American Aurora
Page 109
WEDNESDAY, JULY 9, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
OLIVER WOLCOTT VERSUS OLIVER WOLCOTT
At Washington, after a fruitless examination of all the trunks of the Clerks in the Treasury Offices, every Clerk suspected of Democracy was discharged a few days ago. The question therefore arises—What have they been discharged for ? Upon a suspicion of having communicated what has been published in the Aurora.—a plain case.
War … Today, in the French West Indies, the United States Navy captures another French ship. U.S. Navy Lieutenant John Shaw, in command of the twelve-gun, seventy-man schooner Enterprize, writes:
I fell in with the French privateer L’Aigle of 10 guns and 78 men—she engaged me with much spirit for 15 minutes when she lowered her colours … L’Aigle had [illegible] men killed, 3 wounded..1994
FRIDAY, JULY 11, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
A number of the Republican citizens of Chester County met on the Banks of the Brandy-wine [Creek] to celebrate the ever memorable 4th of July ‘76 … [16] toasts … 4. The memory of the Patriarch of the American liberties, Dr. Franklin … 15. William Duane, Editor of the Aurora.—May his talents and industry in the cause of republicanism be amply rewarded by his fellow citizens—6 cheers, and 3 volleys.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
The Jacobins delight in toasting a poor devil of a fugitive, whom they call “The Cat.” Quere, to which of the feline tribe has this same Cat the honour to belong? Is it a Wild Cat, a Bore Cat, or only a Puss in Boots ?
Jasper picks quarrels, when he’s drunk at night,
When sober in the morning, dares not fight;
Jasper, to shun these ills that may ensue,
Drink not at night, or drink at morning too.
Duane, they say, has wit—for what ?
For writing ?—No—for writing not.
MONDAY, JULY 14, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
TOASTS. AT RHINE NECK (N.Y.) … By Judge Hogeboom. The Editor of the Aurora—May his types be a pillory to every rascal whose hands are soiled with public money.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
It is a fact obvious to all but Jacobinical eyes that of the immense multitude of toasts which of late have choaked up the columns of the Aurora, more than half are seditious and treasonable or flagrantly immoral and flagitious.
TUESDAY, JULY 15, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
PUBLIC MONEY VERSUS PUBLIC LOANS …
Mr. Steele of the treasury declares that [Delaware Loan Commissioner] John Stockton’s account was adjusted for the quarter ending the 21st of March 1800 and that “there remained due to the United States a[n unpaid] balance of 2339 dollars and 29 cents for which he will be debited at a future settlement.” …
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
Lost last night in a blind alley, a quatern of Gin, well distilled.—Whoever will return the precious liquor to Jasper Traitor, Esq. shall go snacks [share] in boozing!
WEDNESDAY, JULY 16, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
TO WILLIAM DUANE: RAT CATCHER TO THEIR MAJESTIES THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES.
So! You have got a title and no doubt a patent for it!—You!—Who have been abusing nearly half the nation for partiality to the manners and Customs of Great Britain … I wish I could congratulate you on this occasion; but … the King’s rat catcher never sets a trap for a large one, an old one, or a fat one …AN OLD RAT-CATCHER
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
Duane was once a Jew Cloathsman in London, from which corrupt place and from which occupation his integrity expelled him, somewhere about the year 1789, when he fled to India. He passed in London under the name of Jew AINE.
THURSDAY, JULY 17, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
President Adams gave as toasts lately at Boston the following: “The proscribed Patriots Hancock and [Samuel] Adams.” But he did not give the great orb round which he moved as a satellite—Benjamin Franklin.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
To The Editor of the Gazette of the United States.
SIR, Being informed by a friend and countryman of mine (an Irish Gentleman) that there was an advertisement … a few days ago, offering a reward to any one who should return a noggin of Gin to Jasper Dwight Esq. Traytor; and conceiving … we were seen in company together late one evening at a certain public house which we are in the habit of frequenting, this is to inform you … the liquor was clubbed and fairly drunk between us.
THE LEARNED PIG
FRIDAY, JULY 18, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
TOASTS ON THE FOURTH OF JULY AT NEW YORK … The founders of American freedom—9 cheers … William Duane and all the republican editors of the United States … AT STANFORD (NEW YORK) … William Duane—May he continue to scrutinize the federal accounts—And may the Aurora, aided by the Sun of Liberty, illumine our political horizon and enable the people to discover how many millions constitute the modern balance of power … AT CAROLINE (MARYLAND) … William Duane—May his efforts in the cause of liberty be crowned with success, and may they meet with (as they merit) the gratitude of his country. 3 cheers … HARRISBURGH (PENN.) … The memory of Benjamin Franklin—where Liberty dwells, there is my country. 3 cheers … The Aurora—its former and present editors, prosperity will do justice to their exertions in the cause of Liberty.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 23, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
During the lethargy which had so long oppressed the public mind of America, it was almost treason to use the name of Dr. Franklin. The hatred which Mr. Adams has always manifested toward that great man and the hatred which the British have uniformly declared might well account for so extraordinary an event—people, however, again begin to dare and think and speak of Dr. Franklin, his name once more scintillates around the joyous horizon on the national festival—this is to be accounted for in the change of public opinion as it relates to Mr. Adams and the British …
War … Today, off Guadeloupe in the French West Indies, the United States Navy’s twelve-gun, seventy-man ship Enterprize, under Navy Lieutenant John Shaw, fires on the French privateer Le Flambeau. A report:
She mounted 10 guns, had 110 men, fought 50 minutes, and had 37 men killed and wounded. The Enterprize had only 2 men slightly wounded. This prize is valuable from the quantity of plunder she had on board …1995
THURSDAY, JULY 24, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
Cooper is in prison. Holt is in prison. Callender is in prison. Duane has ten or a dozen suits against him for speaking the truth. Certain proofs that these writers criticized too severely—in the opinion of their oppressors.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
An English gentleman, fatigued with the dark innuendo and involved Irishism of the Aurora, remarked that the title of that paper is a misnomer and that it ought to be called, The Midnight.
FRIDAY, JULY 25, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
CUMBERLAND COUNTY, STATE OF NEW JERSEY … [20] toasts … By James Lee. The memory of the last, and success to the present Editor of that enlightening paper, the Aurora …
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
WHEN your correspondent remarked on the title of the paper conducted by [William Duane] the foreign assassin of General Washington’s fame, he was not apprized of the following fact in the life of the Ginguzzling Jasper [Dwight]—a fact which gives considerable congruity to the title of “Aurora” as relative to its worthy Editor.
This Gentleman, it seems, was a Peep-o’day Boy [Protestant insurgent] in Ireland, and for some of his feats in that character was furnished with a passage at the King of Great-Britain’s expence to a colony in the southern Ocean, whence, while under the care of a Jailer, he con
trived an escape to the United States, where he struts a captain and shines a moralist. Such is the vagrant who, under the auspices of the Mammoth faction, has assumed the instruction of the people of the United States in politics and morality!
SATURDAY, JULY 26, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
PARIS, JUNE 1. We are assured that the negociations with the ministers of the United States of America are advancing rapidly to an amicable conclusion. The Publiciste of the 27th April, announces, that “on the 30th precisely at 10 o’clock, was to be celebrated, in their temple of victory, A FETE in memory of one of the benefactors of humanity, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.”
TUESDAY, JULY 29, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
[W]e judge it fit to answer … what it is to which [Jonathan] Dayton alludes in his letter wherein he charges the Editor of being actuated by personal motives … At the period when Jonathan was carrying on … speculation … the Editor reported the Debates in Congress … Wm. Smith [Federalist] of S. Carolina … directed a mean and threatening letter to the Editor, desiring that the speech of Smith should be altered … The Editor peremptorily refused to alter it from what had been actually spoken … This letter Mr. Smith laid before Mr. Dayton [who] … took upon him to interdict the Editor from taking notes in short-hand thenceforward in Congress … Dayton, soon after having established the precedent, interdicted the late Editor of the Aurora also … It is not necessary to notice how Congressional proceedings have gone to the public ever since. The faction have derived this advantage from it: having none but men who are either afraid to publish what is done or who do not discern the importance … They write speeches which they never spoke …
War … Today, off the coast of Cuba, the twenty-four-gun, 220-man U.S. Navy ship Ganges, under Lieutenant John Mullowny, fires on and captures a French cruiser. Mullowny writes the Secretary of the Navy:
I mentioned having a French cruiser confined in the harbor of Mantanzes; he came out on the morning of the 27th inst. At 3 P.M. he was descried from the mast head, when I gave chace to him; at seven in the evening … I was about half a mile from him, I fired some shot … which did some damage to the vessel and wounded three men after which he hauled his wind and run ashore, where all the crew left her. I have the schooner with me, her name is the La Fortune, of six 6 pounders and seventy men …1996
WEDNESDAY, JULY 30, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
TOASTS [ON THE 4TH OF JULY]. MIFFLIN-TOWN [PENN.] … [16] toasts … 10. The Aurora and its Editor—The terror of tories, traitors, and aristocrats; and the watchtower of our constitution … NEW-TOWN, (PENN.) … at James Thomas’s Tavern … [16] Toasts … 13. The Memory of Benj. F. Bache, 3 guns. 5 cheers. 14. Capt. Duane, the Editor of the Aurora. “Who will neither be purchased, cajoled, intimidated, nor beat into compliance with the views of designing and despotic men.” 7 guns. 7 cheers …
Tonight, I attend a dinner in my honor at the city of New York.
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
By a gentleman direct from Norfolk, we are told that the Yellow Fever is raging with considerable violence …
THURSDAY, JULY 31, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
[U]nder the administration of so good and honest a man as Mr. Jefferson, men of every faith and clime will be happy. His whole life and all his writings prove that he is no bigot … He never canted about religion to gain popularity … He [is not] … proclaiming fasts in which the people have been excited to hate each other and an opportunity been employed to sound the alarm of war, and hue and cry against republicanism. He [is not] … playing with their credulity, superstition or fanaticism to exalt himself … Had President Adams attended less to fasting and more to the public accounts, religion and government would have been better obeyed and more respected. The paths of true piety want no political direction, and if any body of Christians revere their religion or respect their rights, they ought to guard against the insiduous arts of bigotry and hypocrisy …
This afternoon, I return from New York to Philadelphia.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 1, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
President Adams [was on July 4th] at the Old South meeting house in Boston, with the school committee, and an old tory Episcopal clergyman—hear Americans and be astonished! The Old South meeting house was made a riding-school by the British during the siege of Boston … An union of old Whig and old Tories, of church and state—of crowns and mitres …
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
Mr. Adams … has suffered more foul reproaches than the depraved inhabitants of Billingsgate [a London fish market] … As long as General Washington was at the head of government, he was the object … When he retired to humble life, on the very day on which that afflicting event took place, the audacious wretch who superintended the vilest newspaper that ever disgraced a free country—the Aurora, proclaimed the day as a Jubilee, a day of thanksgiving … The democrats know that they shall finally wear out the friends of government; that, one after another, they will retire from the storm which beats upon every head, and leave the constitutional barque afloat in that “tempestuous sea of liberty” which Mr. Jefferson and his party so much admire.
BURLEIGH
The New York Gazette mentions that an entertainment had been given at Louvet’s [H]otel to William Duane, Editor of the Aurora! It is concluded, with sufficient reason, that the party, originally composed of fools, subsequently consisted of drunkards; that treasonable sentiments were uttered, blasphemous toasts given, and smutty songs encored.
It is no bad specimen of the taste of a lusty young widow that she selected, for her camarade, the captain of cock-neck’d troop.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 2, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
[R]eligious and civil liberty is the inherent and inalienable right of all mankind, constituting the only basis and real foundation of human happiness …
Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:
If we have the good luck to make a firm, lasting, and honorable peace with regicides, Duane will be appointed by apostate Talleyrand as chief cook and bottle-washer to the gang. Frenchmen will then overwhelm us …
NOVA-SCOTIA. HALIFAX. June 20. Mr. WILLIAM COBBETT has arrived here from New-York. This gentleman has disclosed such nefarious practices and horrid cruelties of the French Directory as will forever remain lasting testimonials of his resources and integrity; and his steady support of the Federal Government [in the United States] does him equal honor; and it is much to be regretted that the virulence of the Democratic Faction has constrained him to leave that boasted Land of Liberty which, if we judge from present appearances, will soon become a melancholy scene of anarchy, disorder, and civil dissentions.
NEW YORK, July 31. The public have been led to believe from the late change in the election of our State Representatives that the majority of the citizens approve of all the lies published in the Aurora. But, when we perceive how little attention is paid to the Editor of this paper, we need not be at a loss to know the sentiments of even the Democrats of this city with respect to this foreign renegado. Last evening, there was a supper given to the Aurora-man, and we learn that out of nearly 300 who were invited, not more than 25 attended on this occasion—and who were they?
SUNDAY, AUGUST 3, 1800
Today, in New York, Federalist leader Alexander Hamilton writes Treasury Secretary Oliver Wolcott:
You have doubtless seen The Aurora publication of Treasury Documents in which my name is connected … I have thought of instituting an action of slander to be tried by a struck jury against the Editor … What do you think of this ? You see I am in a very belligerent humour.1997
MONDAY, AUGUST 4, 1800
GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER
In [Federalist] Noah Webster’s Commercial Advertiser of New York, there appeared the following article: …
“ … Last evening, th
ere was a supper given to the Aurora-man, and we learn that out of nearly 300 who were invited, not more than 25 attended on this occasion—and who were they?”
Having noticed the above, we shall notice the toasts … The Editor’s duty here [at the paper] required a short absence—unable to accept one out of every hundred of the invitations he had from the most respectable and venerable characters of that city, it was suggested that an entertainment be given by a select party—it was accordingly given. The Editor left that city on Thursday afternoon; the following is copied from the American Citizen:
“On Wednesday evening, a number of republican citizens gave an entertainment at Lovett’s hotel to William Duane, Editor of the Aurora, when the following toasts (interspersed with patriotic and social songs) were drank:
1. The people of the United States … 2. The Constitution … 3. The President, a speedy and honorable retirement from the cares of office … 6. The memory of Benjamin Franklin … 7. The Press … 10. The comptroller and auditor of the federal accounts … 14. Public opinion—The terror of wicked magistrates and the high court of appeal among free nations. 15. The Sedition Law—May the American people never place men in office whose character and conduct may require such a shield. 16. The memory of the Alien Law—May we remember it as … a conspiracy … to exclude from our shores the persecuted friends of liberty. 17. May all peculators experience the disgrace of Timothy Pickering, Jonathan Dayton, and Co.