Complete Works. Hamilton Alexander
of the eighteenth century, Hamilton wrote under various pseudonyms, and these include the well-known James Montague, Phocion Continentalist Pericles, An American Citizen, A Plain Honest Many Pacificus, Tully, No Jacobin, Americanus, Horatius, Civis, Titus Manlius, Observer, Anti-Defamer Cato and Publius, the last having been made use of in the production of The Federalist. With Rufus King he adopted Camillus in writing in defence of Jay's treaty with Great Britain and many other matters. King is said to have written eight of this series. The first important communication of Hamilton was the well-known letter to Robert Morris in regard to the establishment of a national bank, which his modesty forbade him signing. This was in 1780,' at the time he was attached to Washington's staff, and but twenty-three years of age, and probably marked the first exhibition of his pent-up desires to identify himself with national affairs. The history of the subsequent action of Morris, who availed himself of Hamilton's suggestions, is too well known to need more than passing reference, but he promptly suggested the latter for the Treasury. Previous to this, as early as 1774, he wrote his remarkable pamphlet entitled "The Full Vindication," which was an answer to the "Westchester Farmer." The writer of the latter, who was believed to be Bishop Samuel Seabury, had indulged in offensive criticism of the Continental Congress. Upon the title-page of Hamilton's paper, which was printed by James Rivington, the printer and bookseller, who in later years became one of his clients, appears the motto, "Veritas magna est et prevalebit," and the sub-title "Sophistry is Exposed, his Cavils confuted, his Artifice detected, and his Wit is ridiculed," is appended. A reply to Hamilton appeared later, and the second answer prepared by him and entitled, "The Farmer Refuted," was still more drastic and convincing. As Lodge says: "These two productions in patriotic interest excited much attention were widely read, and were attributed by Dr. Myles Cooper, the President of King's College, to Jay. Few suspected that they would prove to be the work of a college boy, and all were amazed when the true author was known. These two pamphlets are the first important efforts of Hamilton's pen. They are, however, little short of wonderful when we remember they are the work of a boy not yet eighteen years old." He was ever a contributor to the newspapers and periodicals, among them the United States Gazette edited by his friend John Fenno, who had come from Boston. Even before this he had written an article for Holt's Gazette in defence of the destruction of tea in 1774. According to Hudson, the United States Gazette was started in New York, its original name being The Gazette of the United States, and it was first issued in New York, which was then the seat of the National Government, but afterward was transferred to Philadelphia when it became the capital, in 1790. It was always the organ of the Federalists and never lost an occasion to attack the Jacobins, as the Democratic sympathizers with the French Revolutionists were called. For this reason it was opposed to the Aurora and the Daily Advertisery edited by William Duane and Philip Freneau, which were the organs of Jefferson and his friends. Fenno died of yellow fever in 1798, and his son George Ward Fenno succeeded him, conducting the paper until it ceased to exist in 1820/ These papers conveyed to the Jays, Kings, Churches, and other Americans abroad the only information regarding the progress of events in their native country. Not only was such news delayed many months, on account of the slow progress of packets, but all manner of interruptions, which are strangely in contrast to the news gathering in the twentieth century, are evident in the New York newspapers of the day. The presses were even often stopped to publish fresh material that had come by stage-coach two days later than that printed by their contemporaries.
Angelica Church wrote to her sister from Lrondon, June the 4th, 1793:
My dear Eliza: I am returned from our ambassadors very much edifyed by reading Fenno's paper, for it speaks of my Brother, as he deserves, and as I and all who dare to know him think.
We are going to our country house. Mrs. Pinckney passes the week with me, and whilst we admire the taste and elegance of Great Britain, we shall still more regret the society, the pleasures, and friendships of America. Ah my dear Sister after all, nothing repays us for a separation from those we have been long attached to. Mr. and Mrs. Bache are to be at Mr. Morris's Villa, which is not far from Down Place. I shall visite her to see it; but request of her to tell you what she has seen, but as she does not like chit chat it will be difEcult to prevail on her. They are soon to return to America. Why am I not to be of the party I It is an age since we arrived, and if I had not seen Mr. Fenno's paper my impatience would have been extreme. Adieu my dear Betsy.
