American Aurora
Page 73
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
DOCTOR LOGAN … had the unpardonable effrontery to wait upon General Washington. Upon his introduction, he offered his polluted hand to the General who declined returning his fraternal salutation.
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
THE gentle and impartial Mr. Claypoole, in his Gazette … says “the raising of a provisional army … may be very justly called into question.” … [T]he attempt to spread abroad such an opinion is a most wicked Jacobin trick. The gentle Claypoole is, in fact, no more than the avant courier, the go-before, the entering wedge, of PEG BACHE.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Official accounts from Constantinople … [bring] advice that [British] Admiral Nelson attacked the French fleet [of Napoleon] before Alexandria [Egypt], and partly burned and sunk almost the whole of it.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
Our belief in the intelligence of the ruin of the French “Army of Egypt” … has since been completely justified by more recent intelligence … French cruizers will now be everywhere chased from the Mediterranean …
Here, let us not omit to enumerate the immense consequence of this victory to the trade of the United States … [H[ow great a load of reproach and ignominy we have escaped through the wisdom of one man [John Adams] who may with justice be styled (to copy the old Roman solecism) THE SECOND FOUNDER OF THE REPUBLIC … when the firmness of administration, as was foreseen and foretold, results in security and prosperity.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
A MEETING of the UNITED IRISHMEN in Philadelphia will be held at 7 o’clock on FRIDAY EVENING, 23d instant. Brethren will please to apply for cards of admission to citizen
D. CLARKE
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
IT has often been the lot of this Gazette to warn the people of the United States against those underhanded conspiracies which we had reason to know were forming … The following … justifies all our apprehensions …
A Meeting of the United Irishmen in Philadelphia will be held at 7 o’clock on Friday evening, 23d instant …
N.B. This “Notice” is copied from an obscure publication, called the Aurora, the same that was formerly carried on by a Mr. Bache.
The people of America have long been abused by a detestable banditti of foreign invaders who, through the medium of the press, have found constant means of libeling truth and honesty … Let them be brought to the bar of public justice and made to answer its demands …
Who but remembers the torpid state in which we slumbering lay, when the warning voice of Mr. Adams first roused us to behold the gigantic danger which threatened and surrounded us? Who but remembers the consternation produced by the war speech, and the howlings of the jacobins at that timely alarm ? They had till then succeeded in stifling the spirit of the country …
The Federalists, abandoning all tame and half-way measures, should act with a zeal worthy their cause and their country. Let us no longer “peep our swords half-out their scabbards,” but draw them forth and brandish them to vengeance.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Heretofore General Washington was wont to be called the second founder of the republic, as Franklin was the first. [W]e are now told, and it is confessedly a solecism, that our modest and unassuming President merits that title!
Let us no longer “peep our swords out of the scabbards” says young Fenno—“Twenty more, kill them,” says Bobadil.
Fenno deigns to think the Aurora “obscure,” perhaps through envy. Pity ‘tis, the compliment cannot be returned, but like the gallows maker in the play, he is eminently NOTORIOUS.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
THE man who doubts the organization of a party in this country to overthrow its constitution and government and to model both with the assistance of France must be a creature of doubtful gender …
Look at the Jacobins … take a lesson from them …
Let, therefore, ASSOCIATIONS be formed in every considerable City and Town of the United States (the example may be set in Philadelphia … ) let committees be appointed; funds raised, presses employed; let information be disseminated at cheap rates everywhere; let the ignorant be instructed; the wavering confirmed; the banditti watched in their uprisings and downyings; and I will offer my neck to the guillotine if, in twelve months after the scheme is brought into operation, they are not completely crushed.
The President left his seat in Quincy for Philadelphia on Monday week.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Much clamour is raised against Doctor Logan, by our Federal Aristocrats, for being the bearer of dispatches; and he was threatened with being arrested for treason … These consistent Federalists have been continually thundering out their anathemas against the French for capturing our vessels … but no sooner do [the French] stop the taking of our vessels and offer us restitution for those already taken than [George Logan,] the man whom [the Federalists] suppose has been instrumental in effecting this change of conduct in the French government, is charged of being a traitor to his country … A proof, this, that they are displeased with this manifestation of an amiable disposition on the part of France; that they wish for war; and that nothing short of war with France will satisfy them.
The Editor of the Boston Centinal exultantly mentions that lately a Liberty Pole (termed by him a Jacobin Pole) which had been erected at Dedham [Massachusetts], had been prostrated with the dirt; and that one FAIRBANKS, a deluded ringleader, charged with being an accessory in erecting this rallying point of insurrection and civil war, was apprehended by the marshal of the district, accompanied by several good citizens of a neighboring town, and carried to Boston for examination, part of which he underwent the same evening with Judge Lowell.
What! is it to be deemed seditious and considered an act of insurrection in our citizens to erect a liberty pole, reared in the commemoration of our dear-bought FREEDOM and INDEPENDENCE, purchased with their treasure and their blood ? … But so it is—“Hail Columbia, happy Land !”
Federal Marshal Samuel Bradford of Boston has yet to apprehend David Brown, the middle-aged “vagabond” who “stirred up” people to express their discontent by erecting a liberty pole in Dedham, Massachusetts, but Bradford has arrested, under the Sedition Law, Dedham farmer Benjamin Fairbanks, who was present during its erection. Mr. Fairbanks faces a June sedition trial at the Federal Circuit Court in Boston.1711
Today, George Washington writes Alexander Spotswood:
You ask my opinion of these [alien laws] …
Consider to what lengths a Certain description of men in our Country have already driven … matters and then ask if it is not time and expedient to resort to protecting Laws against Aliens (for Citizens you certainly know are not affected by that law) who acknowledge no allegiance to this Country and in many cases are sent among us … for the express purpose of poisoning the minds of our people and to sow dissentions among them, in order to alienate their affections from the Government of their Choice, thereby endeavoring to dissolve the Union …1712
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
CITIZENS OF PHILADELPHIA, A Meeting of the United Irishmen has been announced yesterday through the medium of Mrs. Bache’s newspaper—it is therefore asked what can be the intention of a meeting so designated? …
Americans beware! Look upon these United Irishmen, whatever appearances they may put on, even with cockades in their hats, as so many serpents within your bosom … [K]eep a strict watch over United Irishmen—be persuaded that they are your enemies …
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
[Adv]
To be had at this office
… GIFFORD’S
HISTORY OF FRANCE …
IN THREE VOLUMES ROYAL QUARTO
With a continuation, containing the
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION
to the close of 1796.
By WILLIAM DUANE.
The four volumes bound … PRICE 20 Dollars
The Revolutionary history may be had separately …
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
The United Irishmen in Philadelphia who are to assemble tonight, we are credibly informed, are composed of disaffected, illiterate Irish, Scotch, Dutch, and even—Americans!—Hence it would be no bull to say citizen Logan is an United Irishman.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
In 1776 you fought against Britain and for liberty; and now you are unwilling to fight for Britain and John Adams. In 1776 you fought for the right of raising your money as you pleased, and now you are against John Adams raising it for you. In 1776, you fought in principle against parliament imposing sedition bills upon you, and now that your own representatives have done it, you murmur … In 1776, you fought for the right of speaking and publishing your sentiments as you pleased, and now that the Congress has determined that it is expedient of you to give up this right or to suspend the exercise of it, instead of submitting like good citizens, you seem determined to make greater use of your tongues than ever. These alone, independent of many other proofs which might have been adduced, manifestly shew … depravity …
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
The PRESIDENT arrived in the city last evening about eight o’clock. The vessels of war, the troops of horse, artillery, &c. were prepared to receive him with due honors. The horse went on to meet him but returned with the news that he would not arrive ‘till to day. In the meanwhile, he came in as privately as possible.
This day, at twelve o’clock, CAPTAIN DECATUR, from the Delaware sloop of war fired a federal salute on the occasion, which was accompanied by a salute fired by the 9th artillery, and by a peal from the bells of Christ Church.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The President of the United States arrived in town Friday evening … The Bells were not rung for the president on his arrival on Friday owing to his well known dislike of parade and empty adulation.
The address of the United Irishmen shall have a place about the close the week. [I]t was received too late on Saturday for this day’s paper.
