^.^^■J>smi'\.^—, ivf^i r K»^6^ ' %'- ,.1^^^'^' 1^^... ..w, ^^* f»*;i'.. 1 » -vi Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027484405 Cornell University Library PN 4691.G57 Newspapers and newspaper writers in New 3 1924 027 484 405 NEWSPAPERS AND NEWSPAPER WRITERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 1 787% 8 I 5. a Metcl). NEWSPAPERS AND NEWSPAPER WRITERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 1787-1815. Read before the New England Historic, Genealogical Society, Feb. 4, 1880. BY DELANO A. GODDARD. BOSTON : A. WILLIAMS & CO., 283 Washington Street. 1880. University Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. NEWSPAPERS AND NEWSPAPER-WRITERS IN NEW ENGLAND. On the morning of the 4th March, 1801, the " Colum- bian Centinel," then enjoying a pleasant distinction as " our leading journal," printed a stately epitaph on the death of the Federal Administration. YESTERDAY EXPIRED, deeply regretted by MILLIONS of grateful Americans, And by all Good Men, The FEDERAL ADMINISTRATION of the GOVERNMENT of the United States Animated by a WASHINGTON, an ADAMS, —a Hamilton, Knox, PiCKBKING, WOLOOTT, McHeNKY, MARSHALL, Stoddert, and Dexter, iEt. 12 years. Then followed, with similar ingenious display, a state- ment of the virtues, achievements, and unexampled trophies of the departed, set off by parallel passages of indignant judgment for the multitude who were at that moment exult- ing over its departure. Thomas Jefferson became President that day, and the great party which had given the nation a Constitution, and had nurtured it during its " mighty youth," now divided against itself and rejected by the people, went into an early and most unhappy decline. There is nothing more depressing — one might almost say nothing more tragic — in political history than the story of the rise and fall of the Federalist party, as it ap- pears in the newspapers from 1787 to 1815. Pure in its origin and motive, elevated, patriotic, honorable in all its purposes, with the name of Washington and his immortal example as its guide and beacon, sustained by the wealth, education, and social influence of the time, — men of books and men of affairs together sharing its counsels, — it nev- ertheless lost its hold upon public confidence almost at the moment of obtaining it, and ceased to exist while its prin- ciples were still full of life and power. The event for which the " Centinel" had clothed itself in sables marked the turning-point of the first political epoch under the Constitution. It was long doubtful whether Massachusetts would sustain the Constitution or not. The majority of the towns in Rhode Island rejected it with every mark of contempt and discredit. In New Hampshire there was a powerful minority against it ; as there was also in both the Carolinas. Virginia, though consenting at last, did so against the wishes of a large part of her people. Patrick Henry was a host against it, and many of the large planters were with him. The set- tlements in the backwoods and mountains were solid against it. New York, under the sway of George Clinton, offered a stalwart opposition. Pennsylvania, as in many a later struggle, stood loyally with Massachusetts. In this con- test, and in the election of the first Congress that followed it, the two parties took their places, and established their character as history and tradition represent them. The Federalists, under the lead of Washington, Hamilton, Mar- shall, and Jay, and for a time of Madison and the elder Adams, were in search of a safe, strong, and independent government. The energy and masterly power with which they asserted and expounded the principles of the Consti- tution earned for them the gratitude of all later genera- tions. The anti-federalists, encouraged by a deep popular distrust of central power, and stimulated by adroit leaders whom it is no longer the fashion to call by their right names, resisted with pertinacious zeal to the last. The newspapers, — crude, impulsive, discourteous to one another, and in great part badly written, — took sides for and against the Constitution, dropping all other issues. There were among them no trained journalists in the modern sense, and very few bold and strong intellects capable of dealing adequately with the large issues precipitated upon the young republic. Fenno's " Gazette," Bache's " Aurora," and a little later Philip Freneau's and Peter Porcupine's " Gazettes," were the best the seat of government had to offer, — and they were all bad enough. The Federalist journals, with their headlong and abusive spirit, bound up with their own petty interests, often magnifying the less at the expense of the greater, fighting over trifles and with one another while the citadel itself was in danger, were often the despair of the wise and prudent men who had the pub- lic destinies in their charge. The anti-federalist journals, equally infirm of temper, drew together, as their party became crystallized, a group of able outside writers, who, having done everything in their power to kill the Consti- tution at its birth, now with impertinent presumption assumed to be its god-fathers, and filled the country, then and afterwards, with idle tales of treason and conspiracy on the part of its real authors and most loyal defenders. The current affairs of the world were at that time ex- ceptionally turbulent. Our new institutions were shaken by the passions of the Old World to a degree that now 6 seems incredible. In spite of their recent great experi- ence, the people were far from self-reliant. Though nom- inally and actually free, the habit of dependence was not easily outgrown. Large classes of them lost their heads upon slight provocation. If they had been in the Paris barricades, they could not have been more unreasonable than they were over the insanities of the French Revolu- tion. Some of them hated it with mortal hatred : it was saluted by others as the final deliverance of liberty. The war between France and England created new complica- tions. The French faction was stricken with " statute madness." Citizen Genet, a bouncing Frenchman, full of conceit and absurdities of every kind, ran up and down the country, drunk with the adulation of multitudes of excited people, defying the Government, and doing his lit- tle utmost to precipitate another war with Great Britain. Tom Paine, base and insolent, his bad natural passions and " distorted imaginations inflamed by habitual drunken- ness," was conspicuous among the defamers of Washington, and among those most active in stirring up sedition among the people. It was Jefferson's invitation to Paine to re- visit this country as the guest of the nation, while his scurrillous libels on the character of Washington and his scoiBng assaults on the religious faith of the people were still freshly remembered, that deepened the disgust and quickened the wrath with which the Federalists regarded Jefferson's advent to power. Here in New England the French frenzy long raged without check. The extreme anti-federalists had civic feasts, processions, and nightly carousals in honor of every fresh excess of the Revolution. Nothing more absurd, nothing more foreign to all our Puritan traditions, or more deserving to be blotted out and forgotten, ever transpired on our soil. The adjust- ment of our commercial relations with England, under Jay's treaty, excited them to fresh outrages. There has been no folly of a political nature to compare with it since that time. To the Federalists, on the other hand, the French Revo- lution was odious. The varying phases of French power following in quick succession were equally odious. It made no difference to them whether Danton, or Robes- pierre, or the First Consul were at the fore, — in their eyes the result was equally an insult to the name of Lib- erty, and a flaunting outrage upon human nature. Still later, they looked upon the military progress of Bonaparte over the Eastern world as an unmitigated calamity ; and in spite of the slights and injuries Great Britain had in- flicted upon this country, their sympathies returned to her when she in her turn was threatened by this military monster, who recognized no law but his own will and no reason but his ambition. Time has vindicated the justice of the Federalist position in regard to Napoleon. It seems incredible that the United States should ever have drifted into an alliance with him, or ever have regarded such an egotist as a fit minister of any cause with which its in- terests and welfare were concerned. Domestic questions were at the same time exciting more intense and absorbing interest. The funding system, the alien and sedition laws, the Resolutions of '98, the embargo, the non-intercourse Acts, followed one another with great rapidity, and, with the frequent elections and the .