would tend much to his final elevation; how it will end here will depend on the steps to be taken by those whom he has so basely attempted to injure …
MONDAY, JUNE 23, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
We have the satisfaction to state that the president has attended to the accounts which we have published and that he has thought it his duty to go in person to the office of the treasury and direct enquiries to be made and statements to be made out of various accounts. Among others we learn that Mr. Pickering’s have been particularly attended to …
The President, we understand, arrived on Thursday afternoon at 4 o’clock P.M. at Mrs. White’s [boarding house] without any noise or the usual parade, and on Friday forenoon walked several squares of the city.
We further understand that he bowed very condescendingly to certain high flyers who passed him during his promenade and stopped for near ten minutes with a lady of RANK to whom he told of his “hair breadth escapes in the imminent deadly ruts” … We are very sorry that he did not meet with better roads and … had any harsh words with the commissioners or bricklayers of the city of Washington …
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
We are surprized to find the assertion in the Aurora that the late Secretary of State [Pickering] has drawn 300,000 dollars … should have made some impression on the public mind; after similar falsehoods respecting the late President Washington and Secretary Hamilton have been proved by official documents. So low is the credit of that paper in Philadelphia that assertions of this sort scarcely become subjects of conversation.COM. ADV.
TUESDAY, JUNE 24, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
TO JOHN ADAMS,
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
Sir, The public feel a sensible interest in the part you have taken upon your return to this city in causing an enquiry to be made into certain public accounts. They are pleased to see the bustle, assiduity, and early attendance of Mr. Wolcott at five o’clock every morning at the old treasury office … At the same time, the public would like to know how it has happened …A YORKER
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
I am compelled by the considerations and justice … to declare the recent publications in the Aurora respecting pecuniary transactions … unfounded.
The accounts of the [State] Department, while it was conducted by Colonel Pickering, have been exhibited at the Treasury, and it is expected that they will be finally settled soon after the Offices are opened in Washington …
The balances to which the publications in the Aurora refer are the aggregate amounts of sums which have been remitted to public agents …
OLIVER WOLCOTT Treasury …
The PRESIDENT of the United States left this city yesterday morning and proceeded on his journey to Massachusetts.
The public will be less surprized at the great increase of lies in the Aurora when they are told the following fact—are you not going too far ? said a more timid Jacobin to Duane.—too far, no,—replied Jasper, there are already so many prosecutions [against me] intended that I must be made a Bankrupt and take the benefit of the Act; therefore, all the new lies I publish for Electioneering or other party purposes are clear gain.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Oliver Wolcott furnishes the confession … that “the balances to which the Aurora refer are the aggregate amounts of sums which have been remitted to ministers” &c. Then it appears that the Aurora has not asserted unfounded facts—but absolutely real and acknowledged transactions. But more, Mr. Wolcott … acknowledges that they have not been yet settled …
TO THE EDITOR … Mr. Wolcott assures that … they will be “finally settled soon after the offices are opened at Washington!” Whenever they shall be finally settled, the public will be in no small degree indebted for that event to the AURORA.A CITIZEN
DEATH
It is a cause of real joy to the sincere friends of our country that on THIS DAY, the Act of Congress “CONCERNING ALIENS” expires and ceases longer to disgrace the American code of laws. As a part of that system of terror which was artfully created for political purposes by a “WOULD BE” governing faction … [W]hile the remembrance of Mr. Adams’ administration shall continue in the American mind, this act will contribute its full share to perpetuate a merited sentence of condemnation on the policy and justice of that administration.
By allowing the President to banish any would-be citizen—without a hearing—on the claim that the President “suspected” misbehavior, the “Alien Friends” Act gave the President a weapon of intimidation to silence many opposers of his administration. That law’s two-year term has ended. It won’t be renewed!
THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
[W]e must postpone … Jonathan Dayton’s exposition of himself until Monday next.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
Duane, defeated in his other calumnies, now charges the Public Officers with receiving commissions on the subordinate agencies under the auditorship or direction of the principal heads of departments. Although it is scarcely necessary to follow this villain any further, we once more assert from authority that nothing can be further from the truth.
If any thing … could enforce the necessity of an Alien Law, it would be the exultation of Duane at its death.
SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
If the assertions by Mr. Wolcott are intended to exonerate Mr. Pickering from the charges that [were] produced against him in the Aurora, it was certainly necessary that something more than vague and unintelligible assertions should have been exhibited.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
ORIGINAL LETTER FROM DR. FRANKLIN
(The following is an original … [D]iscern at once the germ of deism, the embryo of rancour against church establishments, the feverish symptoms of a malcontent; and those daring doctrines “at which both the priest and philosopher may tremble.”)
Philad. June 6th, 1753.
SIR, … “The faith you mention has doubtless its use in the world … But I wish it were more productive of good works than I have generally seen it; I mean real good works; works of kindness, charity, mercy and public spirit; not holiday keeping, sermon reading or hearing, performing church ceremonies, or making long prayers, filled with flatteries and compliments, despised even by wise men and much less capable of pleasing the Deity …”
B. FRANKLIN
Tonight, I emulate Dr. Franklin’s liberality and Benny Bache’s adoration. In a relatively private ceremony, I, a Roman Catholic, marry a courageous non-Catholic whom Jack Fenno calls “lusty”1990 and “lovely,”1991 Peter Porcupine calls “luscious,”1992 and Benny’s children call “mother.” The former Peggy Bache becomes Peggy Duane, and I become husband to Benny’s widow, stepfather to Benny’s children, and so stepfather to Dr. Benjamin Franklin’s greatgrandchildren. I am now, as nearly as I will ever be, a Bache and a Franklin!
MONDAY, JUNE 30, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
MARRIED—On Saturday evening 28th. inst. by the Rev. Bishop White, Mr. WILLIAM DUANE to MRS. MARGARET HARTMAN BACHE.
To the Editor of the Aurora.
[Y]ou have in your paper of the 18th inst. ventured to impose upon the public a false statement of facts in relation to my accounts as speaker of the house of representatives … [Y]ou can never forgive [me] for having firmly discharged my duty … against you personally …
The books of the Treasury will establish beyond all doubt the truth of … my assertion, and the falsehood of yours … I must be allowed to add that your paper has become so notorious and indeed proverbial for its slanders and its falsehoods that if it had been certain that those printers who might think proper to republish your misrepresentations would have at the same time quoted their authority, I should not have thought it necessary to … answer, convinced that … it would be sufficient only to make known that it originated in “the Aurora.”
JONA: DAYTON
[NEWARK, NEW JERSEY.] We have not had it in our power to publish any information through the medium of the [Newark] Centinel which excited more General consternation and alarm than that copied from the Aurora this day and which tends to expose the abusive system practiced on our public funds …
NEWARK CENTINEL.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
A FACT
From the Aurora !
Married on Saturday evening the 28th inst. by the Right Rev. Doctor White, William Duane, to Mrs. Margaret Hartman Bache, of this city!!!!!!!!!!!
TUESDAY, JULY 1, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Some there are who affect to disbelieve Duane’s statement of official peculation and fraud—to such the following queries are addressed: If the statements were false, would he have published them at a time when the President and Mr. Wolcott were both in the city and could detect, expose, and punish instantly any false accusation ? Would he have not waited till the President had gone to Quincy and the Secretary to Washington? …
If they were false, would he have dared in contempt and defiance of the Sedition law to give them to the public as facts? … Mirror.
[NEW YORK] The President of the United States has passed by this city, and no parade has been made upon the occasion … N. Y. Paper.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
Since the late auspicious nuptials of a happy Editor, his paper has been observed to be more than usually spiritless and vapid. A grave philosopher of my acquaintance supposes that those animal spirits which used to slash in petulance, aflame in anger, are now flowing in a new channel!
On the report of a marriage between lovely Peggy and a noted Jacobin.
Should B[ache] with Jasper clank the wedlock fetter,
O let her not her stars too sorely curse.
As there’s no hope that he will ere be better,
So there’s no fear he ever can be worse.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 2, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
A NEW POLITICAL CRISS-CROSS,
For children six feet high, and upwards.
The Treasury—This is the house that Jack built.
3,000,000—This is the malt that lay in the house that Jack built.
Tim. Pickering—This is the rat that eat the malt that laid in the house that Jack built.
Billy Duane— This is the CAT that catch’d the rat, that eat the malt, that laid in the house, that Jack built.
Sedition Law—This is the dog that snarl’d at the CAT, that catch’d the rat …
Judge Chase—This is the cow with the crumpled horn, that CHASED the dog that snarl’d at the cat, …
Mr. Adams— This is the maiden all forlorn, that FED the cow with the crumpled horn, that chased the dog, that snarled at the cat, that catch’d the rate, that eat the malt in the house that Jack built …
Baltimore Am.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
Duane … is sketching a political print to be called “The Libeller Convicted, or an inside view of a Prison.”
THURSDAY, JULY 3, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Mr. Wolcott … says that “tis expected Mr. Pickering’s accounts WILL BE finally settled SOON AFTER the offices are opened at Washington.” … The question then will arise … of our sweet scented friend Brigadier General Thunder … Either the officers of the treasury must be right and Jonathan Dayton wrong. Or Jonathan Dayton right, and the treasury wrong … Did the Secretary of the Treasury know the transaction ?
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
To a Friend hurt by the notice of Duane.
You seem surprised that Jasper fly,
On you his filthy slime has scatter’d;
When a full mud cart passes by
Tis odds, my friend, that you’re bespatter’d.
FRIDAY, JULY 4, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
THE DEVIL TO PAY AT WASHINGTON.
Oliver Wolcott has commenced a court of Inquisition at Washington, all the clerks in the treasury offices have been interrogated by the Grand Inquisitor of Connecticut, in order to discover the men, women, and children who let the Editor of the Aurora into the secrets of public delinquents—trunks have been broken open to seek for letters, &c. &c. but alas—all has ended in confusion worse confounded; the game is up, and there is no possibility of discovering who started it, but at the Aurora Office.
This day being the anniversary of American independence, the citizens engaged in the publication of the Aurora will have to suspend their labours for the day and join in the general festival—the next number of this paper, therefore, will appear on Monday morning next.
MONDAY, JULY 7, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
FESTIVAL OF INDEPENDENCE …
The following are among the [16] toasts … By the Rifle company, commanded by Captain Huff, assembled at the House of Thomas Khrum … 11. The memory of Benjamin Franklin Bache, who devoted his abilities to the service of his country—May they in return bear him in grateful remembrance—9 cheers. 12. The successor of Benj. Franklin Bache, Capt. Wm. Duane—6 cheers … TOASTS OF THE REPUBLICAN GREENS. At the middle Ferry, Schuylkill … 3. Franklin—The American patriarch of liberty and philosophy … 11. The memory of Benjamin Franklin Bache—a virtuous man in wicked times. VOLUNTEERS. The cat that caught the rat, that eat the malt that lay in the house that Jack built … On Friday the 4th inst., the officers of the 24th regiment of the Pennsylvania militia … assembled at Gray’s Ferry and Gardens … VOLUNTEERS. “Billy Duane—the cat that catched the rat that eat the malt that lay in the house that Jack built. 1 gun, 3 cheers.”
No news from France. Today, Treasury Secretary Oliver Wolcott writes Alexander Hamilton:
A great number of public men have heard the Pr. declare that he did not believe that the Fr. Govt. was sincere in making what he called the “overtures” upon which the last mission was founded. Nay more, the Pr. has declared that a Treaty was neither to be expected nor desired … at Trenton last Autumn & … that the Expulsion of the Envoys from France with circumstances of personal indignity would be favourable to the Interests of the UStates. I shall ever believe that the last mission to France was by the Pr. considered … to gain popularity at home by appearing to be desirous of peace …1993
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
To a Captain [Duane] on his hair breadth escapes
from federal hickory.
How kind has Nature unto Jasper been,
Who gave him frowning brows and dauntless mien.
A tongue to swagger, eyes to flash dismay,
And kinder still—gave legs to run away!
TUESDAY, JULY 8. 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
NATIONAL FESTIVITY …
Captain Potts infantry of Frankford and Kessler’s of the Northern Liberties celebrated the Anniversary of the American Independe
nce in a wood on the left of Germantown road … The following are the [15] toasts … 14. The Cat that catch’d the Rat that eat the Malt that lay in the house that Jack built—3 guns, 9 cheers … [A] number of Republicans … assembled on the verdant shores of the Schuylkill … [T]he following toasts … 10. The memory of Dr. Benjamin Franklin—the philosopher and disinterested patriot whose services contributed so greatly to the emancipation of our country and to the establishment of her liberty and independence, the purest gratitude for his services and the sincerest veneration for his memory. 11. The memory of Benjamin Franklin Bache, he who so firmly and inflexibly supported the cause of republicanism, defying the malignant and inveterate prosecution of his political enemies, may his early tomb be honored by the veneration of freemen, and respected and reverenced by our posterity …
VOLUNTEERS.
“Surgo ut Prosim”—May the victorious sheets of the Aurora continue in the disseminating of republican sentiments and in the detecting of public defaulters.
The Editor of the Aurora, William Duane—May his zeal and ardour in the Republican Cause ever merit the warmest acknowledgments of his fellow-citizens.
The persecuted of all nations—America their asylum from their cruel oppressors …
[From the New York Royal Gazette.] Impossible as it may seem, it is a fact that the calumnies which have lately appeared in the Aurora and copied with malignant avidity into the Argus and every Jacobin paper in the United States have obtained a temporary belief, even in our own [New York] Coffee-house. Duane, with unexampled impudence, has, by descending to a detail of falsehoods, put off the fabrications for truth with those who ought to have been above the reach of such infamous artifices.