Page:Republican Court by Rufus Griswold.djvu/339

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DISCONTENT AND SEDITION.

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the bells of Christ church were rung, though it could not have been with Bishop White's consent. An address, prepared by citizens Dallas, Rittenhouse, Duponceau, and others, was read amid the acclamations of thousands. The minister was equally delighted and astonished at so fraternal a welcome; and when he read an approving history of all these proceedings in a journal edited by a confidential clerk of the Secretary of State, it was but natural that he anticipated only a slight opposition on the part of the government to the so evident wishes of the people.^[1]

On the same day, however, an address was presented to the President, signed by three hundred of the principal merchants and other men of substance and activity, residing in the city, declaring that nothing was necessary to the happiness of the people of the United States but a continuance of peace, that the highest sense was entertained of the wisdom and goodness which dictated his recent proclamation of neutrality, and that the signers would not

↑ In what degree Mr. Jefferson was responsible for the gross abuse of Washington in Freneau's National Gazette, and for the vulgar and insolent hostility of that journal to the policy and measures of Washington's administration, we are sufficiently informed by himself Freneau's paper continually denied to Washington both capacity and integrity, and three copies of every number were regularly sent to the Chief, who could not forbear speaking to Mr. Jefferson on this abusive conduct of his clerk, and requesting him, as a member of his cabinet, to administer to Freneau some rebuke. Mr. Jefferson tells us in his "Anas" what course he chose to pursue. At a cabinet council, he says, Washington remarked that "That rascal, Freneau, sent him three copies of his papers, every day, as if he thought he (Washington) would become the distributor of them; that he could see in this nothing but an impudent design to insult him: he ended in a high tone." Again, speaking of the President, Mr. Jefferson says, "He adverted to a piece in Freneau's paper of yesterday; he said he despised all their attacks on him personally, but that there had never been an act of the government, not meaning in the executive line only, but in any line, which that paper had not abused. He was evidently sore and warm, and I took his intention to be, that I should interpose in some way with Freneau, perhaps withdraw his appointment of translating clerk in my office. But I will not do it. His paper has saved our constitution, which was galloping fast into monarchy, and has been checked by no one means so powerfully as by that paper. It is well and universally known that it has been that paper which has checked the career of the monocrats," &c.

Freneau at this period appears to have been living in very good condition; and at his "seat, near the city," we read of his giving entertainments to large parties of democrats, at one of which were the officers of a regiment, the governor of the state, &c.

[1] In what degree Mr. Jefferson was responsible for the gross abuse of Washington in Freneau's National Gazette, and for the vulgar and insolent hostility of that journal to the policy and measures of Washington's administration, we are sufficiently informed by himself Freneau's paper continually denied to Washington both capacity and integrity, and three copies of every number were regularly sent to the Chief, who could not forbear speaking to Mr. Jefferson on this abusive conduct of his clerk, and requesting him, as a member of his cabinet, to administer to Freneau some rebuke. Mr. Jefferson tells us in his "Anas" what course he chose to pursue. At a cabinet council, he says, Washington remarked that "That rascal, Freneau, sent him three copies of his papers, every day, as if he thought he (Washington) would become the distributor of them; that he could see in this nothing but an impudent design to insult him: he ended in a high tone." Again, speaking of the President, Mr. Jefferson says, "He adverted to a piece in Freneau's paper of yesterday; he said he despised all their attacks on him personally, but that there had never been an act of the government, not meaning in the executive line only, but in any line, which that paper had not abused. He was evidently sore and warm, and I took his intention to be, that I should interpose in some way with Freneau, perhaps withdraw his appointment of translating clerk in my office. But I will not do it. His paper has saved our constitution, which was galloping fast into monarchy, and has been checked by no one means so powerfully as by that paper. It is well and universally known that it has been that paper which has checked the career of the monocrats," &c.

Freneau at this period appears to have been living in very good condition; and at his "seat, near the city," we read of his giving entertainments to large parties of democrats, at one of which were the officers of a regiment, the governor of the state, &c.

[1]