With Freneau hitting his stride, the Federalists began to lose their patience. Soon the ‘United States Chronicle’ of Providence learned that the ‘very extraordinary productions’ were probably ‘the work of some foreigners who wish to reduce the funds in order to purchase.’[611] The ‘Centinel’ of Boston warned that Freneau’s paper was ‘supported by a junto for electioneering purposes’ and was filled with ‘the most absurd misrepresentations of facts, or falsehoods highly injurious to the prevailing character and principles of our government and people.’[612]
But it took the articles of ‘Sidney’ to force the fighting. These were open attacks on Hamilton and his principles and were written with a punch. He assailed the House for abdicating its power to originate money bills to the Secretary of the Treasury. To delegate that duty was to lie down on a job. And such ‘reports’! Arguments! Pleas! Sophistries! Thence to the major attack. ‘If we admit that the Secretary is a fallible mortal, and, however great his capacity may be, that he is liable to mistakes or to be imposed upon, or, in range of hypothesis, if we suppose these possible cases, that his political principles do not correspond with the genius of the government, or with public opinion; or that he embraces the interests of one class in preference to the interests of the other classes,—I say admitting any or all of these circumstances to be possible, then the ministerial mode of influencing the deliberations of Congress practiced since the change of the government, is more dangerous than even that which is pursued but loudly complained of in Britain.’[613] These attacks by Sidney continued with painful regularity, and Freneau’s paper became a scandal in the best-regulated families in Philadelphia. Others joined in the fray. ‘A Citizen’ from a remote section, who had visited the capital to ‘know more of men and measures,’ speedily convinced himself that many members of government ‘were ... partners with brokers and stock jobbers, and that the banking schemes have been too powerfully and effectually addressed to their avarice.’[614] ‘Centinel’ warned that ‘the fate of the excise law will determine whether the powers of government ... are held by an aristocratic junto or by the people.’[615] With the pack in hot pursuit of his idol, Fenno rushed to the defense with a denunciation of the ‘mad dogs’ and ‘enemies of the government.’ ‘Ah,’ replied Freneau, welcoming the fight, ‘I will tell a short story that will put the matter in a proper light. A pack of rogues once took possession of a church ... held in high veneration by the inhabitants of the surrounding district. From the sanctuary they sallied out every night, robbed ... all the neighbors, and when pursued took shelter within the hallowed walls. If any one attempted to molest them there, they deterred him from the enterprise by crying, “Sacrilege,” and swearing they would denounce him to the inquisition as a heretic and an enemy of the Holy Mother Church.’[616] And Freneau persevered in his perversity. Right joyously he returned to the scandal of speculation. ‘It is worthy of notice that no direct denial has ever appeared of the ... multiplied assertions that members of the general government have carried on jobs and speculations in their own measures even while those measures were depending.’[617]
III
An interesting picture was presented the day after the appearance of this attack: Emerging from the doorway of the Morris house was a distinguished party. Washington himself, sober and stately, with his matronly spouse; Hamilton, alert and suave, with little Betty; and a tall, loose-jointed man of pleasing aspect whom spectators instantly recognized as Jefferson. Entering carriages they drove away to visit Mr. Pearce’s cotton manufactory. No one knew better than Washington that a crisis had been reached in the relations of his ministers. But a few days before he had sat pondering over a letter from Jefferson. It dealt with the reason for the growing distrust in government, the fiscal policy of Hamilton, the disposition to pile up debt, the corruption in Congress—and it announced a determination to retire from the Cabinet.[618] Washington, greatly distressed, had earnestly importuned him to remain. He had agreed to stay on awhile, but the quarreling was becoming intolerable.
At the factory the little party entered, pausing to examine the machinery and comment upon it, Hamilton the irreproachable gentleman, courteous, amusing, pleasant, Jefferson observing all the amenities of the occasion. It was their last social meeting in small company. But if Washington, who had invited them, hoped thus to persuade them to drop their quarrel, he was foredoomed to disappointment. The cause of their disagreement was elemental and eternal. They returned to the Morris house after a pleasant diversion—and the fight went on.
IV
In early June, Fenno and Freneau were lashing each other with much shouting. But the editor of the Hamilton paper played constantly into the hands of his opponent. He lamented the appearance of a ‘faction,’ meaning party, because factions mean convulsions under a republican government. It would not be so serious if there were a king, because ‘a king at the head of a nation to whom all men of property cling with the consciousness that all property will be set afloat with the government, is able to crush the first rising against the laws.’[619] There must have been high glee among the cronies of Freneau in the office on High Street when they read it. ‘King,’ ‘men of property’—Freneau could not have dictated the comment for his purpose better. ‘Your paper is supported by a party,’ charged Fenno. Yes, agreed Freneau, if ‘by a party he means a very respectable number of anti-aristocratic, and anti-monarchical people of the United States.’[620] But, not to be diverted, the poet-editor returned persistently to his indictment. ‘Pernicious doctrines have been maintained’—‘Members of Congress deeply concerned in speculating and jobbing in their own measures ... have combined with brokers and others to gull and trick their uninformed constituents out of their certificates.’[621]
‘The names—give us the names,’ demanded Fenno. ‘That reminds us,’ said Freneau, ‘of the impudence of a noted prostitute of London, who, having a difference with a young man, was by him reproached for her profligacy, and called by the plain name of her profession.... “I’ll make you prove it or pay for it,” said she. Accordingly, she sued the young man for defamation of character, and although half the town knew her character, yet nobody could prove her incontinency without owning himself an accomplice, and the defendant was lost for want of evidence and obliged to pay heavy damages. Thus it is when any man talks of speculators—“prove the fact, sir”—as if, indeed, the men who hired out the pilot boats and the brokers who negotiated the securities would come forward to expose their employers and themselves.’[622]
Thus with charge on charge, with sarcasm and satire, especially the latter, Freneau constantly increased the intensity of his assaults. These slashing and insidious attacks did not reach the citizens of Philadelphia only—they were copied far and wide. The paper itself went into every State. Men were discussing and quoting it on the streets, in the coffee-houses of New York, on the stage-coaches jolting between the scarcely broken forests of remote places, about the fireplace in the cabin in the woods. No one had followed it with greater rage than Alexander Hamilton. One day Fenno’s ‘Gazette’ contained a short letter bearing the signature ‘T. L.,’ which started the tongues to wagging all the way from O’Eller’s grogshop to Mrs. Bingham’s drawing-room.
Mr. Fenno: The editor of the National Gazette receives a salary from the Government. Quere—Whether this salary is paid him for translations, or for publications, the design of which is to vilify those to whom the voice of the people has committed the administration of our public affairs—to oppose the measures of government, and by false insinuations to disturb the public peace?