WANTED immediately—A number of sober men who can be well recommended as drivers for the carriages employed by the Health-Officer— Good encouragement will be given to persons of good character if application is immediately made.
EIGHTY-SEVEN new cases of the prevailing fever, reported by 17 physicians, for the last 24 hours.
The Bank of North America and Bank of Pennsylvania were yesterday morning removed to the School-House in Germantown.
Today, John Fenno’s Gazette of the United States fails to appear.
War … Today, off Puerto Rico, the United States Navy’s forty-four-gun, four-hundred-man frigate United States fires upon and captures the French Republic’s eight-gun sloop-of-war, the Jaloux. From the journal of Navy Lieutenant John Mullowny who commands the United States:
Pleasant, all sail set in chace of a sloop. at 4 P.M. fired a shot to bring the chace to. fired several in the course of the afternoon and evening. at 11 She bro’t to all standing. She is a sloop from, Guadeloupe on a cruise commanded by Citoyen Joseph Renne, called the Jealous of 8 Guns. had thrown 6 overboard …612
Today, traveling from Philadelphia to his home in Western Pennsylvania, Republican House leader Al Gallatin passes through Reading, Pennsylvania, recently described as follows:
Reading, the chief town of the county of Berks … consists at present of about five hundred houses … [T]hey are log-houses and the interstices between the trunks of the trees are filled up with stone or plaster … The town has little or no trade, and scarcely any manufactures … The population of Reading is estimated at about two thousand five hundred souls, consisting chiefly of lawyers and inn-keepers … [N]o increase of the number of inhabitants has been observed for several years … The sentiments of the inhabitants of this town and the neighboring country are very good and breathe a warm attachment to the federal government. There is no democratic society.613
A Reading newspaper reports Al Gallatin’s arrival:
[A]bout 6 o’Clock in the Evening, arrived in this Town, Albert Gallatin, Esq. a Member of Congress, from the Western Counties in the State of Pennsylvania, with his lady, &c. on his journey … for his Home, and lodged at the Federal Inn, the Sign of PRESIDENT WASHINGTON, which is kept by Mr. Jacob Baer. About or rather before 8 o’clock, all at once all the Bells of this Place (of the two churches and Courthouse) began ringing—Numbers of People were alarmed … [T]he Cannon (a little Swivel) was fired … Soon after, a Number of the Enemies of Gallatin collected, and among them a number of Reading Volunteer Blues, with a Drum and Fife, playing the Rogue’s March, and marching before the Federal Inn. As some of Gallatin’s friends expressed dreads of personal Abuse against him, Mr. Baer, the Innkeeper, (a very stout and resolute Man) posted himself on the inner stairs to guard his guest. Soon after the swivel was silenced; and it was agreed on to silence the Bells likewise, a number went to the Churches, finding the Ringers had locked themselves in to prevent coming to them, that unless they would cease ringing, all the windows would be broke, and they stormed, put an immediate Stop to the Ringing—after having lasted for nearly half an Hour in which the swivel was four or five times discharged … The evening was spent with very much virulent Talk and Exclamations, yet without any Blows.614
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The Irish rebels, according to the Philadelphia Gazette and the New York Gazette, have been subdued and completely put under …
It is a subject of much regret that so great a dread of going to the City Hospital reigns among the indigent class of our fellow-citizens. Many of them have been known to conceal their illness until they could do so no longer for fear of being carried there.
A report for the city of Philadelphia describes the suffering:
The scenes of distress which the Hospital exhibited were truly dismal:—there we could hear groans—the moanings—and the heavy sighs of “the hundreds sick.” No connexions were near to view their distress or to soothe, with the tear of friendship, their “little hour.” When the coachees which brought out the sick arrived, often might be seen an affrightened patient enter, supported by strange Nurses and bedewing his or her cheeks with tears. The nurses were often obliged to hold the patient in bed by force when struggling with delirium, and others seemed to sleep out their life without any feeling while the screams of many were heard at a distance. Some bled from the mouth and nose, and the black vomit issued in streams from others. Two and frequently three were placed in one coffin.615
This morning, the crowd in Reading, Pennsylvania, is waiting for Al Gallatin. As the local newspaper reports,
[This] morning, before Mr. Gallatin set out on his Journey, a number of the Reading Blues collected at the Courthouse, marched regularly up and down past the Federal Inn, playing the Rogue’s March, and before and while he helped his lady in the Carriage, they burned his effigy within a few yards of the carriage, on exclaiming: “Stop de Wheels of de Gouvernement” and others: “Let them go on.” The Carriage drove off without Mr. Gallatin in, for he traveled on horseback, He preferred mounting back at the Stable and taking the Alley to get out of Town to join his Carriage at the lower end of it, and by this means to avoid being escorted by the Reading Blues.616
Today, Benny Bache feels feverish and suffers from aches in his muscles.617
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The prevailing disease which afflicts this city has already caused the suspension of three of our public newspapers, viz. Carey’s Recorder, the Gazette of the United States and the True American … The Aurora office has hitherto escaped the affliction, how long it continues so remains in the hands of providence; should the office escape, our subscribers will continue to be served as usual, should the untoward fortune of our city also extend to us, our friends will make due allowance for what may be inevitable, a temporary suspension of our labors.
DEATHS
It is with singular regret we announce the death …
On Tuesday last, in the 43d year of her age Mrs. Mary Fenno, comfort of Mr. John Fenno, editor of the Gazette of the United States …
Benny continues feverish and sick. We are all worried. Today, if only as a precaution, Benny makes out his will, naming his father (“R. Bache of Settle”), his father-in-law, Adam Kuhn (“my respected father”), and Joseph Clay (“my friend”) as executors. James Robinson and I witness his signature. If Benny does not survive the fever, he wants all of his property to go to Peggy,
to be by her used according to her own good sense, firmly confident from the tenderness and love which I have in every shape experienced from her uniformly, that she will bestow on our dear children a suitable and enlightened education such as will be worthy of us and advantageous to themselves and render them virtuous, generous, and attached to the immutable principles of civil Liberty.618
In a separate document, Benny names me to succeed him as editor of the Aurora.619
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
ALLIANCE WITH GREAT BRITAIN
Assailed by evils as we are and beset with a nest of scoundrel Jacobins in the very bosom of the country, it is a pleasing circumstance to see that, amongst the friends of government, the destructive prejudice against Great Britain is daily and hourly wearing away … [T]he treaty will, and must, take place …
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
ONE HUNDRED and TWENTY SEVEN new cases of the prevailing fever were reported for the last 24 hours by eighteen physicians.
Today, though news of the event will not reach Philadelphia until November, Britain’s Lord Charles Cornwallis overpowers the French force which has come, under General Humbert, to help Irish rebels gain their independence from the British monarch. Theobald Wolfe Tone, Ireland’s would-be George Washington, will be sentenced to hang.620
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
COMMUNICATION
P
hiladelphia at this time is nearly desolated, & though but few inhabitants left, we behold hearses continually carrying corpses to their graves.—What a havock would death have made had all continued in the city? …
[O]n the appearance of frost, all will flock in again, and some probably may exult on their cheating death once again, forget the past, and rush into their former wickedness, vices and mockery of Heaven. But take care, sinners, or next time you may be arrested and cut down.—Repent! Repent in time, and mend your ways.
ADMONITION
Today, George Washington writes the Managers of Philadelphia’s City Hospitals,
Gentlemen: Among those who commiserate the afflicted Citizens of Philadelphia, I beg you to be persuaded that none do it with more sincerity or with more feeling than I do. And the poignancy is very much increased by the declaration of the malignancy of the fever and difficulty of cure.621
Today, one month before he is to stand trial and face imprisonment for criticizing the President of the United States, publisher Benjamin Franklin Bache of the Philadelphia Aurora dies of malignant yellow fever at the age of twenty-nine.622 His wife, Peggy, is faithful to the end. Though Peggy just gave birth to their fourth son, Hartman, she nurses Benny till the moment of his death. Liz Hewson observes:
A french doctor attended him who ordered frequent bathings. The tub leaked and there was that poor woman Margaret Bache just out of her bed continually in a room covered with water. It is a wonder she escaped with her life. She behaved with the greatest fortitude during his illness and after his death.623
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1798
Today, the Philadelphia Aurora ceases publication. At one in the morning, the Aurora’s pressmen run off, in lieu of a newspaper, a handbill which reads as follows:
In these times, men who see and think and feel for their country and posterity can alone appreciate the loss; the loss of a man inflexible in virtue, unappalled by power or persecution, and who in dying knew no anxieties but what were excited by his apprehensions for his country— and for his young family.624
In his Poor Richard’s Almanack for 1757, Benjamin Franklin included the following:
GOD sees with equal Eye, as Lord of all,
A Hero perish, or a Sparrow fall,
Atoms, or systems, into Ruin hurl’d
And now a bubble burst,—and now a World!625
Years later, he wrote a special ten-year-old grandson,
I shall always love you very much if
you continue to be a good Boy …626
Ben Franklin loves that special grandson, this very day.
EPILOGUE TO BOOK ONE
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1798
Today, Secretary of State Timothy Pickering, enforcer of John Adams’ Sedition Act, writes,
Bache the printer is dead and his principal clerk, an able man, is also finished, as, I am informed, is much of the matter his mischievous paper contained.627
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1798
Today, only four days after the death of his nemesis, Benny Bache, and only ten days after the death of his beloved wife, Polly, publisher John Fenno of the Gazette of the United States dies of the malignant yellow fever.628 John Fenno’s twenty-year-old son, John (“Jack”) Ward Fenno, will succeed to his father’s post as publisher of the Gazette of the United States.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1798
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette, William Cobbett writes,
“AN ELEGY ON BACHE” cannot appear in my paper. A Briton scorns to mangle the carcass which he himself has slain, and much more, one that has been slain by the ALMIGHTY.
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1798
Today, George Washington writes U.S. Secretary of War James McHenry:
I have lately received information … that the brawlers against Governmental measures … have, all of a sudden become silent; and, it is added, are very desirous of obtaining Commissions in the Army, about to be raised … [A]s there will be characters enough of an opposite description, who are ready to receive appointments, circumspection is necessary; for my opinion is of the first that you could as soon scrub the blackamore [Negro] white as to change the principles of a profest Democrat and that he will leave nothing unattempted to overturn the Government of this Country.629
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1798
Today, Vice President Thomas Jefferson writes U.S. Senator Stevens Thomson Mason (Republican, Virginia),
[The Alien and Sedition Acts are] merely an experiment on the American mind to see how far it will bear an avowed violation of the constitution. If this goes down, we shall immediately see attempted another act of Congress, declaring that the President shall continue in office during life, reserving to another occasion the transfer of the succession to his heirs, and the establishment of the Senate for life.630
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1798
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States, twenty-year-old Jack Fenno writes:
Notwithstanding a few local triumphs of the French faction, their cause may with truth be pronounced in the wane. The star of jacobinism must soon cease to shed its malign influence; for shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it.
Benjamin [Bache] … in his Aurora … became of course one of the most malicious Libellers of me. But the Yellow Fever arrested him in his detestable Career and sent him to his grandfather from whom he inherited a dirty, envious, jealous, and revengefull Spight against me for no other cause under heaven than because I was too honest a Man to favour or connive at his selfish schemes of ambition and Avarice.
JOHN ADAMS,
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, 1797–1801.631
Gen. George Washington (1776) by Charles Willson Peale (oil painting).632
Dr. Benjamin Franklin (1790) by Benjamin Franklin Bache (notebook sketch).633
FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY
[JOHN ADAMS] is always an Honest Man, often a wise one, but sometimes, and in some things, absolutely out of his senses.
DR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN634
JOHN ADAMS [is] the advocate of a kingly government and of a titled nobility to form an upper house and to keep down the swinish multitude … JOHN ADAMS … would deprive you of a voice in chusing your president and senate, and make both hereditary—This champion for kings, ranks, and titles is to be your president…
BENJAMIN F. BACHE, EDITOR,
AURORA GENERAL ADVERTISER, 1790–1798635
Your Great Grandfather [BENJAMIN FRANKLIN] is properly thought the father of American liberty—he it was who formed the American mind and character for more than fifty years to become what America now is, one of the greatest and the only free nation in the world …
WILLIAM DUANE, EDITOR,
AURORA GENERAL ADVERTISER, 1798–1822
(IN A LETTER TO BENJAMIN BACHE’S FIRST-BORN SON)636
I expect soon to see a proposition to name the 18th Century the Franklinian Age, le Siècle Franklinnien … The title of “Founder of the American Empire,” which … the English newspapers give [to Dr. FRANKLIN,] does not most certainly belong to him … [T]here is such a prostitution of all Justice … to accomplish the Apotheosis of Dr. F[RANKLIN] as ought to excite the indignation of every honest man.
JOHN ADAMS,
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, 1797–1801637
As long … as everyone was unanimous about the politics of America, it was not worth dividing the public opinion about a man. But as Mr. Washington has at length become treacherous even to his own fame, what was lent to him as a harmless general must be withdrawn from him as a dangerous politician … It was his country and France which gave him fame in defiance of England; and it will be his country and France which, in defiance of England, will take it away again.
BENJAMIN F. BACHE, EDITOR,
AURORA GENERAL ADVERTISER, 1790–1798638
Any Man who has lived long enough to be able to recollect or has read enough of the History of France … must be astonished at their claims of Gratitude; and can hear the arrogant Pretensions that we owe o
ur Independence to them only with a Mixture of Indignation and Contempt.
JOHN ADAMS,
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, 1797–1801639
[H]ad it not been for the aid received from France in men, money and ships, your cold and unmilitary conduct, as I shall show in the course of this letter, would in all probability have lost America; at least she would not have been the independent nation she now is. You slept away your time in the field till the finances of the country were completely exhausted, and you have little share in the glory of the final event. It is time, sir, to speak the undisguised language of historical truth.
THOMAS PAINE,
U.S. SECRETARY FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS, 1777–1779,
IN A LETTER TO GEORGE WASHINGTON … ON AFFAIRS PUBLIC
AND PRIVATE (PHILADELPHIA: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN BACHE,
112 MARKET ST., 1796)640
Franklin, whose fame had already opened him a free correspondence with the literati of the European continent, was with perfect wisdom dispatched to France … The father of the American liberties became the general object of respect and love … [French Foreign Affairs Minister] Vergennes, whose principles united the arbitrary policy of the French court with the refined knowledge of a country peculiarly distinguished by literature, became the social friend of Franklin … Under such fortunate auspices, the principal difficulties to the negociation were easily removed …
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