American Aurora
Page 15
A Young Man
P. S. With respect to Bache and his “half fledged men,” more hereafter.
The concourse of spectators, to see the YOUNG MEN of this city march to the President’s on Monday will doubtless be very numerous; and I think they may promise themselves the countenance of all the fair sex. The committee have very properly left it to every one to put a [BLACK] COCKADE in his hat or not; because, by this, the PRESIDENT will know whom he can depend upon and whom he cannot. The man who is afraid to be known at all times and in all places as the friend of his country will most certainly be afraid to expose his life in its defence …
NOTICE.
The YOUTH of the City of Philadelphia, the Northern Liberties, and the district of Southwark are requested to meet at the City Tavern on Monday morning next at 11 o’clock precisely; from thence to wait upon the President of the United States with their Address.
Samuel Relf
SUNDAY, MAY 6, 1798
Today, at Mount Vernon, George Washington writes:
The Demo’s seem to be lifting up their heads again according to Mr. Bache. They were a little crest fallen; or one might say, thunder stricken on the publication of the [“X, Y, Z”] Dispatches from our Envoys [in Paris], but the contents of them are now resolved into harmless chit-chat and trifles …328
MONDAY, MAY 7, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Plots, Conspiracy, and Conflagration!
Some wag or modern Titus Oates has taken it into his head to amuse himself by writing incendiary letters to the President, threatening to lay this city in ashes! and for this silly business the weak and ignorant are seriously called on to use their utmost vigilance to avert the impending calamity … [I]ndeed have the citizens, not of Philadelphia only but of America in general, a right to be on their guard, for history informs us that plots like standing armies have ever been found fit instruments to strengthen the bands of government and curtail the liberties of the people.
This morning, the President’s Lady, Abigail Adams, writes:
We are today to have a moveing and strikng spectacle, no less than between 7 & 8 Hundred young Men from 18–23 in a Body to present an address. Upon this occasion the President puts on his uniform, and the whole House will be thrown open to receive them. A number of ladies will be present upon the occasion with me …329
John Fenno:
This day, at 12 o’clock, the YOUNG MEN of this City assembled at the Merchants’ Coffee House, from whence they marched in a body, attended by an immense concourse of their fellow citizens, to the House of the President of the United States …330
William Cobbett (Peter Porcupine):
The concourse of people, as spectators of the march to the PRESIDENT’S was immense. There could not be less than ten thousand. Every female in the city, whose face is worth looking at, gladdened the way with her smiles; and they certainly were well bestowed, for an assemblage of finer or more worthy young men, has seldom been seen in this city or in any other. It has been a proud day for Philadelphia, to see the flower of its youth thus voluntarily collected, hoisting the [BLACK] COCKADE, and proceeding to deposit in the hands of the common Father a solemn pledge of their attachment to their country and of their resolution to defend its laws, liberties, and religion, or to perish in the struggle … They were about twelve hundred in number, The procession was formed, or rather the battalion was drawn up, opposite the City Tavern, from whence they marched to the PRESIDENT’S HOUSE, in person who [bore] … a countenance expressive of the pleasure he felt …331
Abigail Adams:
The Young Men of the City … to the amount of near Eleven Hundred came at 12 oclock at procession two and two. There was assembled on the occasion it is said ten thousand Persons. One might have walkd upon their Heads besides the houses, windows & even tops of Houses. In great order & decorum the Young Men, with each a black cockade, marchd through the Multitude and all of them entered the House preceeded by their committe. When a young gentleman by the name of Hare, a nephew of Mrs. Binghams, read the address, the President received them in his Levee Room drest in his uniform, and as usual upon such occasions, read his answer to them …332
John Adams is pleased with the address. As Poor Richard says,
A Flatterer never seems absurd:
The Flatter’d always takes his Word.333
President Adams speaks:
For a long course of years, my amiable young friends, before the birth of the oldest of you, I was called upon to act with your fathers in concerting measures the most disagreeable and dangerous, not from a desire of innovation, not from discontent with the government under which we were born and bred, but to preserve the honor of our country, and vindicate the immemorial liberties of our ancestors … I sincerely wish that none of you … [&c, &c]334
Abigail Adams:
The Multitude gave three Cheers, & followed them to the State House Yard, where the answer [by the President] was again read by the Chairman of the committee, with acclamations.335
Later today, the Gazette of The United States prints the “Young Men’s” noontime address to the President, the President’s answer to the “Young Men,” and a song for wandering crowds to sing about Benny Bache and his “grand pap,” Benjamin Franklin:
To be sung or said in all the lanes, alleys and streets, public houses and private parties in Philadelphia and elsewhere … to the tune of YANKEE DOODLE.
Tom Callender’s a nasty beast,
Ben Bache a dirty fellow;
They curse our country day and night,
And to the French would sell her.
