American Aurora Read online

  A number of persons having enrolled themselves for the purpose of forming a complete company of infantry, or artillery, as a majority deem most beneficial, invite their brethren of the Northern Liberties to follow their example … Information will be given to Mr. Samuel Gano, at the sign of the President of the United States, in Second-street, below the Court House.

  SUNDAY, APRIL 1, 1798

  Today, alarmed by the Federalist effort to organize their own private army (the Macpherson’s Blues) and to arm “young men” against “perfidious friends … at home,” Dr. George Logan meets with other Republican leaders in Germantown, outside Philadelphia.237

  MONDAY, APRIL 2, 1798

  GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER

  Mr. Adams … was careful in his extraordinary speech [of last May 16th] to make use of such indecent and provoking language to a [French] nation … as would banish every prospect of an immediate settlement. The French nation, in order to make [Adams] appear perfectly ridiculous, have taken no notice either of him or his Commissioners [envoys] but have left him to put his great swelling words into execution.

  Today, in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Annals of Congress report:

  RELATIONS WITH FRANCE

  Mr. VARNUM [Federalist, Massachusetts] presented a petition from the inhabitants of Milton, in Massachusetts, stating their alarm at the idea of the peace of the United States being placed in the hands of … the masters of merchant vessels, many of whom were formerly British subjects and … retain all their English prejudices against the French and may exert them in a manner which leads to war …

  Mr. ALLEN [Federalist, Connecticut] called up for decision the resolution for certain papers [the Paris dispatches] from the President of the United States …

  The question was taken, and decided in the affirmative—yeas 65, nays 27 …238

  Today, James Madison writes Thomas Jefferson,

  The President’s message is only a further development to the public of the violent passions & heretical politics which have been long privately known to govern [John Adams]. It is to be hoped however the House of Representatives will not hastily echo them … Congress ought clearly to prohibit arming, & the President ought to be brought to declare on what ground he undertook to grant an indirect license to arm …239

  Today, in Philadelphia, Polish author and poet Julien Niemcewicz notes in his diary:

  The Barbary treaty [bribing the Barbary pirates to cease their attacks on American vessels] cost the United States 9 million doll[ars] … It is the journalist Beach [Bache] who has made public disclosure of this. This is one of the advantages of the freedom of the press: the government does not commit a fault but it is immediately criticized and denounced in the terrible tribunal of public opinion. Of all the means of enlightening a nation, that of public newspapers seems to me the best and the most easily accomplished.240

  Julien Niemcewicz came to America last August with a Polish hero of the American Revolution, General Tadeusz Kosciuszko. Like Irishmen and Scotchmen, Poles flee despotism in their homeland to find freedom in America.

  Kosciuszko fought without pay in America’s revolution, returning to fight for Poland’s independence from czarist Russia. Kosciuszko was captured, as was his adjutant, Niemcewicz, in 1794, released two years later by Russian Czar Paul I, and allowed to leave Poland in 1796, traveling first to Sweden and then to the United States.

  Kosciuszko and Niemcewicz are settled in Philadelphia, where Niemcewicz makes note of America’s interesting people and places. He has authored two travel books in Europe.241

  Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:

  You [Republicans] say the Tories have for many years been anxious to destroy the friendship between France and the United States … mentioning WASHINGTON and ADAMS … You say, Mr. ADAMS was tainted with the glare and pomp of [the British Royal Court of] St. James [when he was the American ambassador there] … Why was he not tainted with the much greater glare of the court of Versailles [in France]? We see him there with his excellent colleague Mr. JAY [during the American Revolution], baffling the intrigues of the [French Foreign Minister] Count de Vergennes and the more dangerous opposition of Dr. [Benjamin] Franklin until, by their firmness alone, we obtained the acknowledgment of our independence …

  MARCUS

  TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 1798

  GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER

  The Tory newspapers of New England are crowded with invectives … against the late meeting in Roxbury to prevent the arming of merchantmen. They have met, however, with a spirited reception … The Resolutions of the freemen of Milton …

  A hand bill has been circulated in the city recommending to the citizens immediately to arm themselves to crush their domestic foes. As we understand that this paper will probably be an object of legal prosecution, it is perhaps improper to say, in this place, any more concerning it.

  Today, in Congress, the Annals report:

  A Message was announced from the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES …

  Gentlemen of the Senate, and Gentlemen of the House of Representatives

  In compliance with the request of the House of Representatives, expressed in their resolution of the 2nd of this month, I transmit to both Houses the instructions to and despatches from the Envoys Extraordinary of the United States to the French Republic which were mentioned in my Message of March 19th last, omitting only some names …

  UNITED STATES, April 3, 1798.

  JOHN ADAMS

  The above Message having been read, the galleries and House were cleared of strangers, and the House was occupied in reading the papers accompanying until past 3 o’clock, when they adjourned, without making any order respecting them.242

  WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4, 1798

  GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER

  A short view of the Question, whether it is advisable for the United States to enter into a war with France.

  [T]he advocates for a war with France [say] … that our national honor hath been insulted … Those who speak … seem to forget that the existence of the United States as a nation is but of yesterday … Our late contest [the War of Independence] with Great Britain might have made us remember our imbecility and inaptitude for war. Defenceless on every side, the enemy changed the point of attack at every moment, and everywhere found us vulnerable and weak. The alliance of France … saved us from perdition. Have we forgot the portentous year when one half the United States was overrun by our enemy, when we were almost without an army, and that army [was] without money to subsist it? Have we forgotten the mission … to France, the object of the mission [being] the deplorable and just picture … to present [to France] of our distress, the relief we obtained, and its consequences? If we have not [forgotten], must we not be astonished that there are men among us who would hurry us into war with that very power whose succour alone saved us from perdition? And for what is such a state of danger to be hazarded? Truly, to compel France to receive our ambassadors!! …

  JOHN FENNO has long been in the habit of harping upon the immense sums received by the Editor of the Aurora from the French Directory. His evidence of the fact we should be very glad to hear; and also what sums he himself gets from land jobbers, lottery ticket mongers, and British agents.

  Report has been busy for these few days past in decyphering the dispatches lately received from our commissioners … They are said to contain information that the French had taken great exception at some of the speeches of our administration … as evidencing too much of a partiality for Britain … The dispatches are further said to contain overtures, on the part of some unacknowledged agents of the French, for money for themselves to smooth the way to reconciliation … We are … unable to state the contents of the dispatches except from report.

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

  Bache, in the Aurora of this morning, has from report given to the public the contents of the dispatches from our commissioners which were yesterday laid before the tw
o houses of Congress by the President as a confidential communication. Whether Mr. Bache received this information from report as he states or whether through the channel of some confidential friend, we shall probably be able to decide when those dispatches shall receive an official publication …

  The chance of truth in the Aurora was always bad, but its editor has recently taken into employ some assistants which afford it no chance at all …

  DEMOCRATS ALL IN AN UPROAR.

  So alarmed are they at the proposal of some of the Young Men of the Northern Liberties [District of Philadelphia] associating, training themselves in the military exercise for the express purpose of supporting government that Doctor [George] L.[ogan] … went off to the Governor to endeavor to prevail on him to issue a proclamation to prevent the youth from holding such unprofitable associations …

  THURSDAY, APRIL 5, 1798

  GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER

  The Federal House of Representatives were yesterday debating, within closed doors, the propriety of publishing the papers received the day before from the President. There was no decision.

  Today, the Senate votes to publish 500 copies of the dispatches.243

  Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette:

  TO THE AMERICAN YOUTH …

  I can scarcely repress the indignation which rises in my bosom when I think of the manner we have been treated by France … Let us be united in assisting our government to obtain satisfaction for the insults … and evince to the world that … we possess the means … to punish the internal and external foes of our honour, freedom, and independence. J.

  FRIDAY, APRIL 6, 1798

  GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER

  The senate have resolved to publish the communication [of the dispatches] received from the president … This vote had a majority of two …

  Tonight, in the Gazette of the United States:

  Why, what sort of a man must this B. F. Bache be? His grand daddy was a dealer in almanacs, if I don’t mistake …

  PLOUGHSHARE

  THEATRE

  A very crowded and splendid theatre assembled last evening … A general clamour was made for the PRESIDENT’S MARCH. When the tune was played, the uproar and applause from all quarters of the house were so general, so loud, and so incessant that very little of the tune was heard. Thus as our affections are withdrawn from foreign influence, the warmth of the public love and gratitude for our own worthy and real benefactors will return with redoubled vigour.

  Tonight, in the Porcupine’s Gazette, Peter Porcupine advertises a book he has co-published:

  JUST PUBLISHED BY T. DOBSON & W. COBBETT

  “PROOFS OF A CONSPIRACY AGAINST ALL Religions And Governments OF EUROPE CARRIED ON IN THE SECRET MEETINGS OF FREE MASONS, ILLUMINATI, AND READING SOCIETIES.”

  COLLECTED FROM GOOD AUTHORITIES,

  BY JOHN ROBISON, A.M. Professor of Natural Philosophy, and Secretary to the Royal Society of Edinburgh … Price One Dollar and Three Quarters in boards, and Two Dollars neatly bound and lettered. The design of the work is to exhibit to the public the dangerous machinations which, for many years, have been carried on … for debauching the morals of the people and subverting their respect for religion to pave the way for overturning the governments of Europe in order that, in the state of anarchy which should succeed, the leaders of these secret cabals might seize on the property and destroy the persons of their more opulent neighbors …

  With this view, their emissaries have spread far and wide over Germany, France, England and America … and the Revolution in France, … under the direction of those very individuals who are leaders of the order, mark with distinguishing energy its peculiar features.

  SATURDAY, APRIL 7, 1798

  GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER

  Dispatches from the Envoys.

  Until we are able to publish them in detail, we offer the following as a correct outline of their content … The Envoys had no regular intercourse with the French government … [T]hey were told that it would be necessary to … deposit … the sum of $pD50,000 sterling for … (French Foreign Minister] Talleyrand … [and] some members of the directory … The irritation occasioned by the President’s speech [of last May 16th] was repeated … Mr. Talleyrand himself wrote some proposals … that the United States should lend a sum of money to France …

  Remarks on the above.

  We think it will appear from the above statement of facts that the negotiation ought not be considered as at an end … [I]f there was proof of the directory being concerned in the swindling of our commissioners (of which there is none) … it must leave opinion where it was;— That Mr. Talleyrand is notoriously anti-republican; that he was the intimate friend of Mr. Hamilton … and other great Federalists, and that it is probably owing to the determined hostility which he discovered in them towards France that the Government of that country consider us only as objects of plunder …

  Today, Abigail Adams writes her sister,

  The Senate on Thursday voted to have the dispatches from our Envoys made publick … [T]he President forbore to communicate them … But such lies and falsehoods were continually circulated and incendiary Letters sent to the house addrest to him that I have been allarmed for his Personal Safety, tho I have never before expressed it. With this temper in a city like this, materials for a mob might be brought together in 10 minuts. When the Language in Baches paper has been of the most insolent and abusive kind … and a call upon the people to Humble themselves before their Maker treated with such open contempt and Ridicule, had I not cause for allarm?244

  MONDAY, APRIL 9, 1798

  GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER

  The bulk of the dispatches relate to informal conferences held by unofficial agents of the department of foreign affairs with our commissioners in which the sum of $pD50,000 sterling was asked for as douceurs [bribes] to insure a reception …

  Curiosity next seeks … whether these persons were agents of [French Foreign Minister] Talleyrand; and, if they were, whether they were authorized by Talleyrand to demand the $pD50,000 [bribe] …

  It will be remembered that, not long since it was said in this paper that, in the office of the [U.S.] Secretary of State, money had been taken for passports which ought to have been given gratis. Mr. Pickering was very angry at being implicated and shewed that one of his clerks improperly took the money. Does not that case resemble the present one; and will not Talleyrand and the Directory be justifiable in shewing some resentment for having been suspected for the mis-doings of their inferior agents?245

  War measures … Today, U.S. Secretary of War James McHenry writes the House Committee for the Protection of the Commerce, &c.:

  War Department, April 9, 1798 …

  France … prepares us for the last degree of humiliation and subjection. To forebear … from undertaking naval and military measures … would be to offer up the United States a certain prey to France …

  The measures which appear indispensably necessary for Congress to take are as follows:

  1st. An increase of the naval force … 2nd. An augmentation of the present military establishment. 3rd. Arrangements which in case of emergency will give the President … a further and efficacious military force. 4th. The more complete defence of our principal ports by fortifications. 5th. A supply of ordinance, small arms, powder, salt petre, copper, and military stores. 6th. Additional Revenue …

  JAMES McHENRY246

  Today, U.S. Secretary of State Timothy Pickering writes Federalist party leader Alexander Hamilton,

  You will readily imagine what apologies our internal enemies make for the French Government. Jefferson says that the Directory are not implicated in the villainy and corruption displayed in these dispatches—or at least that these offer no proof against them. Bache’s paper of last Saturday says “That M. Talleyrand is notoriously anti republican; that he was the intimate friend of Mr. Hamilton … and other great Federalists, and that it is probably owing to the determined hostility which he d
iscovered in them towards France that the Government of that country consider us only as objects of plunder.”247

  TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 1798

  GENERAL * AURORA * ADVERTISER

  DISPATCHES

  From our Envoys Extraordinary to France,

  ordered to be published by the Senate …

  [Excerpts] (No. 1)

  PARIS, October 22, 1797

  Dear Sir: ALL of us having arrived in Paris on the evening of the 4th instant … In the evening of [October the 18th], Mr. X called, and … whispered … that he had a message from M. Talleyrand … that the Directory … were exceedingly irritated at some passages of the President’s [May 16th] Speech and desired that they should be softened, and that this step would be necessary previous to our reception. That, besides this, a sum of money was required for the pocket of the Directory and Ministers, which would be at the disposal of Mr. Talleyrand; and that a loan [to France] would be insisted on … On inquiry Mr. X … mentioned that the douceur [bribe] for the pocket was twelve thousand livres, about fifty thousand pounds sterling …

  October the 21st, Mr. X came before nine o’clock; Mr. Y did not come until ten: he had passed the morning with Mr. Talleyrand … [H]e proceeded to state … the measure would be an advance by us to France of thirty-two millions [Dutch florins] … We asked him whether the fifty thousand pounds sterling, as a douceur to the Directory, must be in addition to this sum. He answered in the affirmative …

  (No. 2) October 27th, 1797

  About twelve we received another visit from Mr. X … He told us that we [the United States] had paid money to obtain peace with the Algerines [the Barbary pirates] and with the Indians; and that it was doing no more to pay France for peace … He said that France had lent us money during our revolution war and only required that we should now exhibit the same friendship … He said he would communicate as nearly as he could our conversation to the Minister or to Mr. Z …