American Aurora
Page 91
Tonight, in Philadelphia, a rousing Federalist meeting at Dunwoody’s Tavern supports James Ross, U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, to be the next Governor of Pennsylvania.1845
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 14, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
A RARE ONE—A GOOD PUN.
A gentleman of open and avowed Republican principles … was on a late occasion in company where the glass was briskly moving and Toasts were given from all parts of the table (as is the order of the day) highly complimentary to the French Republic, to Democrats, Jacobins, &c.; being called on to give a toast … filled a bumper, and gave “The inside of a leg of mutton” for his toast; an explanation from all parts of the table was called for—the inside of the leg of mutton, said the gentleman, is a BONYPART.
Today, Timothy Pickering writes the U.S. district attorney for Virginia:
[A] paper is published in Richmond, under the title of the “Examiner” which possesses the character of extreme virulence … from the passages which are studiously copied from it into the Aurora … It is my request, therefore, that it may be examined as often as it abuses … that its Editor or Editors be prosecuted …1846
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
It is not a little curious that while the tabernacles of Democracy are filled with cries against standing armies as contrary to the constitution, the Democrats themselves are raising the only illegal forces that appear. Cock-necked troops and cabalistic corps are formed in express violation of the laws which forbid private armed applications for any purpose whatever. It is of little import that these motley bands consist of some barren half-dozens altogether—If they consisted of but two men each, they should be Disarmed.
ELECTION.
At a numerous and respectable meeting of the citizens of Philadelphia and the Liberties, held at Dunwoody’s in the city of Philadelphia, on Tuesday the 13th inst. for the purpose of fixing upon a suitable person to fill the important office of Governor of the state …
Resolved, as the sense of this meeting, That JAMES ROSS of Pittsburg unites, in an eminent degree, the requisites …
ROBERT WHARTON, Chairman
[Mayor of Philadelphia]
THURSDAY, AUGUST 15, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
[From the Virginia Argus.] On Friday last, a complaint was heard … at the instance of Mr. Callender of the office of the Examiner against … the committee of brother associators [for harassing Mr. Callender] …
Mr. Call, for the defendants … blamed the Examiner for copying the abominations of the AURORA … [The lawyer for the Examiner answered] … we consider the Aurora the most valuable newspaper in America.
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
The enemies of government have long been in the habit of saying that the men who support it are the old tories … It was first propagated by the memorable editor of the Aurora and has been retailed by his satellites through all parts of the union …
Is the President an old tory? Is General Washington an old tory? Is Mr. Hamilton, the inspector general of the army, an old tory? Are the secretary of state and the secretary of war old tory? … I am much mistaken if there is a solitary one among them …CIVIS
FRIDAY, AUGUST 16, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
MR. EDITOR … Suppose … Schnyder the printer had gotten a number of men and flogged Captain Montgomery, would the fault have been as trivial as Montgomery’s flogging the printer—Or had Mr. Duane and ten or thirty of his friends went and kick’d, cuff’d, and rib-roasted any of the valiant officers who maltreated him, would the fault be only equal to theirs? …ROBERT SLENDER
It would be an act of public injustice to withhold from public reprobation the proceedings of a meeting held at Dunwoody’s on the 13th inst … [P]arty violence has seldom assumed a more indecent or insolent tone …
Beware who you appoint to the office of governor … exclude from the important station a man who is not only unfit to govern the state but who is brought forward as the mere machine and tool of a party … Let Thomas M’Kean be the man of your choice …
Today, President John Adams writes Secretary of State Pickering concerning the address to Pennsylvania’s independent voters, which appeared in the August 9th Aurora and which repeated the claim that John Adams wrote of British influence in the Washington administration.
I have read the address to the independent electors of Pennsylvania, and am very anxious to know where all this will end. The trial [of Duane] will bring out some whimsical things. At present, I will say nothing. I have no apprehension for myself or the public from the consequences.1847
Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:
Will not Judge M’Kean arrest and bind over the Irish Jail-bird editor of the Aurora for the following libellous recommendation in the Aurora of this morning?
“exclude from the important station” (of Governor) “a man who is not only unfit to govern …” [&c.]
A truer picture could not be drawn, and the Judge knows that “The greater the truth, the greater the libel.”
SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
A design is on foot among the ministerialists to postpone the operation of the New Census until after the election of the next president in the fall of 1800. Thus the four [north]eastern states will retain an ascendancy in that election to which their present share of population does not entitle them. Since 1790, the middle and southern states have encreased vastly in population. The eastern states are in that respect stationary …
We have already observed that Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia should send at least sixteen or twenty representatives to congress; and that these three great and growing states send, at present, no more than five. If they had been fairly represented, no alien or sedition acts, no standing armies, or endless navies would have hung, at this day, like a millstone around the neck of American liberty.
