American Aurora
Page 29
The Yellow Fever appears to be spreading very rapidly;—people are moving out of the city in every direction, and if the hot weather continues another week, there is no doubt that two thirds of the inhabitants will leave their homes.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
IT was observed by an old Almanack-maker who called himself Poor Richard that “co-existent with the Liberty of the Press is the Liberty of the Club” … Without assenting to this doctrine of Poor Richard, it might justly be expected that citizen Bache, who holds the old fellow to be infallible, should abide by him in his creed. Strange it may seem that he loudly complains of the practical operation of it.— Bache is advised to lay aside that great Herculean club he has heretofore carried; its weight must be fatiguing to the poor wretch; and unless he can make it more serviceable to him than it was yesterday afternoon, it certainly must be considered as a useless encumbrance.— Bache speaks of the “sound raps he gave young Fenno across the head and face.” Will he “muster up courage enough” to come and take a peep at those “occupations for a plaister”?
MR. FENNO, On the second of August, a little dirty toper with shaved head and greasy jacket, nankeen pantaloons and woolen stockings, was arrested at a whiskey distillery near Leesburgh, Virginia under the vagrant act … To place [Republican U.S. Senator from Virginia] Mr. Mason’s character in a true point of light, it must be observed that this Callender … has found an asylum in his house [and] is the notorious Scotch fugitive, the calumniator of Washington, Adams, law, order, government, God …
A VIRGINIAN
FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
John Fenno informs [his readers) that J. T. Callender has found safe refuge in Virginia—as John’s friends appear to use uncommon vigilance concerning Callender, perhaps he can also tell the name of the pious tory that threatened to assassinate him !
We shall trouble our readers a moment with a statement of the assault committed on the editor on Wednesday evening and of the causes which led to it.
Those who read the Gazette of the United States must have witnessed for a long time back a studied and uninterrupted course of calumny against the editor of the Aurora, consisting of unfounded assertions and the vilest billingsgate. In all this we considered Fenno as a faithful tool in his avocation—he labored in one of the branches of the system, which has been pursued in every shape, to put down the Aurora by persecution.
One of the points most labored by this faithful tool of the most profligate faction has been to represent the editor of the Aurora as in the pay of France. Till lately all that could be produced under this head was assertion and abuse, when Kidder was pushed forward to certify something [the Talleyrand letter] on which a specific charge could plausibly rest …
In retaliation for the above mentioned ground of detraction we accused him of being sold to the British and stated on the best authority his having received as a benefaction … the sum of $500 … Fenno has never ventured to even deny publicly having received this donation; he has observed the most profound silence on the subject, probably lest it should provoke to a production of the proofs. He shall yet hear from us on this subject before long.
Today is very hot, “the mercury at 93 and upward.”586 Eleven sick people are admitted to City Hospital. One report:
The deaths and new cases daily became more numerous; the alarm increased, and [as of today] the flight of the inhabitants [is] now general. 587
Today, the New York Time Piece announces the end of a partnership:
NOTICE
The Subscribers to the Time Piece are requested to pay Mr. [John Daly] Burk his accounts up to the 13th of June. Any debts since that period belong to the firm and are requested to remain until the books are settled between the proprietors, as a division must take place as soon as arrangements can be made between the parties.588
[WILLIAM SMITH]
MONDAY, AUGUST 13, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
FRIEND BACHE [a Quaker writes], I have long heard that thou art a bad man … I frequently suggested my opinions to Joseph Thomas … [I]n conversation one day, he declared that all democrats were rogues and thieves and that they ought all to be exterminated … [M]any good Federalists [he said] were of the same mind … Shocked at such barbarous declarations, I determined no longer to be a federalist … Now friend Bache, I cannot help believing that Providence … made the felon expose himself to prevent the horrid scene of citizens murdering each other …
I am now thy friend. OBADIAH
In the five days since Philadelphia’s City Hospital has been open to receive yellow fever patients, thirty-one have been admitted; ten of the thirty-one have died, and not one of the thirty-one has been cured.589
Today, Federalists attempt once again to imprison Jimmy Callender. Two magistrates (Patrick Cavan and Joseph Smith) from Loudoun County, Virginia, attest:
[we were] called on by one of the constables of said county to examine a person by him apprehended, on suspicion of having eloped from the wheel-barrow, on the Baltimore roads, who on his examination, denied being a runaway—said his name was James T. Callender, lately from Philadelphia, printer of a paper published in that city; that he came from thence into this state (Virginia) at the particular request of general Mason at whose house he then resided; that his papers were at general Mason’s—and that he (gen. Mason) would give any satisfaction that might be required respecting his character…
Time being allowed Callender to procure his papers, at 5 o’clock (the time appointed for him to appear before the magistrates), Gen. S. T. Mason appeared in his behalf: produced a certificate of naturalization and said he was a man of good character. 590
Today, the President of the United States writes:
I believe, however, that the distinction of aristocrat and democrat, however odious and pernicious it may be rendered by political artifice as particular conjectures, will never be done away with … The distinction is grounded on unalterable nature, and human wisdom can do no more than reconcile the parties by equitable establishments and equal laws, securing as far as possible to every one his own.591
TUESDAY, AUGUST 14, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
It is to be regretted that in this liberal country the accursed spirit of religious hatred should be secretly nourished against any sect but … [a] man of known intimacy with the recent motives and measures of the Administration has not scrupled to declare that the Alien bill was intended to operate against the unfortunate Irish Catholics who have been flying from oppression to the U.S….