^u- petual jealousies of the leaders with each other, kept the political current seething during the best part of that first generation. For many reasons the excitement in New England was at once most concentrated and most univer- sal. There were here a greater number of active and able men who took a deep interest in public affairs, and the newspapers, such as they were, were more widely read 8 than were those in the rest of the country, excepting possibly those at the seat of government in Philadelphia. The party leaders used them with great freedom, and the newspapers were proud to be recognized as their organs. The newspaper of that day was a very differ- ent commodity from that which is now spread before the country every hour of every day in the year. It was small, rusty in appearance, generally in some kind of a fight, and of course without the benefit of steamships^ telegraphs, lightning expresses, or any of the complicated agencies by which news is now collected and despatched instantaneously over the civilized world. The great event of the close of the last century, the»'death of Washing- ton, was unknown in Boston until eight days after its occurrence. The latest news from Philadelphia on the morning of the 1st January, 1800, was six days old, and from many of the towns in Massachusetts was hardly better. Two days after the exciting State election of the following year but sixty-two of the three hundred and ninety-eight incorporated towns in Massachusetts (then including Maine) had reported ; and it was a month later when the " Centinel " announced the full result. The news by sea came still more slowly. On the 15th March, 1800, there had been no news from Europe for eighty -three days, and it was not until a week later that a sailing-vessel, arriv- ing unexpectedly at New York, brought news to the middle or "December — more than three months earlier — of the election of Bonaparte as First Consul and the new Con- stitution of the French Republic. Many worthy people thought even this sleepy method was much too rapid. John Pickering, the uncle of Timothy, was made very- unhappy when, in 1796, the " Salem Gazette," which had been printed weekly till that time, began to appear twice a week. " It never had been printed but once a week," he said mournfully, "and that was often enough. It was nonsense to disturb the people's minds by sending newspapers among them twice a week to take their at- tention from the duties they had to perform ! " In those stirring debates the newspapers had, if not the most elevating, certainly a very important part. Of the journals of the Revolution, the "Boston Gazette," the " Massachusetts Spy," the " Salem Gazette," the " Connect- icut Courant," the " Newport Mercury," the " Independent Chronicle," and others to be mentioned hereafter, were still in existence ; but new journals, managed in a more ag- gressive spirit, soon took the lead, and kept it during this entire period. Of these the "Columbian Centinel" was the most conspicuous and the most influential. It was established in 1784. Benjamin Russell, its founder and editor for more than a generation, was then in his twenty- third year. For a time his paper was not one to be proud of. Its news was meagre, fragmentary, and ill-arranged; and its original matter was trivial, narrow, and provincial. Warden, his business partner, died in two years. The publishers already in the 'field were not cordial to the newcomer. But the " Centinel" matured rapidly. Shays' Rebellion, which it exposed and fought gallantly, intro- duced a broader spirit into its scanty columns, and pre- pared the way for the better service the journal was to do for the Constitution and the Federal party in later years. For the Constitution Russell labored without ceasing. In that noble service he knew neither rest nor sleep. Be- tween his office in State Street and the Green Dragon Tavern he gave the enemies of the Constitution no peace. In his paper he delighted in ingenious devices to attract attention and to excite interest in his cause. Pictures, such as the meagre furnishing of a New England printing- 10 office in those times could afford ; curious mechanical ar- rangements of type ; a reckless display of capitals, and extravagant allegories in prose and verse, — these were his constant resource when he had reached the end of his argument. He announced the meeting of the Con- vention of 1788 in verse, as follows : — Concentred heke the united wisdom sliines, Of learned jnc&ES and of sound divines ; Patriots wliose virtues searching times have tried, Hekoes who fought where bkothbk heroes died ; Lawyers who speak as Tullt spoke before, Sages deep read in philosophic lore ; Merchants whose plans are to no realm confined, Farmers, the noblest title of mankind ; Yeomen and tradesmen, pillars of the State, On whose decision hangs Columbia's fate. From that time, till the Constitution was ratified by the thirteen States, Mr. Russell and the " Centinel " devoted all their powers to its advocacy. He attended all the ses- sions of the Convention, and reported the debates in a shorthand of his own contrivance. He wrote vigorous and stimulating paragraphs for every number of his paper, and sustained the popular interest by songs and allegories, in the composition of which he took great satisfaction. On the 4th of March, 1789, — twelve years before the epitaph quoted in the beginning, — he celebrated what he vainly thought was the death and burial of anti-federalism, in an abusive account of the supposed funeral festivities. First came — The Demon of Rebellion, drawn in a flaming car by Ignoratfce, Knavery, and Idleness. Daniel Sh ys and John Franklin, armed with levellers in their right and halters in their left hands. Day, Shattuck, etc., their followers, two and two, each with caps and bells. Several ^^ great men" their abettors, in disguise. 11 Then came the Body, led by the Chief Physician, fol- lowed by the Chief mourner the Devil, and supported on either side by Injustice, Abuse, Prevarication, Knavery, Defamation, and Falsehood. The " Centinel " at this time, like the " Massachusetts Spy " and other Federalist journals, advocated the use of titles in connection with the higher offices of the State and Nation ; and the controversies growing out of it were often pitiful in their bitterness and triviality. Still, in spite of its limitations the " Centinel " was growing steadily in position and influence, and fought the earlier battles of its party with wonderful energy. Personalities of the most disgraceful kind abounded in all the political jour- nals, and in this respect the " Centinel " was neither worse nor better than the rest of them. But this abusive habit did not stand in the way of qual- ities much more respectable and worthy of high praise. In a turbulent time the " Centinel" was always on the side of law and order ; and while many powerful influences were working together to make this interesting experiment in popular government a failure, no thought or word of dis- loyalty ever employed its energies. In the excitement of the times Russell drew around him the most eminent Fed- eralist writers in America. Their contributions were al- ways written with fervor and ability, and helped towards the large influence he exercised at the close of the last and the beginning of the present century. Stephen Higginson, an intelligent and enterprising merchant, " as honest a man as ever lived," ^ began in the " Centinel " during the fol- lowing winter essays over the signature of " Laco," sharply 1 " ' Laco/ a writer in the newspapers of much celebrity in those days, was generally supposed to be Stephen Higginson, who was certainly as hon- est a man as ever lived, and one of my father's especial friends." — Memoir of Tkeophilus Parsons, Chief Justice, etc. By his son, Theophilus Parsons. Boston, 1859. 12 attacking Governor Hancock, and dealing with many public questions with pungency and spirit unknown before. Ames, Sullivan, Cabot, the younger Lowell, and others were frequent or occasional contributors. Russell gave great attention at the time to domestic and foreign news. His paper was an epitome of the current history of the world. " I pray you," said Fisher Ames, writ- ing from Congress to Christopher Gore in Boston, " send me sometimes pamphlets or papers to give me just ideas of European politics." The " Centinel " was especially emi- nent in its knowledge of the military movements of Bona- parte and the armies with which he was at war. When Talleyrand and the Due de Chartres (Louis Philippe) were exiles in Boston, they were Russell's most frequent visitors, and drew from his files materials for their inexhaustible con- versation. The future King of France was living, in 1798, according to the tradition, with a French tailor near the corner of Marshall and Union Streets, and was within a stone's throw of the " Centinel " office, then on the site of the " Traveller " building in State Street. I cannot follow the " Centinel " through the exciting controversies of the next fifteen years. It fought Jefferson and every measure of his administration with the same per- sistent energy with which it had sustained Washington and his policy. It was always in the thickest of the fight, and is responsible for no small share of the bad temper and bad manners with which the most serious public contro- versies were carried on. This could not last always ; as the " Centinel " and its tireless editor advanced in years, their influence declined ; and when Major Russell retired in 1828, there was little left of its original vigor and power. He had survived, however, the ephemeral animosities of a generation, and his younger contemporaries united in pay- ing him the most cordial and sympathetic respect. Nathan 13 Hale presided at a banquet in his honor, and expressed the sentiments of those who knew Major Russell best, in saying that he was to be honored for many things, but especially for his efforts in rearing the edifice of our national Consti- tution. " The pillars of this fabric," said Mr. Hale, " as they were slowly and laboriously reared, were delineated on the print of his newspaper ; and those who were en- gaged in this task were constantly aided, encouraged, and cheered by the agency of his indefatigable press. For forty years it was a most important agency in forming the public mind, diffusing knowledge and sound principles, cor- recting erroi's, promoting useful objects, advancing the wel- fare and securing the good order of society." Mr. Bucking- ham of the " Courier," Mr. Young of the " Palladium," Mr. Prentiss of the " Keene Sentinel," John Pierpont, the brothers Greene of the " Statesman " (Nathaniel and Charles), Mr. Clapp of the "Evening Gazette," Mr. Willis of the "Recorder," and many others, — some of them still living, — joined in this tribute to Major Russell, and in paying compliments to one another unheard of before. Major Russell was a man of great public spirit. He was in public employment of one kind or another to the end of his days, in 18J:5, when he had reached the age of eighty- four years. He was buried in the Old Granary ; and his memory remains as that of the most zealous, laborious, painstaking, often-mistaken, but always right-minded and patriotic journalist whose name lives in our annals. In 1830 the " Centinel " absorbed the " New England Pal- ladium," and in 1836 " Russell's Gazette," the successor of Edes's ; but the union could not sustain its declining vigor, and, in 1840, its identity was lost in the "Daily Adver- tiser," which now represents the traditions of these and several other widely different, and, in their days, powerful agencies of public influence. 14 Contemporary with the " Centinel," and at the opposite extreme on all the questions of the time, were two journals very different from each other, — the "Boston Gazette" and the " Independent Chronicle." The first " Boston Gazette " was founded in 1719, in Court Street, where the " Advertiser" building now stands. There also James Franklin had printed the " New England Courant " in 1721, with Benjamin Franklin as his apprentice. The house became in 1769 the office of Edes and Gill, publish- ers of the " Boston Gazette and Country Journal," which they had established a few years before (April, 1755). They moved across the street after the siege to the present site of the Adams Express Company, where the later plans of the Revolution were perfected and organized. Driven to Watertown during the seige, the untiring printers re- turned to the old site on the south side of Court Street and continued the warfare. The " Gazette " was the chief pillar of the patriot cause in Boston during the Revolution. But its glory departed with the uplifting and sustaining inspirations of that period. The great spirits who had gathered around and sustained its founder fell away one by one, — Otis, Quincy, Warren, John and Samuel Adams, — and with them departed much of the spirit of the patriot editor himself. In the contest over the Constitution he took the losing side, and managed it in so bitter and hostile a spirit as to alienate the respect of friends whom he could ill afford to lose. He tolerated Washington ; but Adams, Hamilton, Marshall, and other friends and companions he pursued with unsparing malice. The funding bill. Jay's treaty, indeed all the great salutary measures of the first twelve years under the Constitution, he ridiculed, satir- ized, and denounced with every variety of contemptuous ex- pression. Other journals in Court Street retorted in the same spirit. 15 "Press answers press ; retorting slander flies, And Court Street rivals Billingsgate in lies " — was the reputation it acquired in the street doggerel of the hour. The fire of youth and the inspiration of a good cause were needed to sustain a journal under such circum- stances ; and these the " Gazette " no longer had. It ex- pired, little lamented, in 1798. The venerable editor having appealed in vain for consideration, on account of the patriotic services of his youth and manhood, retired in his old age to his forlorn house in Temple Street, where. doing odd jobs of printing with a hand-press and the rem- nants of old fonts saved from the wreck of his fortunes, he spent the last unhappy years of his life.^ Xeglected, op- pressed by poverty, almost foi^otten, he passed away in 1803, at the age of eighty years. This too brief sketch covers only the latest and least useful period in the Ufe of Benjamin Edes. In justice to him it is necessary to recall the heroic service he rendered to the country at a time when friends were few, and prop- erty, honor, and life were staked upon the issue. From 1765 to the close of the Revolution the " Boston Grazette " filled a great place in American history. It was one of the chief centres of influence and power in the great struggle. The statesmen and writers of the Revolution early recog- nized its importance, and gave to it their confidence, sym- pathy, and generous co-operation. The public opinion of 1 " In 1801 1 had occasion to call upon him at his printing room, and found him at work on a small joh at the case, while an elderly female (proh- ably one of his daughters) was at the press striking off shop-bills. The ren- erable form of the old man setting types, ' with spectacles on nose,' and the singular sight of a woman beating and pulling at the press, together with the aspect of destitution that pervaded the whole apartment, presented a scene well adapted to excite sympathy, and to make an impression on the mind which the vicissitudes of fifty years have not efiaced." — Specimrns ofXetcs- paper Lilerature, by Joseph T. Buckingham. 16 the colonies was formed and stimulated by its ringing argu- ment, exhortation, and appeal. The chartered rights of the colonies had in it a most gallant and successful de- fender. The stamp tax, the Boston Massacre, the tax on tea, the closing of the port, and indeed every crisis of liberty till its triumph in 1783 found the " Gazette " awake and alert. Benjamin Edes was its ruling and directing spirit during all these years; and his unsel- fish and devoted labor fairly earned for him a happier fate than that which befell him when the struggle was over. In striking contrast was the fortune of his friend and fel- low-laborer in the Revolution, Isaiah Thomas. lu a less advantageous field the " Spy " grew steadily in prosperity and influence. If it wanted something of the dash and fire which distinguished its youth, it profited by the stead- iness and wisdom of riper years. The prosperity of his paper and his own sagacity enabled Mr. Thomas to extend his business connections into other States, and to the then distant cities of Albany and Baltimore. He prepared and published his "History of Printing;" he founded and endowed the American Antiquarian Society ; he was rec- ognized and honored by many learned bodies ; and died at the age of eighty-two years esteemed and honored through- out New England. The last lament of Edes's " Gazette " was hardly for- gotten when "Eussell's Gazette: Commercial and Polit- ical," began to attract attention. Messrs. J. and J. N. Russell had begun a publication three years earlier (Sep- tember, 1795), as the " Boston Price Current and Marine Intelligencer." But the times growing stormy, and the field inviting to a man of active temperament like John 17 Russell, he enlarged his paper to the conventional size, named it as above stated, and thenceforward, till the end of the war, took a vigorous part in the political contests of the day. He was a younger brother of Benjamin Russell, of the " Centinel," and, like him, a stalwart Fed- eralist. He was a sentinel on the watch-towers of his party, and was forever sounding alarms. He religiously shut his eyes to the faults of, his own party and to the virtues of its enemies. His paper was never known to discover a flaw in the one, nor anything but the abomi- nation of desolation in the other. Out of politics he was gentleness itself, and was particularly amiable to the dra- matic profession, whom, in that day of comparatively small things, he took under his especial protection. Thomas (Robert Treat) Paine, poet and scholar, John Lothrop, pastor of the Second Church, Thomas O. Selfridge, Da- vid Everett, and many of the young men of the town with literary gifts and a taste for politics were regular contributors to the new " Gazette," — though the " Cen- tinel " and the " Palladium " still held their places as ac- credited organs of Federalism in this region. Mr. Rus- sell was followed in the " Gazette " by Simon Gardner, a young man of rare talents who died in his thirty-fourth year before their promise was fully realized, Samuel L. Knapp the well-known lawyer and writer, Alden Brad- ford historian, and the late Dr. Joseph Palmer. In a few years the last " Gazette " was merged into the " Pal- ladium and Centinel," which was in turn absorbed, as the " Independent Chronicle " had been already, by the " Daily Advertiser." Side by side with Edes's " Gazette," and of the same political opinions, was the " Independent Chronicle." Es- tablished in 1776, in the midst of the Revolution, it im- 3 18 bibed at that time the extreme views of liberty and democracy which marked its whole career. It was, at the time of the controversy over the Constitution, hold- ing an important place in the community as a political and commercial journal. It hated England and admired France with equal cordiality. It had already resisted the return of the Tory refugees to citizenship and prop- erty rights. It opposed the institution of the Society of the Cincinnati, as an attempt to establish an order of Amer- ican nobility. It resisted, with still more savage energy, the new Constitution, on the ground of its aristocratic tendency and its antagonism to popular liberty. In the evolution of parties, it became naturally the leading organ in New England of the Democratic or Jeffersonian school of political ideas. From this time till the close of the century Captain Thomas Adams was the principal pro- prietor. The cares of business and declining health, aggravated by prosecutions growing out of his opposi- tion to the alien and sedition laws, then compelled him to retire. He was succeeded by James White, a respectable book- seller in Court Street, with Ebenezer Rhoades, then a young man, as editor. For twenty years, with occa- sional change of partners, he remained in this position. He wrote usually with great brevity, but with vigor and spirit. To say that he was personal and vindictive in controversy is only to repeat that he faithfully followed the fashion. Among the able men who contributed to his paper were Benjamin Austin, a leading merchant ; Perez Morton, afterwards Attorney-General ; Thomas Greenleaf, afterwards editor of the New York " Journal and Argus ; " Dr. Charles Jarvis, Samuel Cooper, and others whose names are now forgotten. Mr. Austin was the most frequent contributor and the most deeply in 19 earnest. The office of the " Chronicle," on the spot al- ready consecrated by Franklin and Edes, was mid-way between his house at the foot of Hancock Street and his place of business on Long Wharf; and for twenty years it was his custom to stop on his way down town to chat with the editor, to get the latest intelligence of public events, to write a paragraph or an essay, or to mature plans for the advancement of the measures in which he was interested. The famous tragedy of 1806 threw a cloud over his life, but did not silence him. Politics were then at fever- heat in Boston. Both parties had celebrated the Fourth of July that year, — the Federalists at Faneuil Hall, the Republicans at Copp's Hill. Some trivial dispute arose about the payment of the bills, which grew into a State quarrel. Mr. Austin of the Republican committee and Thomas O. Selfridge of the Federalist committee posted each other as cowards and liars. The same day Charles, son of Mr. Austin, a youth of nineteen, a Senior in Harvard College, met Mr. Selfridge in State Street, and a moment after, high words having apparently passed between them, Selfridge drew a pistol and fired. Austin struck his assailant, or struck at him, fell to the pave- ment and expired, the ball having entered his heart. For many weeks the " Chronicle " and its Republican contem- poraries were infuriated, and charged the leading Feder- alists with murder, treason, and every conceivable crime. The trial of Selfridge, the arguments of counsel, the charge of Chief- Justice Parsons, the acquittal, and the public excitement, made this event one of the most start- ling in the annals of this community, and certainly the most stirring one in its newspaper history. The " Chronicle " had some literary qualities above its contemporaries, and in other respects it was a fair ex- 20 ample of the party press of that period. Responsible editors, as a rule, wrote comparatively little. They were the channels through whom the party chiefs were heard ; and the ablest writers the new republic could command gave them their chief interest and influence. The " Chron- icle " was merged with the " Boston Patriot " in 1819, and the " Patriot " with the " Daily Advertiser " a few years later. The New England Federalists were greatly aided in the crisis of their fortunes by the " New England Palladium," begun as the " Massachusetts Mercury " in 1793, under the auspices of Alexander Young and Samuel Etheridge, — the latter retiring the next year in favor of Thomas Minns. They set out to make a journal free, they said, from " that low ribaldry and personal defamation which frequently disgraced European publications, and sometimes contami- nated the purer effusions of the American press." They made rapid progress, became the State printers, and had their paper on a good foundation before the close of the century. The leading Federalists in New England at that time were looking about for more satisfactory and influ- ential organs than had yet appeared. The personalism of the newspapers of both parties had long displeased them. George Cabot wrote to Alexander Hamilton, Oc- tober 11, 1800: "Dr. Dwight [President of Yale College] is here stirring us up to oppose the demon of Jacobinism. A newspaper, to be entitled the " New England Anti-Ja- cobin," is to be published at Boston and circulated as ex- tensively as possible, especially through New England. The labors of many good men are expected in its support, — yours among the rest." This scheme was abandoned ; and their attention seems to have been turned soon after to the " Mercury," which took a new start and the name 21 of the "Palladium" in 1801.^ Warren Dutton, a young man of talent and scholarship, became the chief editor. " The principles we espouse," he said in his first number, in a style to which the readers of newspapers were at that time little accustomed, "will for ever remain the same. They are not the doctrines and opinions of a day. They do not vary with every turn of circumstance, nor suit themselves to every change of civil administration. But they are founded on the unchanging laws of truth and justice, sanctioned by long experience, and defended by weapons tempered from the ' armory of God.' " Mr. Dutton wrote with uniform dignity and elegance. " He has talents, learning, and taste," said Fisher Ames in a letter to Theodore Dwight ; " and, what is better, he has discretion." Fisher Ames himself, " the wisest counsel- lor as well as the chief oi'nament of his party," was a pillar of strength to the " Palladium " in those early daj^s. He held that " newspapers were an over-match for any government," and he hoped by using them " honestly and without lying " to recover for his party some of the ground it had lost. He summoned to its aid the first talents of the party. " I think myself entitled," he said in the letter to Mr. Dwight already mentioned, " to call upon you, and to ask you to call upon the mighty Trum- bull, who must not slumber like Achilles in his tent 1 Fisher Ames to Thomas Dwight. Dedham, 1st January, 1801. My dear Friend, — ... They talk strongly of preferring Burr to Jef- ferson. It is said the Feds can decide which shall reign. The " Mercury" or " Palladium " is to be the Federal paper, and pains must be taken to spread it, and gain readers and patrons in all parts of New England. It languishes hitherto for pecuniary funds. But literary help will be considerable in the beginning, and unless (this in confidence) K., J. L., and F. A. will work for it, the tug will soon become hard. One of the three is very lazy ; but as he can and will write when he is, and because he is, there is a chance he will yawn over pieces that will set the readers yawning. 22 while the camp is in danger of being forced. ^Ir. Wol- cott must be summoned to g^ve his counsel, as well as to mend his excellent pen. Connecticut is the lifeguard of liberty and federalism. I am trying to sound the tocsin." George Cabot, the distinguished merchant and able and patriotic statesman, wrote occasionally for the " INlercury " and " Palladium," as he had done for the "Cen- tinel." Fisher Ames himself was a constant and faithful contributor. John Lowell, the eminent lawyer, saved time from his engrossing occupations to write upon all the burning questions of that fiery period. " If j'ou have seen our newspapers," wrote George Cabot to Timothy Pickering, January, 1808, " you see how much Mr. Low- ell has done ; and you must be gratified to see how well supported by authorities, by the practice of nations, and by sound reason the Boston opinions have been." Mr. Lowell came into the conflict later than the rest; but when he came it was with his whole soul. The issues of the day took possession of him, and gave speed and fire to tongue and pen.^ Messrs. Young and Minns retired from the " Palladium " in 1828, after a successful partnership of nearly forty years. It was the " era of good feeling " indeed with the journalists of Boston, who gave a complimentary dinner to the retiring publishers. Benjamin Russell presided. The late Dr. Young, son of one of the guests, was chaplain. Toasts without number were drunk in due order, and cordial tributes were paid to them for their useful and exemplary services. Xothing more signally marked the 1 The "Palladium" began the modem fashion of reporting ship-news. Harry Ingraham Blake was the iriTentor, and for many years was without a rival. Clearances, arrivals, disasters, and the ten thousand incidents con- nected with the sea-faring interest came to him with marrellons celerity and accuracy. 23 change that had taken place in the manners and spirit of the times, as well as in the relations of the different journals with each other, than the favor accorded to a sentiment given by Deacon Loring of the " Christian Watchman," noting especially the triumph of " that spirit of urbanity which points out the mode of managing a con- troversy without endeavoring to find in personal abuse an apologj' for courteous argument." Mr. Young and Mr. Minns both died in 1834, universally beloved and respected. Several other journals pla3'ed an interesting part in the daily activities of that time. The " Federal Orrery " was one of the best of them. Thomas (Robert Treat) Paine founded it in 1794. He had graduated at Harvard Col- lege two years earlier, with a reputation for scholarship flavored with audacity, — having insisted upon speaking at Commencement an anti-Jacobin prologue to his part, although the College authorities had prudently crossed it out. He was in politics an ardent Federalist, aggressive and implacable. During the three years he was in harness he had a variety of correspondents, who kept the commu- nity in a fever of agitation. The rector of Trinity Church, Mr. Gardner, the reputed author of " Remarks on the Jacobiniad, ' a satire in prose and verse, was one of them ; William Biglow, a more gentle soul, given to poetry and letters in his sober moods, was another; Royal Tyler, Joseph Dennie, and, last but not least, Sarah Wentworth Morton, "the American Sappho," were also in the list. Miss Apthorpe, afterwards the wife of Perez Morton, had been a frequent contributor to the " Massachussetts Maga- zine " over the signature of "Philenia," and Mr. Paine was a most devoted admirer of her genius. Her works have 24 been collected, in two volumes. Their fascination must have come from her youth and personal charms, — and these, alas ! are mortal. The " Constitutional Telegraphe " was a short-lived and altogether discreditable production of this period. It was anti-Federalist in polities, and a weak rival to the " Inde- pendent Chronicle." It was printed twice a week. Sam- uel S. Parker, a Worcester-County physician, edited it for a few months, writing, however, little more than nagging paragraphs about the other newspapers in the town, which took no notice of him. The visit of Alexander Hamilton to Boston in the summer of 1800 inspired him and his cor- respondents with an access of rage, which he poured out upon Hamilton's admirers with great volubility. Dr. Parker was a vile blackguard ; and poor as his abuse was he seemed to have little taste or spirit for anything else. John S. Lillie, an inveterate Jeffersonian, succeeded him. His chief exploit was in the character of defendant in a suit for printing a libel against Judge Dana of the Supreme Court, for which he was fined and imprisoned three months, — to the great satisfaction of the community. John Mosely Dunham came next, and changed the name to the " Republican Gazetteer ; " and was soon followed by Ben- jamin True and Benjamin Parks, who again changed the name to the "Democrat," with John Williams as editor. Williams was an Englishman by birth, best known by his alias of Anthony Pasquin. Gifford had immortalized him, before he left England, as " a profligate whose acquain- tance was infamy and whose touch was poison." Williams made pretensions to poetry as well as to politics, of which Gifford spoke in a note to the " Baviad " as "licentious and dull beyond expression," quoting against him at the same 25 time certain uncomplimentary verses, purporting to be by another hand.i For these verses Williams prosecuted Gifford's publisher, who pleaded the truth of the libel and won the cause. The jury non-suited him without a mo- ment's hesitation, and the audience hissed him out of court. Without stopping to thank his counsel, he fled to America so rapidly that he is said to have arrived a " little in ad- vance of his reputation." He was for a time a leading un- acknowledged writer for the " Independent Chronicle ; " and in that capacity he fell under the lash of the " Reper- tory," a dignified and able journal, which in several succes- sive numbers reprinted the record of the trial, with Ersk- ine's mocking defence of his client, and with running com- ments well suited to the career and character of such a knave. Under all its names and all its managers the "Democrat" led a turbulent and wretched life; and all parties, as well as all decently disposed citizens, rejoiced when it ceased to exist, in 1808. i TO ANTHONY PASQUIN, ESQ. Why dost thou tack, most simple Anthony, The name of Pasquin to thy ribald strains t Is it a fetch of wit, to let lis see Thou, like that statue, art devoid of brains ? But thou mistak'st ; for know, though Pasquin's head Be full as hard and near as thick as thine, Yet has the world, admiring, on it read Many a keen gibe and many a sportive line. While nothing from thy jobbernowl can spring But impudence and filth ; for out, alas ! Do what we will, 'tis still the same vile thing, — Within all brick-dust and without all brass. Then blot the name of Pasquin from thy page ! Thou seest it will not thy poor rifif-raft" sell. Some other would'st thou take ? I dare engage John Williams or Tom Fool would do as well. 4 26 The " Polar Star and Boston Daily Advertiser " — the first attempt to print a daily paper in Boston — was published a few months during the autumn and winter of 1798—99. John Burk, an Irishman, fluent, boastful, and self-conscious, was the editor. He took little part in the political discus- sions of the time, and evidently knew very little about them. " The Federal Gazette and Daily Advertiser " took its place in the following year. Caleb P. Wayne came from Philadelphia to try the experiment, and returned after its failure. It was a virulent, snarling, ill-tempered journal, a feeble fighter against its enemies, and a discredit to the cause it advocated. Its articles were brief, flippant, perso- nal, ungrammatical, without grace of style, or a suggestion of interest in anything beyond the quarrel of the mo- ment. Its existence was never recognized by its more judicious neighbors, with whom it was constantly seeking a quarrel. It managed to keep itself in hot water until the well-merited indifference of the community permitted it to expire. It lived but three or four months. The " New England Repertory " was begun at Newbury- port July 10, 1803, printed by John Barnard for John Park, the proprietor and editor. The second number was issued, after a delay of a few weeks, in Boston ; the title was changed to the " Repertory," and there were other me- chanical changes. It was printed in the Senate Cham- ber of the Old State House. Mr. Park contributed an opening address, and made many good promises, which were faithfully kept for several years, or as long as his connection with the paper continued. In 1812 the " Re- pertory and General Advertiser " was published by William W. Clapp, at the Exchange Coffee House. It was still edited by John Park, but his name disappeared soon after. The " Repertory " was conducted with emineut ability and 27 good judgment. Of course it took an active part in all the political discussions of the time, and had.no hesitation about engaging in the personal controversies they provoked. It was the sworn foe of the " Independent Chronicle," and pursued it and its corps of writers with unsparing vigilance and energy. On the 1st January, 1814, Mr. Park, having retired from the " Repertory " some time before, made an arrangement with the printers Munroe and Francis, to publish for him " The Boston Spectator, devoted to Politics and Belles-Lettres." It was not a newspaper, though giving a weekly retrospect or summary of the leading events of the world. The editor's purpose was to make a literary and miscellaneous journal, and to draw around him a body of easy, graceful, and scholarly contrib- utors. The exciting political questions growing out of the war were discussed by able writers, who denounced the war and its authors with constant and vehement spirit to the last. Seventy weekly numbers of the " Spectator " only were issued, — the last number announcing the rati- fication of the treaty of peace.^ On the 3d March, 1809, was issued the first number of the " Boston Patriot," Everett and Munroe publishers. It was started as a stalwart supporter of the administration of James Madison, and a most zealous opponent of the policy and measures of the Federalist party. David Ever- ett, already well known as a political writer, was the edi- tor, and in the first number set forth his view of the recip- rocal rights and powers of the States and the General Government in a frank, manly, and very positive spirit. He promised that while politics would claim his chief atten- 1 I am indebted to William W. Wheildon Esq., of Concord, for the use of a complete file of " The Boston Spectator," of which there are, probably, few copies preserved. 28 tion, the great and permanent interests of religion, moral- ity, literature, and the municipal economy of the country would also be objects of primary regard ; and he kept his word. The first number contained a vigorous assault upon " The Essex Junto " and its alleged conspiracy against the Union ; also the protest of a minority of the State Senate in support of the embargo laws, bearing the still familiar names of Seth Sprague, William Gray, Nathaniel Morton, Samuel Dana, Nathan Willis, and several others. John Adams, then in his seventy-fifth year, came out of his re- tirement and contributed to the " Patriot " the remarkable series of letters giving a retrospect and vindication of his public life, which at. the time attracted the attention of the whole country. The collected works of Fisher Ames, who had died a few months before, were just published, and the "Patriot" devoted a large part of its space for many months to a bitter and sanguinary review of them, involving also the whole tenor of his life and character. ^ In May, 1817, the " Patriot," then published by Davis C. Ballard and Edmund Wright, Jr., bought the " Inde- pendent Chronicle," and the two papers were thenceforward published as a daily, under the title of the " Independent Chronicle and Boston Patriot," until the absorption of both in the " Daily Advertiser " in December, 1831. During the period following the adoption of the Consti- tution there were, outside of Boston, several journals of ' The spirit which Mr. Everett gave to his paper during all this warlike period may he inferred from the following postscript to one of his more elaborate articles : " In the firm belief in the reality of its principles, the ' Boston Patriot ' has taken its stand in the front of the hottest battle ; and now, while the enemy deliberate whether or not to fall upon it with all the vehemence of their wrath, tlie editor has thought proper to reconnoitre their entrenchments, and to show that he will on no occasion be found sleeping at his post." 29 influence and ability. Foremost among them was the " Salem Gazette," established in 1787 under the name of the " Mercury," by Thomas C. Gushing, taking the pres- ent name three years later. For a short time (1794-97) William Garlton assumed the publication, and the Rev. Dr. Bently began with him the remarkable and altogether incomparable weekly summaries of tlie news of the world, which he continued in the " Register " for twenty-five years after. Mr. Gushing resumed the publication in 1797, and espoused the Federalist cause decisively and aggres- sively ; and until the end, in 1815, was its most faithful defender. He was known among his friends, and lives in the traditions of Essex Gounty, as " the amiable and gifted Gushing." But his good temper, his pure character, and his lovable nature were no proof against the fierce tem- per of that time. As a journalist he was lucid, earnest, and usually courteous ; but he spared no energy of argu- ment or of denunciation which his cause seemed to him to require. The great contest of 1802 between Jacob Growninshield and Timothy Pickering for Congress, Republican and Fed- eralist, — the "Register," conducted by William Carlton, representing the former, the "Gazette" the latter, — is historical. Nothing like it has been known, or would be possible, in our time. Blows were given and received without mercy. Captain Growninshield in company with Joseph Story, then a young lawyer in the first flush of his youthful genius, and a writer of political articles for the " Register," called upon Mr. Gushing and threatened to shoot him if he continued his assaults. " The Register," at the same time or soon after, was held in a suit for libel on Timothy Pickering, for which the editor was convicted, fined, and imprisoned. Yet it must be said that both jour- nals were conducted with eminent ability and comparative 30 decorum. I have read the old files diligently, and it needs much reading between the lines to discover the causes of the convulsion which rent parties and society asunder in that stormj'- time. Mr^ Gushing retired in 1822. His fighting days had long been over. Mr. Buckingham, who speaks kindly of every one, is especially kind to him . " The qualities of his heart," he says, " were not less amiable than the faculties of his mind were respectable. His bosom was the seat of all the gentle virtues ; his benevolence was unwearied ; his friend- ship disinterested, ardent, and sincere ; his integrity stead- fast, incorruptible, and unsuspected." Caleb Gushing, his illustrious son, conducted the paper for a few months; but the son had larger plans in view, and left it in the hands of Mr. Ferdinand Andrews, who in 1827 transferred it to Mr. Foote, the present senior proprietor, who for more than half a century has made the " Salem Gazette " a name for all that is pure, honest, and of good report in its profes- sion, and who still lives in the enjoyment of a serene and honored old age. The " Salem Register " began in May, 1800, as an advo- cate of Jefferson and all his measures. William Garleton, a young man of spirit and intelligence trained in the " Gazette " office, took the laboring oar, with the co-opera- tion of several of the ablest writers in the county, — then distinguished for the number of its able men. His impris- onment, in 1803, for libel in accusing Timothy Pickering of taking bribes from Great Britain was a sad blow to him, though he had the sympathy of a large and powerful party. He died in 1805 at the age of thirty-four years. His con- stant friend. Dr. Bently, in writing his eulogy paid a loyal tribute to his cheerfulness of temper, his benevolence of mind, his perseverance, integrity, and uprightness. " He 31 was an able editor and an honest man." Warwick Palfray, Jr., one of Carleton's apprentices, succeeded to the editor- ship, and continued in that capacity for thirty years. He was just out of his minority, and entered upon his difficult task with extraordinary discretion and judgment. He was a gentleman in his feelings and in all the relations of his life. He had no heart for conflict. Through all the stormy period of the embargo and the war, though up- holding the standard of his party without shadow of turn- ing, he indulged in no personalities, he questioned no man's motives. His generous sentiments were respected by his opponents, and his successors have good reason to be proud of the traditions he left to them. In this bead-roll of newspaper worthies Dr. Bently must not be overlooked. He was a man of prodigious mental activity. Every week, for a quarter of a century, he wrote for the " Register," without public acknowledgment, his remarkable epitome of the news of the world. He was at the same time a devoted minister, writing and preaching his two sermons every Sunday for thirty-six years, and per- forming his parochial duties with religious fidelity ; pursu- ing his insatiable thirst for knowledge into every path ; an expert in twenty languages and familiar with many more ; an unrivalled scholar in Hebrew, Arabic, and Persian ; a correspondent of petty chiefs in Arabia and Africa ; a student in natural histoiy ; an omnivorous reader and col- lector, his library being at the time the largest and best in the country, except Jefferson's ; an ingenious Biblical student and critic ; and over, and in the midst of, all in- formed and interested in the political and current affairs of the world. Unlike the greater part of the New England clergy he was a zealous Republican, and a friend of Jeffer- son to the last. His antiquarian knowledge surpassed that 32 of any of his contemporaries. He published little except in the " Salem Register," which from 1800 to 1825 is his chief monument. The " Greenfield Gazette," now published as the " Gazette and Courier," had its origin at this time (1792) under the management of Thomas Dickman. It was a moderate Fed- eralist journal, and counted many noted men among its writers. I recall William Coleman, afterwards founder and editor of the " New York Evening Post ; " James Elliott, poet, soldier, lawyer, and member of Congress ; and Rev. John Taylor, "the proverbialist " of Deerfield. The " Newburyport Herald and County Gazette " was also on the Federalist side, but with great circumspection. Its original matter was entirely in the form of commu- nications, the editor confining his attention to the deaths and marriages, and to collating the news of the week. Here the notorious Timothy Dexter printed his absurdities and entertained a curious public, who for some years mar- velled at his shrewdness while they laughed or jeered at his folly. The " Farmers' Weekly Museum," of Walpole, N. H., was also famous in its day. It was the most lively and picturesque of journals, and had a very brilliant galaxy of contributors. Besides Joseph Dennie, the "Lay Preach- er," there were Royal Tyler, wit, poet, and chief-justice, Thomas Green Fessenden, David Everett, Isaac Story, and several others, who formed a merry group known as the " Walpole wits." Two or three noted men, out of the New England circle, deserve to be mentioned in this category. William Cob- bett blazed for a space in our political and literary heavens, though the light which he brought there was at times in- 33 fernal. He appeared in Philadelphia in 1792, teaching among the English and French SmigrSs. He was then thirty years old. He plunged at once into the thick of the fight against the champions of the French Revolution, and the atrocities in Paris. His industry was inexhaustible, his intellectual fertility miraculous. Bache's "Aurora" was then the chief organ, in this country, of the Revolution. Mr. Bache had been, almost from the beginning, a bitter and venomous assailant of the administration of Wash- ington and of all who upheld it. Cobbett accepted the challenge, and pursued the assailants with a variety and intensity of invective surpassing their own. He defended the Administration, the Proclamations of Neutrality, the Jay treaty, and England herself with a ferocious spirit. The Federalists were for a time proud of their champion ; and his writings had undoubted influence, if not in forming opinions, at least in confirming and intensifying them. But his political associates soon became tired of him. Russell, as we have seen, was no prude in controversy ; but he had no liking for the brutal fashion of " Peter Porcupine's Gazette." ^ • It was inevitable that a good cause should suffer in the hands of such an advocate ; and when Dr. Rush won the libel suit against him, which drove the libeller to New York and at last from the country, very few even among the Federalists regretted his departure. In this connec- 1 " Cobbett," ho says, " was never encouraged and supported by the Fed - eralists as a solid, judicious writer in their cause, but was kept merely to liunt Jacobin foxes, skunks, and serpents. The Federalists found the Jaco - bins had the ' Aurora,' ' Argus,' and ' Chronicle, through which they ejected mud, filth, and venom, and attacked and blackened the best characters the world ever boasted ; and they perceived that these vermin were not to be operated on by reason or decency. It was tliorefore thought necessary the opposite party should keep and feed a suitable beast to hunt these skunks and foxes, and the ' Fretful Porcupine ' was selected for this business." 34 tion it is only jasfc to say that the bad manners of the press of that time were not peculiar to this country. Scurrility was the fashion of the time. The French press during and long after the Reign of Terror was atrocious. Brissot, Marat, Danton, Robespierre, Barrere, Tallien, had in turn a hand in making it so. The English press was better only in degree. The First Consul himself appeared as a prosecutor at Westminster Hall, and libel suits on innu- merable pretexts were the order of the day. Philip Freneau made a brief sensation as editor of the " National Gazette." He had been a classmate of Madison at the College of New Jersey. He went into the " Ga- zette " in 1791, and was at the same time employed as translating clerk in the State Department under Jefferson, who cordially assisted him in his newspaper enterprise. To the future President Freneau was a most loyal and devoted servant. He poured through the columns of the " Gazette " all the animosities which his chief felt, but was not willing to be held responsible for. Washington, Ham- ilton, Marshall, Adams, and every one who believed in and upheld them were in turn his victims. The patriots who stood at the cradle of the nation, the great men whom we were taught to believe and whom we teach our chil- dren to believe were without guile, the wise, patient, sagacious statesmen who held fast to the Constitution dur- ing that whirlwind of party passion and planted it upon a rock, were the favorite objects of Freneau's vituperation. The " Gazette " under his management was unjust, un- scrupulous, false, violent, and insolent. It rivalled the "Aurora" in the ugliness of its temper and the extrava- gance of its rhetoric. It is to the lasting discredit of Jef- ferson that he kept such a libeller in his service, and even contributed to his scurrilous journal. The late Mr. Duyc- 35 kinck, in his interesting memoir of Freneau, shows an amiable desire to give him a better standing with posterity, both as a patriot and a man of genius, than this portion of his life in my judgment entitles him to. I have not been so fortunate in my reading either of his character or his "writings. It is impossible to admire one whose chief de- light was in blackening the purest characters of his gener- ation ; and as for his poetry, it is only interesting historically as marking the low level with which the taste of the time was satisfied. Very different from Freneau and from Cobbett was Jo- seph Dennie, the " American Addison " as his friends were fond of calling him. Life with him was, at the best, a play. One cannot wander far in the uncleared pathways of our early literature without coming often into the warmth and sunshine of his presence. He was a native of Boston, and a classmate of the elder Quincy. His early reputation was made in the " Farmers' Museum," of Walpole, N. H., 1795- 97, and was continued in the " Port-Folio," at Philadelphia, from 1800-12. He was an elegant scholar, a graceful and pleasing writer, charming in conversation, a most winning and delightful companion. His literary work, though uni- versally read and extravagantly praised at the time, proved to be ephemeral like that of most of his profession. His most famous essays, printed under the title of " The Lay Preacher," touching with pleasant satire and amiable, though somewhat irreverent, philosophy on the follies and foibles of the time, mingled with not a little serious counsel and good criticism, are now as if they had never been. But in their day they were famous. The newspapers were in hot rivalry with each other to get the first printing of them. They were compared to the writings of Addison and Steele, and they made the young writer the centre of 36 the most interesting group of wits and scholars then on the stage. Though a graduate of Hai-vard College, he never seemed in harmony with it. There was some per- sonal humiliation attending his last exercises there, and ever after he hated the College and despised the Faculty. He studied law and began to practise ; but one day a client came in while he was more agreeably occupied, and from that time till he "abandoned the profession he kept his office door locked on the inside. The late Edmund Quinc}', in the fascinating biography of his father, speaks of the " Port-Folio " as " far superior to any magazine ever before attempted in this country," — " a model of exact and care- ful editorship, and greatly beneficial in raising the standard of literary taste in the country." It was strongly Federalist in its politics, and the most eminent Federalist writers and statesmen did not consider it beneath their dignity to con- tribute to its pages. While Dennie lived in Philadelphia he was the soul of its gay, convivial society, and his name still lives in the traditions of that hospitable city. Tom Moore was one of his many guests, wrote songs for the " Port-Folio," and joined in the nightlj^ festivities. In one of his poems relating to America I recall the lines : — " Yet, yet forgive me, O ye saca^d few Whom late by Delaware's green banks I knew ! Whom, known and loved through many a social eve, 'T was bliss to live with, and 't was pain to leave ! Not with more joy the lonely exile scanned The writing traced upon the desert's sand. Where his lone heart but little hoped to find One trace of life, one stamp of human kind, Thau did I hail the pure, th' enlightened zeal. The strength to reason and the warmth to feel. The manly polish and the illumined taste, Wliich — 'mid the melancholy, heartless waste My foot has traversed — O yo sacred few ! I found by Delaware's green banks with you." 37 Dennie died in 1812, at the early age of forty-four years.^ The " Port-Folio " did not long survive him. Many other interesting names belong in this list, but it is extended too far already. The impression given of the 1 Mr. Dennie was interred in the bnrying-ground of St. Peter's Cliurch, Philadelphia, and a monumental column bearing the following appropriate inscription marks the spot : — Joseph Dennie, Born at I/exington,^ in Massachusetts, August 30th, 1763, Died at Philadelphia, January 7th, 1812. Endowed with ialents, and qualified By Education, To adorn the Senate, and the Bar, But following the impulse of a Genius, Formed for converse with the Muses, He devoted his life to the Literature of his Country. As author of the Lay Preacher, And as First Editor of the Port-Folio He contributed to chasten the morals, and to refine the taste of the Nation. To an imagination, lively, not licentious, A wit, sportive, not wanton, And a heart without guile. He united a deep sensibility, which Endeared him to his Friends, and an ardent piety, which we humbly trust Eecommended him to his God; Those ■ friends have erected this tribute To his Memory To the Mercies of that God is their resort For themselves, and for Him. MDCCCXIX. On the north side of the column is inscribed in letters of gold the name of "Joseph Dennie." 3 Mr. Dennie was born in Boston. For a fuller narrative of this interesting writer see a. sketch of Joseph Dennie, by Col. William W. Clapp, first printed some years ago in the " Saturday Evening Gaeette," and lately reprinted in a pamphlet. 38 character and disinterestedness of those who have been mentioned will, I fear, be less favorably regarded than they deserve. It is necessary to remember that the government and the societj'' of their time were experimental. The rev- erence which we are taught for established institutions did not exist among them. The Constitution and the Union had no historic claims to their respect and affection. When parties and administrations disappointed them, extreme and hot-headed men on both sides began to inquire then, even more than now, " What is all this worth ? " But among the public writers and journalists who have been most vehe- mently assailed for disloyalty, — I mean those on the Fed- eralist side, — the evidence to sustain the charge does not exist. The Constitution, the Union of the States, the ad- ministration of Washington, the establishment of credit, the planting of habits and principles which grew into persistent institutions, and were in process of time adopted and pa- tronized by their most bitter enemies, were in great part their work. To charge them with disloyalty is to charge them with betraying the child of their own hearts. The extreme Democracy, carried away bj' the malarious philos- ophy of the French Revolution, fought them at every step. There is hardly one good feature of the republican system as it has come down to us, which they did not misjudge and resist to the last. And when the Federalists, having none of the arts of winning popularity, and having perhaps too intense disgust for those who stooped to gain it, saw the people drifting away from them, and knew under what misleading influences it was brought about, it would have been very strange if some of their number had not mis- trusted the excellence of the form of government when they saw its spirit so wantonly perverted from its true pur- pose. So, within our own experience, a small number of able and honest, but most mistaken, men and women have 39 rallied under the cry that the " Constitution was a cove- nant with Death and an agreement with Hell." There would be much better reason to ariaign this whole section of country for disloyalty on account of these mistaken zeal- ots, than there is to charge with conspiracy and treason the Federalist party, or any of the statesmen and writers who had authority to speak for it. Recent publications of historical value have thrown a great deal of light on these old controversies. The papers relating to New England Federalism, including the por- tentous indictment by John Quincy Adams after his retire- ment from the Presidency, the Life of Alexander Hamilton, the Life and Letters of George Cabot, the Life of William Plumer, the Life of Albert Gallatin, and selections from the Pickering and other manuscripts, have revealed the worst and the best that can be said about them. There is no evidence in the writings of these statesmen — indeed there is no direct charge anywhere, with names and dates — to sustain the preposterous accusation which Mr. Adams put into form for transmission to future generations. Least of all is there any evidence of such a conspiracy as he de- scribed to be found in the Federalist journals of the time, although they reflected with remarkable fidelity the chang- ing phases of policy and opinion among the leaders, while their power was steadily passing away from them. These writers had little of what Milton called the " charity of patient instruction ; " but they had courage, convictions, and a loyal purpose, which would not permit them to be silent when they saw the danger-signal blazing straight before them. %^