SIR, If one may judge from what has taken place on former occasions, we shall see at the approaching election certain disciplined corps, headed by proper leaders, come up to the place of voting to give in tickets put into their hands by the said leaders who are to stand by and see that each does his duty in the manner required. It strikes me, Sir, that this is a most flagrant violation of the constitution and laws which were meant to secure to the elector a free and uncontrouled choice be enabling him to give his vote in Secret …AN ELECTOR
TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The committee of slander lately encouraged in business by resolutions at Dunwoody’s begins to feel that there is such a thing as retaliation—in pity to them we will spare them while they behave discreetly.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
MODERN CHARACTERS,
By Shakespeare and others.
CAPTAIN DUANE
The Captain of the Rabble issued out
With a black, shirtless train; each was an host;
A million strong of vermin, every villain—
No part of Government, but lords of anarchy,
Chaos of power; and privileg’d destruction;
OUT LAWS OF NATURE, yet they may be used
As tools of tumult, in the hands of knaves.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 21, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
For two or three days past, the alarm of the [Yellow] Fever has been received in this city … We have the fullest reliance on the vigilance and attention of the Board of Health …
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
We quote the following strange paragraph from Callender’s [Richmond] Examiner of Friday last …
“The treatment which Mr. Duane has received from the ministerial myrmidons in Philadelphia surpasses all description and credibility. In the course of last winter, he was knocked down upon a Sunday when at a Roman Catholic Chapel. He was then dragged before that little con
temptible duodecimo despot, KEARNY WHARTON, the present mayor of Philadelphia. He was bound over … to stand trial for having committed a riot …
“Upon that trial, not one witness could be adduced whose evidence went to incriminate him even circumstantially, so that, as his counsellor Mr. Dallas observed to the court, it was absolutely useless to make any defence …
“This is the present state of public justice in the city of Philadelphia.”
(To shew how much at random the author of the above has written, it might only be necessary to say that the Mayor of Philadelphia bears the name ROBERT WHARTON … That Robert Wharton is a tyrant to the wicked, to the licentious, and to the worthless and indolent is a fact …
[J. W. FENNO])
Interesting Information.
I DO hereby certify that I heard Thomas M’Kean, Chief Justice of Pennsylvania, declare “That he wished Twenty Thousand United Irishmen would come into this Country, that they were a people who understood true Liberty and the Rights of Man,” which I am willing to attest upon oath, if it should be necessary.DAVID WATTS
N. B. A dozen affidavits can be produced to the above fact, if necessary.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 22, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
The Committees who support the pretensions of Mr. Ross … profess an entire attachment to Mr. Adams, who has declared in one of his answers to an address, “THAT REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT MAY BE INTERPRETED TO MEAN ANY THING.” … (see Fenno’s paper July 3d, 1798) … The Electors of Pennsylvania will remember that the federal constitution pledges the government to secure their liberties in these very words: “The United States (says the constitution) guarantees to every state in the union a republican form of government.”
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
MR. FENNO, … We have long heard of the falsehoods of the Aurora; we have long been persuaded that the Editor has been in the pay of the French, either immediately from their Ambassador or Consuls, or now through their friends. We have to the shame of our laws heard him abuse and traduce the best characters of the nation … That such printers ought to be considered as enemies, no one can doubt who knows any thing of the spirit of party in our state …
There are numbers who, from the time that Mr. Jefferson was disappointed of the President’s chair, have never ceased to infuse evil reports of the President and officers of Government into the minds of their friends and dependents, many of whom never had any other information than from the polluted fountain of the Aurora … [I]t is not consistent with common sense that infidel printers should be permitted to keep up enmity against the government by false suggestions and among people as ignorant as [they are] … willing to do right, if not misled by the friends of Mr. Jefferson and the French, made up of the enemies of the Government and of Christianity … I hope the Congress will, at their next meeting, take some order with the licentious and Frenchified printers through the United States.Yours, VERITAS
SATURDAY, AUGUST 24, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
EQUAL RIGHTS
THE civil rights of the citizens of this country are too valuable to be destroyed by ignorance or design; they form … a commodious shelter from the storms of party rage, the overflowings of aristocracy, or a corrupt Monarchical interest …
In the days of seventy-six, those days of genuine republicanism, the … principle of equal rights was then the fundamental principle which was recognized by the people of this country … [T]he voice of tyranny or the interests of aristocracy … gave it all the false colouring of a state of anarchy …
Equal rights … can be maintained only by the establishment of equal laws, that is, by laws which secure to every individual citizen the full enjoyment of the fruits or effects of his strength and his faculties. If nature has established a difference in the possession of this strength and these faculties, it is not the business of civil law to increase this difference or inequality … On the contrary, it is the duty of the community to furnish instruction where it is most requisite and to give strength where it is most wanted … It has been either an error or a crime in almost all the governments of the earth to favor that part of the community which least required their assistance: and the principle of equal rights was abandoned to encrease the spendour or augment the extravagant or vicious enjoyments of those whose fortunate condition in life already sufficiently secured them against the sufferings and the miseries to which another portion of the community was constantly exposed. Civil laws should be founded on the strictest moral principle … [T]his can be affected only by the establishment of rules of reciprocal justice which shall exclude every idea of aristocratic inequality … [and] abandon every idea of imitating the corrupt laws and baneful establishments of the Old World …
FRANKLIN
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
HEALTH-OFFICE
8th MO, 22d, 1799.