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
A solicitude on the part of the people to preserve their civil privileges from the deathly embraces of French fraternity is strongly reprobated in the Aurora … and because the religious principles of the intrepid founders of our independence are professed to be precious to their posterity … the philosophical fanatics mean to raise a cry of religious hatred and persecution.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 16, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The news from Ireland and the local inquietude about the yellow fever so much arrest the public attention that the great staunch Federal defaulter is now scarcely talked of except among his particular friends, the tories …
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
The present Doers of the Aurora are [“Newgate”] Lloyd and [William] Duane; the other member of the trio, Bache, is or was absent since Saturday last.— It is an undoubted truth that some of the Jacobin papers are under the direction of as GREAT LIARS as ever escaped the hands of Justice in England, Ireland, or Scotland— … Since the passage of the Sedition Law, the scum, filth and foam of the Aurora Cauldron has flowed more than ever.
The two editors of the Gazettes printed in Portsmouth, (N.H.) have published their determination to exclude from their papers all incendiary, factious and anti-governmental speculations—Several o
thers have done the same.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 18, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Gagging, though it be really an act of violence in itself, is more to be dreaded as being a prelude to greater and more atrocious villainy—after the victim is gagged appears the stiletto and bow-string.
Today, Secretary of State Timothy Pickering informs John Adams that he is ready to enforce the Alien Act.592
Today, from Loundon County, Virginia, Jimmy Callender writes,
The sedition bill will never extend its claws over this state. It is regarded not merely as a breach of the constitution but also of the special terms on which Virginia professed her acceptance of it. The legislature is expected to take up this business as soon as it meets.593
Those who can leave Philadelphia are doing so. Municipal employees have abandoned their posts. Today, by government report,
some of the prisoners in the east wing [of the Walnut-street prison] attempted to escape. Perhaps they were instigated from a consideration of the unguarded state of the city—the absence of the jailor—and the wish to escape from the fever. They seized upon the key of their apartment— forced their way out, knocked down Mr. Evans, a constable, then one of the assistant-keepers, and called to the convicts in the yard to come to their assistance. Mr. [Robert] Wharton, who was in a different part of the jail, on hearing the alarm, went immediately to the assistance of the keepers. Miller, the ring-leader, had an axe lifted to dispatch Mr. Evans, which Mr. R Wharton and Mr. Gass, an assistant-keeper, observing, prevented by well directed balls from their muskets which broke the bone of his right arm and entered his body—Mr. Wharton and Mr. Gass fired at the same time: the ball from the latter, it was generally supposed, proved fatal. Another of the assailants of the name of Vaughan struck Mr. Evans with a bar of iron. He then retreated to his apartment. Evans pursued him and lodged a ball in his lungs. He survived it about twenty-four hours.594
MONDAY, AUGUST 20, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The panders of corruption and monarchy are railing against the Irish for accepting aid from the French …
This morning, Frenchman Moreau de St. Méry leaves Philadelphia for France. From his diary:
I tried to sell everything that could be turned into money of which I was very short, since my business was no longer going on. My passage aboard the cartel ship Adriastes was gratis, but the expense of moving the quarters for the four of us … from the lower deck to berths opening into the Great Cabin was seventy-two dollars a head … We also had to buy provisions for the entire crossing …
Early in the morning I said a number of good-byes; and at 9 o’clock my wife, my daughter and I boarded the packet schooner La Mouche for Newcastle, where the Adrastes had already gone … [M]y son had boarded her the night before …595
Would-be citizens flee John Adams. The rest flee the yellow fever. Unable to collect taxes from its departed population, today the city council of Philadelphia authorizes the mayor to borrow ten thousand dollars for “lighting, cleaning and watching the city.”596
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
The people of the United States are hourly contradicting the vile and abominable slanders on the government and its administration which are published in the Aurora and its miserable imitators. However—
They will lie on, till justice stops their breath.
For traitors, ne’er were conquered but by death.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 21, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Morris-town [New Jersey]. On Monday last, a party to the number of between 20 and 30 villains slyly made their appearance at Mendham— cut down the liberty pole erected there and bore away the cap with the greatest expedition and triumph.
Tonight, Claudius Chat, a jeweler and goldsmith, a ten-year resident of Philadelphia, and an advertiser in the Aurora, dies of malignant yellow fever. He took ill only last evening, went directly to his physician, returned home, and, despite cold baths, spent today in convulsive agony, ending in death.597
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
From [Noah Webster’s] Commercial Advertiser. In Mr. Jefferson’s notes on Virginia … [he] is very pointed against all establishments in favor of religion. “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others,” says Mr. Jefferson; “but it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” With great deference to this philosopher … if my property or my limbs are less safe among atheists than among theists, the act of destroying that belief in God is a proper subject for legal cognizance.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 22, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
[Noah] Webster’s notices of the chapter on Religion in Jefferson’s Notes are unfortunate … He asserts that this article is very pointed against all establishments in favor of religion … dependent on the government … [T]his obnoxious article happens to have been recognized by the constitution of the United States …
Today, Thomas Jefferson writes Republican Congressman Samuel Smith of Baltimore,
Your favor of Aug 4 came to hand by our last post, together with the “extract”… cut from a newspaper598 stating some facts which respect me. I shall notice these facts. The writer says that “the day after the last dispatches were communicated to Congress, Bache … [was] closeted with me”…
I sometimes received visits from Mr. Bache … I received them always with pleasure, because [he is a man] … of abilities and of principles the most friendly to liberty & our present form of government. Mr. Bache has another claim on my respect, as being the grandson of Dr. Franklin, the greatest man & ornament of the age and country in which he lived. Whether I was visited by Mr. Bache the day after the communication referred to, I do not remember.
I know that all my motions at Philadelphia, here, and everywhere, are watched & recorded. Some of these spies, therefore, may remember better than I do the dates of these visits … I know my own principles to be pure … They are the same I have acted on from the year 1775 to this day … I only wish the principles of those who censure mine were also known … I am quite at a loss on what ground the letter writer can question the opinion that France had no intention of making war on us & was willing to treat [negotiate] … when we have this from [Bache’s publication of] Taleyrand’s letter…
These observations … are not intended for a newspaper. At a very early period of my life, I determined never to put a sentence into any newspaper … I have thought it better to trust to the justice of my countrymen, that they would judge me by what they see … Though I have made up my mind not to suffer calumny to disturb my tranquillity, yet I retain all my sensibilities for the approbation of the good & just. That is, indeed, the chief consolation for the hatred of so many who, without the least personal knowledge & on the sacred evidence of Porcupine & Fenno alone, cover me with their implacable hatred.599
THURSDAY, AUGUST 23, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The Real FRIENDS to the union are those.
Who are friends to the authority of the people, the sole foundation on which the union rests.
Who are friends to liberty, the great end for which the union was formed.
Who are friends to the limited and republican system of government, the means provided by that authority for the attainment of that end …
War … Today, three large ships-of-war of the Republic of France, the Concorde (forty-four guns), Medée (forty guns), and the Franchise (thirty-eight guns), disembark approximately 1,100 French soldiers near the town of Killala in County Mayo, Ireland, to assist Irish rebels achieve independence from the British monarch. French General Joseph Amable Humbert commands French forces in Ireland.600
War … Today, in the waters of the French West Indies off Martinique, two large ships-of-war of the United States, the forty-four-gun, 400-man U.S. Navy frigate United S
tates and the twenty-gun, 180-man U.S. Navy ship Delaware, open fire on and capture an armed schooner, the Sans Pareil, of the Republic of France. Navy Lieutenant John Mullowny, who commands the United States, records in his journal:
Between Martinico & Domini. All sail set in chace. A[t] 8 P.M. fired a bow-gun at the schoo[ner]. at 1/2 8 fired another which brought the chace too. She proved to be the Sans Pariel of Guadeloupe, Cap[tain] Touin. Eighty seven men 10 Guns 6 of which were thrown overboard … At 11 P.M. the Delaware came up. At 3 squally with rain … Tacked to the N.601
FRIDAY, AUGUST 24, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
As the friends of order in this city were the first to attack and batter in the nighttime a citizen’s [Benjamin Bache’s] house; first in New York to injure the representative of that city [Edward Livingston); so in New Jersey they have maintained their character for insolence, outrage and disorder … It is not the fault of the friends of order that it has not already produced bloodshed …
The public are desired to be on their guard against the depredations of a gang who … to the number of twenty-three, with black cockades, armed with pistols, swords, and clubs, made a sudden and lawless irruption into [Menham, New Jersey], and while the men of the place were in the field and meadows, with violent oaths and imprecations terrified the women and children, and in an heroic manner surrounded the liberty pole [symbol of the French and American Revolutions] in this place which had been raised the 4th of July last and ornamented with the cap of liberty and the American colors, and proceeded to cut it down …