Fire and murder, keep it up,
Plunder is the dandy;
When some folks get the upper hand,
With heads they’ll be so handy
When Benny was a little brat,
He whipt his top in France, sir,
They taught him how to shape a lie,
As well as how to dance, sir.
Fire and murder, &c.
The little dog was also taught,
That laws are human scourges;
That war and murder now and then
Are naught but wholesome purges.
Fire and murder, &c….
That precept might not lose its force,
For want of good example:
Of every vice which cunning hides,
His grandpap gave a sample.
Fire and murder, &c.
He shew’d him how to seem most learn’d
Without an education;
And how, with wond’rous skill to steal
Another’s reputation.
Fire and murder, &c….
Behold, he cried, how long my life,
How great my reputation;
In time of trouble and of strife;
I chose the strongest station …
Fire and murder, &c….
So deep I played the hypocrite,
So simple were my manners,
That all admir’d the artless man—
Who bore deception’s banners.
Fire and murder, &c….
A patriot’s honor too I claim’d,
Without a patriot’s heart, sir;
For, Pope declares, all honor lies
In acting well your part, sir.
Fire and murder, &c.
When Benny’s mind had well imbib’d,
This precious education;
Tis plain he was prepared to be
The curse of any nation.
Fire and murder, &c….
Tonight (too late for inclusion in tomorrow’s Aurora), a crowd of young men attacks Benny’s house. Benny:
[B]etween ten and eleven, my house was assailed by a party of young men who in the morning had addressed the President … They honored me with imprecations and threats … My doors and windows were battered, and the women and children in the house (I happened to be from home) [were] somewhat terrified. They were prevented from going to more unjustifiable lengths
by some citizens who happened to be passing at the time and by the neighbors …336
The attack of a loyal mob on this house [was] … the most unfortunate for the abbettors of it. It served only to convince the Editor of the number and spirit of his friends; who shewed themselves, in consequence of that outrage, determined, if violence was offered to his person or property, to assist him in repelling force by force.337
Julien Niemcewicz is a witness:
Since these youths have begun to gather, the peace of the night is disturbed by their cries and chants. Drunk with wine they go to serenade at the windows of the President; they then go to break those of the printer Bache; they have hoisted the black cockade … It is these same means that provoke divisions. Alas, how many times have we not seen pools of blood spilled for a half a yard of ribbon?338
Abigail Adams:
They then closed the scene by singing the new song [“Hail Columbia”], which at 12 oclock at night was sung by them under our windows, they having dined together or rather a part of them.339
TUESDAY, MAY 8, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Where are we! when the president makes the avowal [in his answer yesterday to the Young Men assembled in his House] … that he was not induced to join our revolutionary war from any discontentment with the form of kingly government established in Britain and that independence was then not an object of predilection and choice but of indispensable necessity? Is it not avowing, in fact, that he would have no objection to the establishment of a monarchy here and that if we had been admitted to the privileges of British subjects in the then mother country, he would not have wanted independence? …
The “friends of order” at the meeting for free debate on Thursday evening menaced the Republicans, broke the banisters and benches in the gallery and some of the glass in the neighboring doors. All this is well; the practical effect of that good order with which their mouths are filled, and a good criterion by which to judge of their profession, that they wish to maintain PEACE in our once happy COUNTRY.
Today, in reaction to the Federalist attack on Benny’s home, groups of Republicans appear on High-street to defend the Aurora. They wear the tricolor cockade of red, white, and blue.340
Today, President Adams writes some admirers,
There is nothing in the conduct of our enemies more remarkable than their total contempt of the people … [T]he people are represented as in opposition, in enmity, and on the point of hostility against the government of their own institution and the administration of their own choice. If this were true, what would be the consequence? Nothing more or less than that they are ripe for a military despotism under the domination of a foreign power. It is to me no wonder that American blood boils at these ideas..341
War measures … Today, the U.S. House of Representatives opens debate on a bill “authorizing the President of the United States to raise a provisional army” of ten thousand volunteers. This bill would allow Federalist militias, like the black-cockaded Macpherson’s Blues, to become, in effect, the federal army! From today’s debate, as reported in the Annals of Congress:
PROVISIONAL ARMY …
Mr. GALLATIN [Republican, Pennsylvania] said … He must confess he looked upon all that was said of an invasion by France as a mere bugbear. He did not believe any attempt would ever be made …
Mr. BRENT [Republican, Virginia] said he knew that one of the more cogent reasons urged in favor of this army was that the southern states stood in need of them in order to quell any insurrection … Let us, said he, go on and make the people salutary laws; let the people experience the blessings of good government … and you will not require a standing army either to defend the country against internal or external enemies …
Mr. OTIS [Federalist, Massachusetts] … Could there be any fear that the President would raise these men if no danger threatened the country?342
Everyone senses the growing hostility to foreigners. Polish writer Julien Niemcewicz notes in his diary:
[T]he Alien bill, conceived in a truly Turkish spirit, shows to what point the administration attempts to adopt and imitate the arbitrary means of despots. There is nothing more proper than to be on guard against troublesome and dangerous foreigners, but indiscriminately to place under suspicion all foreigners comes from a desire more to rule than to protect.343
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette, William Cobbett writes:
DETECTION OF A CONSPIRACY FORMED BY THE UNITED IRISHMEN, For the Evident Purpose Of Aiding the Views of France In Subverting the Government OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA— …
I have long thought that the French have formed a regular plan for organizing an active and effective force within these States … [W]here could they have sought them with such certainty of success as amongst that restless rebellious tribe, the emigrated UNITED IRISHMEN?
The first I heard of the existence of a Society of United Irishmen here was by a printed paper … signed Js. REYNOLDS … and about three weeks afterwards, the plan of the conspiracy was conveyed to me …
The plan, which is called a constitution, is printed in a small octavo pamphlet …344
The gallant youth of the city … should reflect that … [i]t is not hoisting a [black] COCKADE merely to pass in review and then cramming it in the pocket that will merit the applause of the nation … [A]ll those, in short, who are not afraid to meet the sans-culottes will wear the sign of their determination to oppose them.
That the PRESIDENT highly approves of this is clear from his conduct of yesterday. He not only put on his [black] cockade but his whole military uniform. It was not in this dress that he received the address of the merchants … [Y]esterday he had to receive those whom he looked upon as soldiers; and therefore as soldiers he met them.
I have heard that a few … sunshine soldiers have laid up the [black] cockade … [T]hey must not only wear [black] cockades, but must begin to wear a musket against their shoulder, or … that Government would be very foolish that should place any reliance on their efforts.
Tomorrow is President Adams’ day for prayer and fasting. Everyone prepares for violence. Thomas Jefferson will recall,
The President received 3. anonymous letters … announcing plots to burn the city on the fast-day. He thought them worth being made known, and great preparations were proposed by way of caution, and some were yielded to by the Governor. Many … packed their most valuable moveables to be ready for transportation.345
Tonight, the Macpherson’s Blues appear in the city, pledging to support the government. “Citizen Volunteers” guard the Mint and the Arsenal. Troops of cavalry clatter throughout the streets.346
WEDNESDAY, MAY 9, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The other papers of this city have chosen to be silent this day, because the President has recommended a fast. We do not follow their example: Because there is nothing in the constitution giving authority to proclaim fasts … Because prayer, fasting, and humiliation are matters of religion and conscience, with which government has nothing to do … And Because we consider a connection between state and church affairs as dangerous to religious and political freedom and that, therefore, every approach towards it should be discouraged …
On Monday evening, between ten and eleven, my house was assailed by a party of young men who, in the morning, had addressed the President. They had dined together and were more than gay; but this is no excuse for the outrage. They honored me with imprecations and threats, the only notice I could be proud to receive from them. My doors and windows were battered …
It has been wrong from the beginning to encourage young men, not of age, to meddle in politics … We see how early they dive in excesses. They are now called upon to arm themselves; what are we to expect from them? The sincere friends to order and laws should look to those things. It might, indeed, be a gratification to some that I should have my throat cut without the trouble of going through the tedious and uncertain forms of law. To be sure this
in itself would be no very mighty matter, but the work of blood once begun, who will say where it would stop?
If the proceeding I have thought it my duty to notice is by way of intimidation, I pledge myself [that it] shall not produce the effect. While I respect and obey the laws of my country, I shall not be unmindful of the voice of my conscience which tells me it is my duty to remain at my post when the liberties of my country are endangered.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN BACHE
[Yesterday] morning, about 3 or 4 o’clock, the peaceful and industrious inhabitants of Carter’s alley were disturbed by a youthful “band of brothers,” singing and playing Mr. Hopkinson’s new song … and afterwards made some feeble attempts at Yankee Doodle …
However fond some of the inhabitants of that part of the city may be of the “concord of sweet sounds” in general, or partial to the President’s March in particular, … ‘[t]is … to be hoped that these nocturnal revellers will hereafter choose some other scene to “warble their wood notes wild.”
Today is the day John Adams set aside for humiliation, prayer, and fasting. It is also the day, by anonymous threat, Philadelphia is to burn!
Today, lawyer Joseph Hopkinson sends George Washington a copy of his new patriotic song, “Hail Columbia,” as well as a pamphlet he has written which includes:
The opposition to government has been remarkable … Even the public acts of government, the votes of the legislature … undergo some distortion under the press of the Aurora … Even WASHINGTON, the noblest fabrick of humanity that ever came from the hands of the creator … has not withered the tongue of slander …
Believe me. Americans, the object of this faction is not to correct the abuses of government or defend your liberties: Your government despises such monitors and you need no such defenders …347