And again on June 5, 1793.
My dear: The packet is arrived, and you are well, this is however not all I wish to know; but it is a great pleasure yet relief to get a letter from you; my love to Alexander the good, and the amiable. Shall I tell you a secret? I have more and better hopes within these days than ever of crossing the Atlantic.
Philip Freneau was an exceedingly cultivated man, and an early American poet of some ability, and the Daily Advertisery which he edited, had a long and apparently prosperous career. Freneau was bom in 1752, and was graduated from Princeton in 1771. It is said that he lost his life in 1832 from exposure, having gone astray in a bog-meadow on returning home from Freehold, New Jersey. His attacks upon the Federalists were mild in comparison with those that he subsequently published in the National Gazette. This journal was established October 31, 1791, and was bitter in its abuse of and opposition to Hamilton and the others. Freneau was clever and witty, and did so much to please Jefferson that the latter made him a salaried interpreter in the State Department, which led to much scandal at the time. The new sheet contained numerous scurrilous articles, some of them attacking Hamilton who was then Secretary of the Treasury, and in Fenno's paper, over the signature of "The American," the latter charged Jefferson with the part he had played in providing Freneau with the sinews of war, and extending to him his patronage. Jefferson's explanation was extremely lame. He acknowledged that "he had heard with pleasure of the publication which promised to administer an antidote to the aristocratical and monarchical doses lately given by the unknown writer of the 'Discourses on Davila' and which also would probably reproduce, at his request, certain extracts from the Leyden Gazette concerning French politics. Subscriptions he admitted to have solicited from a charitable desire to aid his clerk, whom he thought to be a man of good parts. He protested in the presence of heaven that he had made no effort to control the conduct or sentiments of the paper."
In Philadelphia, journalistic controversies were most disorderly, especially when a certain amount of public sympathy was extended to the representatives of the French Republic. It is quite conceivable how Hamilton must have raged internally against the blackguardly abuse of the Aurora and the daily attacks of Bache; but although public opinion of the right kind was finally aroused, Hamilton appears to have, meanwhile, kept silent. So inexcusable were the attacks of the anti-Federalistic journals that the editors were constantly in trouble with the authorities. Even when Washington retired to Mount Vernon the abuse was so disgraceful that a company of veterans known as the Spring Garden Butchers, who had fought directly under the latter in the war, went to the office of the Aurora and looted and demolished the premises. On the 9th of May, 1798, the intolerance of the sane public made itself especially manifest in a demonstration of violence. This day had been appointed as one of fasting and prayer, and the attitude of those who openly fraternized with the French representatives, and who were obsessed with the unhealthy doctrines of the republic, could no longer be tolerated. Declarations were made against the "Jacobins, philosophers, freemasons, and the illuminati," and a political riot marked the limit of patriot endurance. The office of the Aurora was again attacked, where Bache had intrenched himself with a number of friends, who were armed to the teeth. After doing what damage they could, the rioters—many among them being Federalists— broke the windows and plastered the statue of Franklin, who was Bache's uncle, with mud. After Bache's death, from yellow fever, the paper was edited by William Duane, a still more vehement partisan of the Jacobins. In November, 1799, Hamilton was the plaintiff in a libel case against a New York newspaper called the Argus. In its issue of October 6 appears the following excerpt from the Philadelphia publication:
An effort has been recently made to suppress the Aurora, and Alexander Hamilton was at the bottom of it. Mrs. Bache was offered $6,000 down in presence of several persons in part payment, the valuation to be left to two impartial persons, and the remainder paid immediately on giving up the paper, but she pointedly refused it, and declared she would never dishonour her husband's memory, nor her children's