This morning, George Logan visits John Adams at the President’s House in Philadelphia. President Adams:
I knew [Mr. Logan] had been … a zealous disciple of that democratical school which has propagated many errors in America and perhaps many tragical catastrophes in Europe … After his return [from France], he called upon me and, in a polite and respectful manner, … to express the desire of the Directory as well as his own to accommodate all disputes with America …
But the testimonies of … Mr. Logan … would have had no influence to dispose me to nominate a minister [to France], if I had not received authentic, regular, official, diplomatic assurances …1713
George Logan’s wife, Deborah:
The President asked him many questions, all of which he answered with his usual candour. Nor did the President show to him any of that irritability of temper … [O]nly a little sally escaped him when the assurances of the Directory that they would receive a minister were repeated to him. He arose from his chair, and, with a characteristic action used when in earnest, “Yes,” said he, “I suppose if I were to send Mr. Madison … or Dr. Logan, they would receive either of them. But I’ll do no such thing; I’ll send whom I please.”1714
Today, Thomas Jefferson writes Virginian John Taylor:
I owe you a political letter. Yet the infidelities of the post office and the circumstances of the times are against my writing fully & freely, whilst my own dispositions are as much against mysteries, innuendoes & half-confidences. I know not which mortifies me most, that I should fear to write what I think, or my country bear such a state of things. Yet Lyon’s judges and a jury of all nations are objects of rational fear …1715
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
The public attention has been called during the past week to the flagrant and atrocious fact of the existence of a society of United Irishmen in this City … Every United Irishman ought to be hunted from the country, as much as a wolf or a tyger.—For a more bloody and remorseless band of organized assassins never polluted the fountains of society …
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Dr. LOGAN we understand took the earliest opportunity of paying his respects to the President of the United States with whom he had a long conference yesterday morning.
The important information which we presume has been communicated by Dr. LOGAN to the Executive will, we doubt not, tend to secure us from the evils of a calamitous and fruitless war with which we were so imminently menaced.
Those who remember how much America is indebted to the patriotism and disinterested services of La Fayette … during our revolutionary war against the tyranny of Britain … will hear with pleasure that he has … written to General Washington … to prevent hostilities from taking place between the two Republics …
We shall not wonder if now that La Fayette has endeavored to secure the peace of America, the tory presses should teem with scurrility and abuse against him.
War is the Federal Cry, and behold the presidential and ambassadorial solecism—we are told we must go to war in order to prevent war—That is something like the man who cut his own throat in order that he should not die before his time.
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
ADMIRAL NELSON’S VICTORY [over Napoleon’s fleet at the Battle of the Nile in Egypt is] a bone too big for the Democrats to swallow … MOTHER BACHE swears bloodily it is all a lie. PEG knows better; but she … is letting the weight down upon her gang little by little … They now behold the power of France cut off, and with it all their hopes of plunder.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
THE United Irishmen of Philadelphia … have, it seems, AN ADDRESS on the anvil … What have Americans to do with the Addresses of Irishmen?
Poor Logan and his dreams of peace seem both alike to have vanished.—Sunk, quite sunk in oblivion. It is cruel after a man has traveled so many thousands of miles for the public good, to meet no other salutation than “How foolish you look!”
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Fenno asks what have Americans to do with the addresses of Irishmen? … A question might be asked better founded, however, what had Irishmen to do with the addresses of Americans, with the addresses of the American Congress, in 1776?
The tories will never forgive Dr. Logan for his endeavors to prevent a war: any more than for being a republican !
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
The Officers of M’Pherson’s Blues yesterday waited on the PRESIDENT to pay their respect to him on his return to the city.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1798
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The [French] Directory, in releasing the American ships and cargoes, have at least manifested such a disposition to peace with America they have never condescended to shew towards their most sacred and excellent Majest[ies] of Europe.
If a party or faction, whoever small, whether designated by the epithet of federalists or tories, uniformly oppose measures calculated to produce peace … and strenuously advocate the expediency of an alliance with Great Britain, the happy effects of a war with France, the propriety of abolishing the liberty of the press, to destroy the use of free speech, and deprecate the idea of an individual’s saving his country from the horrors of an impending war, such a faction cannot have the real interests of their country at heart: This is Treason against the People; and the authors of it should
be immediately ousted from the confidence of their supporters, and driven from their strongholds, with the punishment due to their evil machinations.
The object of the journey of our illustrious General Washington to Philadelphia, we learn, is to hold a Council of Officers on the military arrangements of the United States;—and he has already had communications on the subject with Major-Generals HAMILTON, and the Secretary at War. The General, it is said, will not leave Philadelphia until he has paid his respect to the PRESIDENT of the United States, and taken his commands, on the object of his journey.
The grand council which has been assembled in this city for some days, consisting of a selection of military officers, it is reported, have manifested a disposition to advise the organization of a large STANDING ARMY. If this should prove to be the fact … the people of America must look to their LIBERTIES …
Standing armies once established, a great and despotic body is created in the state, with interests hostile to the public liberties and, living under despotic laws, inconsistent with the spirit of a free government in any other circumstance than that of actual war.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States: