American Aurora Read online

  That’s where things stand at this time. Benny finds strength in Peggy. As Poor Richard said,

  Prosperity discovers Vice, Adversity Virtue.159

  Tonight, the Porcupine’s Gazette resumes the attack on Benny Bache:

  [T]he notorious Jacobin BACHE, Editor of the Aurora, [is] Printer to the French Directory [France’s executive council], General of the Principles of Insurrection, Anarchy and confusion; the greatest fool and most stubborn sans culotte in the United States … No sooner had this chief of anarchy given the signal for attack … than to work went all his understrappers in the different parts of the United States.160

  Though Federalists call Republicans like Benny and me “democrats” and “demos,” they use the particular words “Jacobin” and “sans-culotte” to associate us with lower-class Paris street radicals who catapulted Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre to the leadership of the French Revolution for a ten-month “Reign of Terror” (from September 17, 1793, until Robespierre was guillotined on July 28, 1794).

  Robespierre’s violence actually caused many French democrats to leave France. Two good examples are Philadelphians Médéric-Louis-Elie Moreau de St. Méry and Constantin-François Volney.161 Moreau de St. Méry, a tall man of good proportions and quick wit, was active in Parisian politics but now dispenses French books, contraceptives, and a variety of other items from a Front-street (from “river front”) shop.162 Constantin Volney, the handsome, wispy-haired political-philosopher and friend of Benjamin Franklin, enjoyed great fame in revolutionary France for his 1791 French masterwork, The Ruins of Empires …,” which attributed the fall of diverse societies to monarchical and aristocratic governments and to state-sanctioned religious establishments. Today, Volney is writing an English translation of his Ruins, which is the most popular French book in America.163

  Like the many other Frenchmen who came to America, Moreau de St. Méry and Constantin-François Volney are well-accepted members of the community. They are even members of Philadelphia’s (and America’s) oldest and most revered intellectual forum, the American Philosophical Society.164

  In the ten years of the French Revolution, Robespierre’s ten-month “Reign of Terror” was actually a brief episode. Besides, the time of Robespierre is four years past.165 Today’s France, even in wartime, has a more moderate government, consisting of a plural executive (France’s five-man “Executive Directory”) and a bicameral legislature (the Council of Ancients and the Council of Five Hundred). But Federalists speak as though Robespierre still rules. One might ask, as Poor Richard,

  What signifies knowing the Names,

  if you know not the Natures of Things.166

  Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States, John Fenno continues his attack on Jimmy Callender:

  The following paragraph which appeared in the Aurora of the 6th instant is evidently the production of a bitter enemy to the honor and independence of the United States. No American can be the author, it is the work of some imported felon …

  “From the beginning of the present war down to this time, the conduct of our executive has been a series of ill offices toward France …”

  Scotland take back thy gallows son,

  And let the halter have its own;

  On prior right, Bache can’t refuse

  His lying cat’rer to the noose—

  TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 1798

  GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER

  [T]he French decree of January 1798 is not particularly intended to incommode and injure America … It is a great infraction of our neutral rights, [but] so were the British detentions of neutral vessels …

  Mr. Fenno can neither be reasoned nor ridiculed out of his practice of scolding at the French republic. In this he undoubtedly acts by orders of his superiors, and therefore the less blame can rest on him.

  John Fenno and his Gazette of the United States are predictable. Peter Porcupine (William Cobbett) and his Porcupine’s Gazette are wild! George Washington thinks Peter Porcupine “not a bad thing.”167 The Adamses seem to adore him.168 Today, Abigail Adams writes her sister,

  Peter says many good things, and he is the only thorn in Bache’s side. He [Bache] is really afraid to encounter him …169

  WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14, 1798

  GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER

  John Fenno, in his paper of Monday attacks a paragraph in the Aurora of the 6th … which begins in these words:

  “From the beginning of the present war down to this time, the conduct of our executive has been a series of ill offices towards France.” … Yet John … says that this must have been the work of some imported felon and … alludes to some gallows son of Scotland.

  This Scot [Jimmy Callender) is paid a very high compliment … The truth is that this editor [John Fenno] has of late been detected in a multitude of fibs … He is therefore an object rather of pity than resentment and is personally of too little consequence to occupy much room in the Aurora.

  Tonight, the Gazette of the United States broadens its attack on scribblers who have fled the British monarch:

  Burk, the “Wild Irishman,” is employed … writing sedition.—Callender, a Scotch vagrant, has written a libel on General Washington.—It seems then our revolution has not secured us from the importation of Foreign Convicts who abuse our Government [and] traduce our worthies …

  “Burk” is John Daly Burk, a twenty-two-year-old Irish scribbler who, like me, escaped the British sedition act by fleeing to America. Burk’s crime was trying to stir up fellow students at Dublin’s Trinity College to prevent British soldiers from executing an Irish detainee. The British soldiers chased Burk into a Dublin bookshop, where he charmed a Miss Daly, escaped with her clothing as a disguise, and adopted “Daly” as his middle name to express eternal gratitude. John Daly Burk fled to America, arrived some eighteen months ago, acquired a new wife, Christiana, and is working as a scribbler for Republican journals in New York.170

  THURSDAY, MARCH 15, 1798

  GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER

  An OX was paraded thro’ our streets yesterday [the Wednesday market day], weighing about 2000 lb. gross weight. The beef will be exposed to sale on Saturday [the next market day] by Jacob Lounslaer, No 48 in the Market. This ox was raised in Jersey by John Pissant, on the Farm of Jno. Lardner, Esq.

  On market days, animals file and obstruct passage between the Philadelphia Aurora’s entryway and the covered country marketplace in the center lane of High-street. It’s a problem.

  Today, President Adams works on a speech he will deliver on Monday to a joint session of the Congress. His first instincts are to declare war. From one draft:

  [The actions of France] demand an immediate Declaration that all the Treaties and Conventions between the United States and France are null … and, in my opinion, they demand on the part of Congress an immediate Declaration of War against France.

  From another:

  To me there appears no alternative between actual hostilities and national ruin. The former, no American will hesitate to prefer: and all Men will think it more honourable and glorious to the national Character, when its existence as an independent nation is at Stake, that Hostilities should be avowed in a formal Declaration of War.171

  Adams’ final draft won’t include these requests. The President’s Lady Abigail Adams observes:

  [K]nowing what he thinks ought to be done, yet not certain whether the people are sufficiently determined to second the Government is a situation very painfull …172

  FRIDAY, MARCH 16, 1798

  GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER

  When JOHN Q. ADAMS, the son of the President, was taken from the Hague and sent to Berlin on a new appointment with a new outfit [stipend], we suggested that he would be made to perform the circuit thro’ the Northern Courts of Europe with a new outfit at each removal, as such business would be found more profitable than any he could follow at home and as it was the duty of every father to provide handsomely for his son, especially when i
t can be done at public expense. Our hint has been taken, and JOHN Q. ADAMS has been appointed for Stockholm … an appointment so repugnant to every idea of propriety …

  Tonight, in John Fenno’s Gazette of the United States:

  A more infamous attempt to deceive the public was never made than was made in Bache’s Aurora of this morning—The story … is a falsehood from beginning to end … Mr. Adams is appointed a commissioner for the particular purpose of renewing with Sweden a very valuable commercial treaty which is about expiring—He has no salary or pay annexed to his appointment—It is not probable he will leave Berlin to transact the business but will renew the treaty with the Swedish minister at Berlin.

  A MEMBER OF THE SENATE

  [W]hen J. Q. Adams was appointed to Berlin, he had not a new outfit other than a small sum … Mr. Bache very well knows an outfit to a minister is generally understood to be one year’s salary, and the law of the United States sanctions such an outfit—this was not given, and Mr. Bache knows the fact.

  JUNIUS

  SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 1798

  GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER

  Two of Mr. Fenno’s correspondents in last evening’s paper attempt to controvert the statement which appeared in our last, respecting the new appointment which JOHN Q. ADAMS has received to the Court of Sweden. One … a member of the Senate … proceeds to say “that it is probable he will renew the treaty with the Swedish minister at Berlin” … [I]t cannot be believed, upon the Senator’s anonymous assertion, that Mr. Adams is to have no pay or salary; nor is it probable that he will transact our affairs with the Court of Sweden at Berlin.

  Citizen Fenno, in last Wednesday night’s paper, says that “Burk, the wild Irishman, is employed … writing Sedition. Callender, a Scotch vagrant, has written a libel on General Washington.” What can ail the six per cent [federal debt interest] people at Irishmen? Their own Grand Lama, the truly illustrious Alexander Hamilton, as far as his maternal descent can be traced, was the son of an IRISH CAMP GIRL … Reflections upon a whole people in the mass are … stupid … The people of New England are [themselves] sprung from a set of dissenters whom the Government of England had proscribed as either rebels or nothing better.

  Federalists, especially New England Federalists like Boston-born John Fenno and influential congressman Harrison Gray Otis of Boston, are very hard on the Irish. Many Irish refugees from the British monarch (especially Irish Catholics) avoid Federalist (and Congregationalist) New England to settle farther south in states like Pennsylvania and Maryland. Last July, Bostonian Otis stood up on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives and proclaimed that America should no longer, in his words,

  wish to invite hordes of Wild Irishmen, nor the turbulent and disorderly of all parts of the world, to come here with a view to disturb our tranquillity, after having succeeded in the overthrow of their own Governments.173

  This “Wild Irish” speech achieved great circulation and approval among the Federalists.174

  With Federalists so anti-Irish and the Irish so anti-British, it is hardly surprising that Irish scribblers like John Daly Burk and me lend our pens to the Republican cause. Others are Matthew Lyon, the Vermont congressman and newspaper publisher of “spitting” fame, and Mathew Carey, a Philadelphia newspaper and magazine publisher who worked for Ben Franklin in Paris, gave Jimmy Callender one of his first jobs in Philadelphia,175 serves as secretary for the Hibernian Society for the relief of Irish Emigrants,176 and runs a bookshop and publishing firm only two doors from the Aurora at 118 High.177

  Two Irish scribblers whom the British imprisoned are Dr. James Reynolds178 and Thomas “Newgate” Lloyd. Jimmy Reynolds now practices medicine in Philadelphia, volunteers it at the Philadelphia Dispensary,179 leads Philadelphia’s Society of United Irishmen,180 and writes occasionally for the Philadelphia Aurora.181 “Newgate” Lloyd befriended me in London, paid for my family and me to travel with him to America, and co-edited a newspaper with me when we first arrived.182 “Newgate” (nicknamed for the British prison where he was incarcerated) and I are good friends.

  Today, the Philadelphia Aurora receives a “Letter to the Editor” from Mrs. Abigail Adams, wife of the President of the United States:

  Sir Taking up your paper yesterday morning, I was shocked at the misrepresentation a writer in your paper has given the nomination and appointment of J. Q. Adams … I could not reflect upon the different feelings which must actuate your mind and [those of J. Q. Adams,] the writer of the following paragraph, written last October …

  “As for Mr. Bache, he was once my schoolmate; one of the companions of those infant years when the Heart should be open to strong and deep impressions of attachment … Mr. Bache must have lost those feelings …”

  Mr. Bache is left to his own reflections. This communication is only to his own Heart, being confident that the writer [J. Q. Adams] never expected it would meet his Eye.

  [Mrs. Abigail Adams]183

  Benny won’t answer (let alone publish) this letter. How could Abigail Adams refer to Benny’s school years with John Quincy? How could she mention 1778? The only reason J.Q. and Benny were schoolmates at Le Coeur’s boarding school was that J.Q.’s father and Benny’s grandfather were diplomats together in Paris. As Poor Richard said,

  Let our Fathers and Grandfathers be valued for

  their Goodness, ourselves for our own.184

  Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette, William Cobbett attacks Benny Bache (as well as Turks, Jews, &C):

  Nobody, or, at least, nobody worth notice ever believes [BACHE]; and to contradict him seems to imply that he is sometimes a credible person which is admitting what never ought, even for argument’s sake, to be admitted. He knows that all the world knows and says he is a liar; a fallen wretch, a vessel formed for reprobation; and, therefore, we should always treat him as we would a TURK, a JEW, a JACOBIN, or a DOG.

  MONDAY, MARCH 19, 1798

  GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER

  The pith of the objection to the appointment [of J. Q. Adams] is … that it is heaping honor and profit with a partial hand upon a young man who has never done anything for this Country except writing Publicola …

  “Publicola” is the pseudonym John Quincy Adams used seven years ago in anonymous letters that Benny published in the mistaken belief that J.Q.’s father, John Adams, had authored them. “Publicola” responded to Benny’s publication (first American edition) of Tom Paine’s Rights of Man, a work that praised the French Revolution as a progressive and democratic solution to the inherent failings of monarchy. In attacking Paine’s work, “Publicola” argued that the disruptive behavior of the French Revolution demonstrated the dangers of pure democracy and that Britain’s mixed form of government with its strong executive (the king) and upper legislative chamber (the propertied, hereditary, and titled House of Lords) imposed important checks on the dangers of pure democracy which threaten from such “lower” people’s chambers as the British House of Commons or the American House of Representatives.185

  Benny Bache sees the Adamses as monarchists. During John Adams’ campaign for President, the Aurora recalled that, as a lawyer, Adams defended and acquitted the British soldiers who committed the Boston Massacre,186 describing Adams as “the friend of monarchic and aristocratic government.”187 Adams, the paper said, was

  one who has no faith, no confidence in representative or elective government, who believes, with the jealous enemies of our Constitution abroad, that a Monarchical Constitution is not only better than a Federal Constitution, but that a mixed Monarchy is the “best of all possible governments.”188

  Specifically, the Aurora charged,

  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.189

  To prove its point, the Au
rora demonstrated that “MR. ADAMS has written in favor of monarchy,”190 quoting his historical treatises on government:

  I. “The Lacedemonian Republic … had the three essential parts of the best possible government; it was a mixture of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy.”191

  II. “Instead of projects [in Britain] to abolish the kings and lords, if the House of Commons had been attended to … [there would not] have remained an imperfection perhaps in the English constitution.”192

  III. “First magistrates and senators had better be made hereditary at once [rather] than that the people be universally debauched and bribed, go to loggerheads, and fly to arms every year.”193

  Most embarrassingly, the Aurora recalled and ridiculed Adams’ attire at the opening sessions of the U.S. Senate in the autumn of 1789,

  a sword at his side, his hat under his arm, his wig frizzed a la mode de noblesse, and his coat buttoned down to his waistband.

  The Aurora remembered that, at those opening sessions, Adams advocated titles of nobility for government officials, prompting one unmannered senator to propose a title for Adams himself: “We will dub him his rotundity by g—–d.”194 The Aurora’s article might remind us of Poor Richard’s saying,

  Poverty, poetry, and new Titles of Honour,

  make Men ridiculous.195

  Today, the monarchist is President, and, today, he delivers his address to a joint session of the Congress of these United States. The Journals of Congress report: