[14] The two anonymous Addresses or Letters, as they are sometimes called, written in March, 1783, will be found in A Collection of Papers, relative to Half-Pay and Commutation of Half-Pay, Granted by Congress to the Officers of the Army, Fish-Kill, 1783, pp. 16-21.
In the Columbian Centinel of July 22, 1812, "Brutus" asked: "As a friend to liberty and republicanism, I wish to inquire whether Mr. Armstrong lately made a Brigadier General in our army by President Madison, is the same man, who has been supposed to have written the letters to the army in 1783, advising them to retain their arms, till they had forced the civil authorities to comply with their demands, and compensated themselves by plundering the innocent and defenceless citizens?" (p. 2-3). In the New York Herald of January 20, 1813, is the following: "New Secretary at War.—Gen. Armstrong's appointment has passed the Senate by a majority of three. Yesterday we mentioned that a Captain Jones of Philadelphia, was appointed Secretary of the Navy. So that we have for a Secretary of the Navy a man who headed a Philadelphia mob, to encourage the administration to pursue the war, and a Secretary of the Army, a man who exerted his best abilities to induce the heroes of the revolution to turn their arms against their own country. Nothing was wanting to compleat the administration but a man for Secretary of the Treasury who once headed a rebellion, and they have him in Albert Gallatin" (p. 1-2). William Jones was the new Secretary of the Navy. In the New York Herald of September 3, 1813, is an extract taken from the Federal Republican (of Washington): "Appointments-in-petto—Bombastico Inchiquin to be Attorney General, vice Marquis of Whitewash, so long inimical in the cabinet to secretary Mars.—Note: this nomination can only be read, at present, by a Rush-light. Brigadier-General Boanerges to be Secretary of War, vice Duke of Newburgh, to be removed under the standing rescript of the Virginia dynasty" (p. 4-2). "Bombastico Inchiquin" was Charles J. Ingersoll, author of Inchiquin, the Jesuit's Letters (1810); the "Marquis of Whitewash" was apparently William Pinckney; "Rush-light" is an allusion to Richard Rush; while the identity of "Brigadier General Boanerges" escapes me.
Satirical allusions to the "Virginia dynasty" were long common in the Northern newspapers. In the Columbian Centinel of February 6, 1813, a correspondent said: "I WAS one of those who predicted in the year 1801, that the Virginia dynasty, which was at that time coming into power therein ever after to remain, would violate the Public Faith then pledged to the public creditors" (p. 2-1). See also New York Evening Post, November, 1812, p. 2-5; Columbian Centinel, November 7, 1812, 2-3; Columbian Centinel, June 4, 1814, p. 2-3.
[15] A satirical poem called "An Intercepted Letter, from Tall Tommy to Little Jemmy" appeared in the Salem Gazette of November 3, 1814, p. 4-1.
[16] "And it came to pass . . . that there arose a mighty man in the land, called Thomas, the Magician, on account of his great skill and cunning in dark and mysterious projects" (Adventures of Uncle Sam, 1812, p. 10).
[17] The Yankee in London, 1826, p. 9.
[18] See note 15, above.
[19] New York Herald, April 16, 1814, p. 4-1.
[20] Connecticut Courant, January 19, 1813, p. 3-1.
[21] "The reins of government were now held by Mundungus, the great tetrarch of the nation, the apostle and successor of the great Conundrum" (The Yankee in London, 1826, p. 93).