THE Board of Health, desirous of giving to their fellow citizens all the information they are possessed of relative to the prevalent disease [of yellow fever] in our city, think it their duty to state … that during the last 6 days, there have been a number of persons taken ill, principally in the lower part of the city and Southwark, many of whom have died after a few days sickness and that, at present, there is still a considerable number sick …
By order of the Board, EDWARD GARRIGUES, Pres.
At a respectable meeting of a number of the Citizens in the southern part of the County of Philadelphia, agreeable to public notice at the house of Cadwallader Evans in Southwark, for the purpose of promoting the election of JAMES ROSS, esq. of Pittsburg …
Resolved, That in the opinion of this meeting … [James Ross] should be a man … perfectly free from the influence of those perfidious and sacrilegious principles of Jacobinism …
Resolved … we are determined individually to use all honourable means to our power to promote the election of said James Ross to the office of Governor of this Commonwealth.
Resolved, that the following persons be a committee to exert themselves in their respective wards and furnish tickets for the election.
FOR SOUTHWARK.
Joshua Humphreys …
Peter Miercken … [and about fifty others]
Joshua Humphreys’ son, Clement, assaulted Benny Bache in the Southwark shipyard. Peter Miercken led the troops that assaulted me at the Aurora office.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 25, 1799
This morning, from his pulpit in Christ Church (across Second-street from the Porcupine’s Gazette offices), the Rev. James Abercrombie delivers a sermon:
… The mantle of death, brethren, is at length again unfolded and spread over our once happy city, literally fulfilling the declaration of the apostle: for while we were saying “peace and safety, sudden destruction hath come upon us.”1848
MONDAY, AUGUST 26, 1799
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
AURORA OFFICE, AUGUST 26.
The necessity of guarding against similar calamities [as] those which so heavily and particularly afflicted this Office last year, renders it prudent to remove the Office to Bristol in this state within this week—It is proposed to publish tomorrow’s newspaper in this city; the removal will necessarily occasion a suspension of one day at least.
There is mass evacuation of Philadelphia to avoid the malignant yellow fever. The federal government is moving, as it did last autumn, about twenty miles northeast along the Delaware to Trenton on the New Jersey side of the river. The Aurora also moves upriver but settles south of Trenton (and closer to Philadelphia) in the town of Bristol in Pennsylvania’s Bucks County. The Aurora will remain in Bristol until October 19th.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
The Office of the GAZETTE OF THE UNITED STATES will be removed tomorrow to the first brick House in Eleventh, above Arch street. In consequence of this removal the Paper will not be published on Tuesday.
Starting in September and until the
fever subsides, the Gazette of the United States will be printed on a half-sheet.1849 The Aurora and the Gazette have not forgotten what happened when they failed to leave last autumn. Porcupine hasn’t forgotten either. On Thursday, the offices of the Porcupine’s Gazette will move to Bustleton, Pennsylvania, where Cobbett has his summer home and where he will publish the paper weekly rather than daily.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 30, 1799
BACHE’S PHILADELPHIA AURORA
BRISTOL [PENNSYLVANIA] … A calamity, which appears to afflict our maritime cities as if it were a mark of the indignation of Heaven for the degeneracy of our nation from the magnanimity and virtue which obtained us our liberties, has caused the removal of The Aurora Press to this town—and a suspension of the publication from Tuesday to this Morning …
[O]ur friends stated some objections [to Bristol]—[S]ome … thought that the neighborhood of a[n army] camp was a very injurious one for a republican press—others (who appear not to have known the people) objected because they conceived Bristol to be a nest of tories—and a few because there were so many of the amiable and exemplary [Quaker] society of friends here.
With the Editor, all these reasons for avoiding Bristol would be the most powerful for choosing the situation—bred among Quakers, loving their domestic virtues and simplicity of manners, a class of men who never offend and whose system of religious discipline is the most democratic that was ever instituted … from such men, open always to truth, the Editor would have nothing to expect but good will.