American Aurora
Page 10
(The remainder in our next.)
The French will not formally receive Adams’ envoys without a recanting of his anti-French speech of last May 16th, without a U.S. loan to France, and without a U.S. douceur to calm the French Directory. In the meantime, French Foreign Minister Talleyrand deals with our envoys through informal intermediaries whose identities are concealed as X, Y, and Z in the dispatches presented to Congress.248
Today, President Adams writes Federalist party leader Alexander Hamilton:
The papers relative to the negotiation which has been attempted with France have been laid before Congress … The dose will kill or cure, and I wish I was not uncertain which. Not that I doubt the expediency of what the government has done or attempted, but because I believe faction and Jacobinism to be the natural and immortal enemies of our system.249
Public excitement about the dispatches brings crowds to this afternoon’s presidential “levee” (audience). Peter Porcupine reports,
[T]he PRESIDENT’S LEVEE … was by far the most crowded that has ever been since the commencement of the Federal government …250
Not everyone is so enthusiastic. Today, Julien Niemcewicz, the Polish writer, visits Stenton, the 450-acre farm that peace petitioner and Quaker leader George Logan owns in Germantown, outside Philadelphia. The visit is short, as Poor Richard suggested:
Visits should be short, like a winters day,
Lest you’re too troublesome, hasten away.251
Julien Niemcewicz notes in his diary:
[W]e left … in a cabriolet [two-wheeled carriage] to see Dr. Logan, the celebrated farmer and celebrated fanatic, living near Germantown … [H]is house … is of brick, large and well kept. A smooth lawn like a green carpet, sown with groups of cedars and Hemlocks extended before one’s eye.
Doctor Logan received us civilly but with an air of preoccupation and pain. We did not wait long to discover the source of his ills. It was a preoccupation, a fixation, indeed a madness. He was convinced that his country was the most unhappy on earth, that it was menaced by the greatest dangers, that is to say, by total destruction. The authors of all these … calamities were the English; they had bought and corrupted the government … This was the subject of the conversation before dinner. Mrs. Logan, pale, with a rather good figure, has caught the same disease … [H]er discourses carried indeed more vehemence than those of her husband. The dinner was frugal but good …
After …, they began to sing the praises of, to render homage to the virtues of the nation which has revenged humanity so long oppressed … They began to praise the French up to the skies …
Madman, I said to myself, You do not know what you want … But go to France; go to Europe; see what goes on there and you will return cured of your madness.252
What Julien Niemcewicz doesn’t know is that George Logan is going to France. If Adams can’t make peace, George Logan will! Poor Richard wrote,
God helps them that helps themselves.253
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette, Peter Porcupine writes:
I said that not even the damning proofs … in the DISPATCHES would operate any material change in the politics or the conduct of the French faction here. BACHE, who is the mouthpiece of that infernal crew, has proved the assertion true [in yesterday’s Aurora]. He denies not the authenticity of the DISPATCHES; he dares not do that: but he denies that the persons who made the insolent overtures to the envoys were authorized by the French government …
BACHE publishes to rogues and fools. The former are the approbators, the supports, and sometimes the authors of his shameless misrepresentations and infamous falsehoods; the latter, he well knows, have not the capacity to detect him … Bache has amply proved the Jacobins will still remain the same; yet … [t]his is a dreadful stroke to the French Faction.
[H]aving completely sailed round the world of sedition, [CALLENDER] has hove his shattered and disfigured bark into the harbour of Citizen Benjamin Franklin Bache, the Grandson of Old Ben and the ample inheritor of all his factious principles. This BACHE … is the sworn enemy of this government and the notorious hireling of France … [T]he wretch had the audacity openly to call GENERAL WASHINGTON a legalizer of corruption and an assassin; … he has justified the French in all their depredations, their robberies, their cruelties, and their insults heaped on America … [and] he has now the infamy to justify the last instance of their turpitude and perfidy, as exposed in the Dispatches just received from our envoys in Paris.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
DISPATCHES
From our Envoys Extraordinary to France,
ordered to be published by the Senate …
(concluded from our last.)
October 30th [1797] …
Mr. Y then called our attention to our own situation … Perhaps, said he, that you believe that, in returning and exposing to your countrymen the unreasonableness of the demands of this government, you will unite them in their resistance to those demands: you are mistaken: you ought to know that the diplomatic skill of France and the means she possesses in your country are sufficient to enable her, with the French party in America, to throw the blame which will attend the rupture of the negociations on the federalists, as you term yourselves, but on the British party as France terms you …
The dispatches from France fully occupy today’s Philadelphia Aurora, Gazette of the United States, and Porcupine’s Gazette.
THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
[Adv.] TO THE CURIOUS.
A Beautiful African
LION.
To be seen everyday (Sundays excepted) at Mr. I. Chambers, Sign of the Plough, in Third-street, near Market street … Great attention has been paid in providing a strong and substantial cage and to have the LION under very good command … [I]t is said by those who have seen LIONS in the Tower of London and many other parts that he is really worth the contemplation of the curious. Admittance for Ladies and Gentlemen, One QUARTER of a DOLLAR and Children, Half Price.
Poor Richard said,
Kings & Bears often worry their keepers.254
What did he think about lions? The lion’s cage is around the corner from the Aurora!
War measures … Today, in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Annals of Congress report:
ADDITIONAL ARTILLERY, &C …
Mr. GALLATIN [Republican, Pennsylvania]: He agreed that the probability of a war is greater than it has been at any former period. He would not make any remarks on what has drawn us into this situation. But, among the causes, he would beg leave to mention the publication of the late despatches … (The CHAIRMAN said this remark was not in order.) Mr. G. said … he meant to state only that the publication of these papers had destroyed the hope … (A cry of order.) Mr. G. wished to know what was in order … [H]e contended that it was the duty of the House to be cautious … [T]o increase the artillery corps sixteen companies instead of eight … he did not think necessary. Is there, said Mr. G., any person on this floor seriously afraid of an invasion. He was sure there was not …
Mr. DAYTON (the speaker) [Federalist, New Jersey] said that the speech of the member from Pennsylvania (Mr. GALLATIN) in opposition to the amendment of increasing the corps of artillerists and engineers must be considered as the exhibition of another leaf of that favorite book in which was written the system of his uniform opposition to all measures of the Administration …255
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
The late French faction has died … The recent exposure … has proved to them like the shock of some vast explosion … Mazzei [i.e., Jefferson] may still remain Vice-President of the turbulent and factious; but, his adherents cut off … he stands an awkward and misplaced Colossus …
Tonight, Federalists meet at John Dunwoody’s tavern, several squares west of the Aurora (that is, away from the Delaware) on the opposite side of High-street.256 Joseph Thomas, a prominent lawyer and P
hiladelphia Federalist leader who lives in Third-street,257 is among the organizers of the meeting. The meeting issues a notice:
At a numerous and respectable meeting of the citizens of the city of Philadelphia, District of Southwark, and Northern Liberties, held in Dunwoody’s tavern on the evening of the 12th of April, 1798,
Colonel GURNEY in the chair,
It was Resolved Unanimously, as the sense of this meeting, that the information contained in the Dispatches … is of a nature to excite universal alarm throughout America …
Resolved Unanimously, That the measures pursued by the President of the United States … have been wise …
Resolved Unanimously, That an Address and Memorial expressive of the sentiments … be presented to the President …
Resolved, that the following gentlemen be a committee to prepare the address … [Philadelphia Federalist leader] Joseph Thomas … [Federalist ship builder and defense contractor] Joshua Humphreys … [&c.]”—258
This is not a gathering of Benny’s friends. Joshua Humphreys’ son, Clement Humphreys, attacked Benny in the family shipyard last year. Joseph Thomas is John Fenno’s friend259 and someone not to be trusted. As Poor Richard said,
Don’t judge of Mens Wealth or Piety,
by their Sunday Appearances.260
FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
I feel sensibly both the injury and the insults in the refusal [of the French] to receive and treat [negotiate] with our ambassadors … though I think it probable that both proceeded from our having abandoned our neutral station by the British Treaty [the Jay Treaty of 1795] … To arm our merchant ships for defence would undoubtedly be proper if we could secure against their acting offensively and bringing on a war which it is supposed they would do. But there is another difficulty. To permit the arming against France when Britain is also daily taking our vessels would be strange, and yet, is it intended to arm against Great Britain? …
The Citizens of Dorchester in Massachusetts have had a meeting on the present critical state of affairs, and have entered into spirited resolutions against arming. Number of votes 110, of whom 101 were for the resolution.
The Citizens of Cambridge in Massachusetts have also had a meeting; when it was declared the sense of the town that there is now more need than ever of restrictions upon arming.
Today, Thomas Jefferson notes in his journal:
The Presidt. has sent a govmt brig to France, probably to carry despatches. He has chosen as the bearer of these one Humphreys, the son of a ship carpenter, ignorant, under age, not speaking a word of French, most abusive of that nation, whose only merit is having mobbed & beaten Bache on board the frigate built here, for which he was indicted & punished by fine.261
Today, Grand Jurors of Pennsylvania’s U.S. District Court address the President of the United States:
Sir, we hesitate not to declare it is our firm belief, notwithstanding the opinion of the enemies of America, that the great mass of our fellow citizens approve of your administration …
JOHN LARDNER, Foreman262
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
Much conjecture has been afloat respecting the famous peace petition that this preaching Apothecary [Quaker Samuel Weatherill] was hawking about some days ago. According to the best accounts I have been able to gather, SAMMY was busy amongst his chemical matters when a bottle of oil of vitriol broke; some of it got into his pocket and burnt up the petition: and thus came to a timely end the darling hopes of … Callender, Dr. Logan, Bache, [“Newgate”] Lloyd, and Company.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
At a numerous and respectable meeting of the citizens of the city of Philadelphia, District of Southwark and Northern Liberties, held in Dunwoody’s tavern [last evening] … citizens of almost every profession attended … [O]ne sentiment appeared to animate every mind—a firm resolution to rally round the government … Many were present who have heretofore greatly differed in political opinions. Upon this important occasion, laying aside all local politics and party views, they came forward and joined in the unanimous vote. May Americans ever thus rally round their own standard when their country calls.
MONDAY, APRIL 16, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
[T]here has been a systematic effort in the part of the administration to alienate this country from France and to attach it to Great Britain … Evidence cannot be stronger … The memorable declaration of the late President [Washington] that the friends of France were “the partisans of war and confusion” [is] … proof of this position …
Today, George Washington writes Secretary of State Timothy Pickering,
One would think that the measure of infamy was filled and the profligacy of and the corruption of the system pursued by the French Directory required no further disclosure of the principles by which it is actuated than what is contained in the above Dispatches, to open the eyes of the blindest; and yet I am persuaded that those communications will produce no change in the leaders of the opposition unless there should appear a manifest desertion of their followers. There is sufficient evidence already, in the Aurora, of the turn they intend to give the business and of the ground they mean to occupy; but I do not believe they will be able to maintain that or any other much longer.”263
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
A new edition of jacobin lies is now running through the Aurora … Publicity is all the cry with the anti-american gallic [French] faction … It is not known that the United States have a press in France devoted to the cause of this country, but that France has presses in the United States devoted to her interest is most true. This is not fair play; the French papers in this country ought to be silent till we get one at least established in France.
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
BACHE (old Franklin’s grandson) was sued some time ago for [import] duties to the amount of about forty dollars, and judgment has been taken out during this present Federal court.—Question—Were not these duties for the edition of [Tom] Paine’s Age of Reason [against established religion] which was imported from Paris?
The merchants, underwriters, and traders of this city will meet at the Coffee House to-morrow at 12 o’clock for the purpose of presenting their address to the President of the United States.
TUESDAY, APRIL 17, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The spirit of opposition to the arming of our merchantmen is gradually augmenting. Several memorials on that head … were yesterday presented to Congress. For some days past, Mr. Fenno has been more than usually elated and abusive. The extreme length of the public papers [the Aurora has been publishing] … hath suspended our paragraphical rejoinders. But the people of Massachusetts are coming round to the right point of the Political Compass with so much haste that our efforts may well be spared. The respective town meetings of Roxbury, Milton, Cambridge, Arlington, Bridgewater and Randolph have reprobated in the strongest terms the proposal of arming the merchant vessels …
Today, at noon, Philadelphia’s merchants and traders present an address, with five hundred signatures, to the President:
To the President of the United States …—The address of the Merchants, Underwriters and Traders of the city of Philadelphia.
RESPECTFULLY SHEWETH,
That the Merchants, Underwriters and traders of Philadelphia … cannot but express their deep regret at the failure of the late attempt to negotiate with [the French Republic] …
As Americans, jealous of the honor and attached to the freedom of our country, we repel with indignation every attempt to separate us from the government of our choice …
Under the impulse of these sentiments, we come forward to … give our sincere firm support to the measures which may be adopted …264
Today, Abigail Adams writes her sister,
The publick opinion is changeing here very fast … I am told that the [tri-colour] French Cockad
e, so frequent in the streets here, is not now to be seen, and the Common People say if J.[efferson] had been our President … we should all have been sold to the French …265
Today, in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Annals of Congress report:
NATURALIZATION OF FOREIGNERS
Mr. COIT [Federalist, Connecticut] … proposed a resolution to the following effect: Resolved, That the committee appointed for the protection of commerce and the defence of our country be directed to inquire and report whether it be not expedient to suspend … the act establishing a uniform rule of naturalization.266
Under current law, immigrants can be naturalized as American citizens after five years’ residency, and it has been five years since the war between Britain and France propelled European democrats to seek refuge in America from King George Ill’s Alien and Sedition Acts and French leader Robespierre’s temporary Reign of Terror. These refugees are Irish dissidents like John Daly Burk, Dr. Jimmy Reynolds, “Newgate” Lloyd, and me, Scotch dissenters like Jimmy Callender, true French democrats like Moreau de St. Méry and Constantin Volney. Will the Federalists deny them citizenship?
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States: