In American waters British as well as French were arming and equipping, and into American ports sailed English vessels with prizes taken in direct violation of the treaty with France. Then came the Orders in Council of June 8th ordering British ships to capture and take to British ports all vessels with foodstuffs destined for France.
On the day before this Order went into effect, a goodly company of English sympathizers met at Richardet’s Tavern in Philadelphia to celebrate the birthday of George III. An elegant dinner, unmarred by the presence of any part of the ‘rabble,’ with a guest list reading like a page from a Social Register. Enthusiasm bubbled, and ‘Ça Ira’ was not sung. The orchestra played ‘God Save the King.’ That monarch was toasted, and they toasted the Queen, and Hammond the British Minister, and Phineas Bond, the British Consul. They toasted Washington once and ‘Neutrality’ twice. And they brought a perfect evening to a close with another toast: ‘The Red Coats and Wooden Walls of Old England.’[811] Fenno in the Federalist organ published a sympathetic account which was read with varying emotions from Mrs. Bingham’s library to the beer saloon on Front Street. Even the soberest began to wonder if neutrality was one-sided. Nowhere was neutrality appealing to the masses as just, wise, or fair.
One June morning, Washington drove out of Philadelphia in a phaëton and pair for a fortnight’s visit home,[812] and six days later the first of a brilliant and powerful series of articles by ‘Pacificus’ began to run in Fenno’s paper. By the light of the candles, Hamilton was rushing into the breach with a pen that was mightier than a sword.
IX
No one doubted the identity of ‘Pacificus.’ None but the man in the Pemberton house was capable of such brilliancy, audacity, and dash in controversy. His purpose was twofold—to justify the Proclamation of Neutrality, and convince the people that they had greatly exaggerated the services of France in the Revolution. In the first paper he defended the constitutional right of the President to issue the Proclamation without a consultation with Congress. In the second he released the country from all treaty obligations on the ground that France was waging an offensive war. In the third he appealed to fear with the assertion that if we sought to serve our ally we should be forced to wage war on the sea against the combined fleets of the coalition. In the fifth he treated the claims of France on American gratitude as trivial and absurd.[813] In the sixth he paid a tribute to the stupid Louis, attacking the French people for executing their king. In the last he urged the timeliness and necessity of the Proclamation. Brilliant letters, mingling truth and sophistry, but readable—and they were read with mingled emotions. Society was enchanted, the ‘mob’ roared, and even Jefferson, who never made the Hamiltonian mistake of underestimating a foe, was concerned.
When ‘Pacificus’ was appearing, Jefferson was summering under his plane trees near Philadelphia, Madison was sweltering in his Virginia home, wishing nothing better than a release from political duties. As Jefferson sat under the trees with Fenno’s paper before him, he instantly appreciated the necessity of a reply, and he ordered Madison to the task. Nothing could have been more distasteful to the mild little man suffering ‘a distressing lassitude from the excessive and continued heat of the season,’ and with avowed reluctance he undertook the task.[814] But in August, Madison’s replies were running in all the papers—forceful, spirited, rapid in reasoning, making telling points with citations from Hamilton’s articles in ‘The Federalist.’[815] He denied the power of the President to declare a treaty no longer operative. Proof? The best—Hamilton’s Number 75 of ‘The Federalist.’ Challenge the right of a nation to abolish an old government and establish a new? Why, it ‘is the only lawful tenure by which the United States hold their existence as a nation.’
But the two sets of letters merely served to keep the discussion going. The papers were doing their part. ‘This discussion must cease,’ wrote Fenno. ‘The Government has said we must be neutral and the people have no right to question its wisdom.’ Freneau sniffed and snorted forth satirical articles on the infallibility of rulers.[816] No writer presuming to castigate the democrats was spared. ‘Justice’ was pouring forth indignant eloquence against them. Ah, sneered Freneau—
‘Because some pumpkin shells and lobster claws
Thrown o’er his garden wall by Braintree’s Duke,[817]
Have chanced to fall within your greedy jaws—
. . . . . . .
Because some treasury luncheons you have gnawed
Like rats that play upon the public store ...’[818]
The bitterness intensified with the heat of the summer. A satirical letter ascribed to a Tory in Philadelphia to one in London rejoicing over the turn American affairs had taken, went the rounds of the Democratic press. Washington was not spared. He ‘is well surrounded, well advised.’ Hamilton moved the correspondent to rapture—‘that great prop of our cause, that intrepid enemy of liberty.’ Just read the third of the ‘Pacificus’ letters ‘and judge ... if there is anything criminal which honest Pacificus has not undertaken to defend.’[819]
‘A blessed situation truly,’ exclaimed ‘Consistent Federalist,’ referring to the recent Orders in Council. ‘Camillus and Pacificus come forward and vindicate the lenity of Britain; continue to blast the French, and vent their spleen on the only nation that seems disposed to befriend us.’[820] ‘Go on, then, Pacificus,’ wrote ‘Ironicus,’ ‘traduce the French nation and the combined powers of Europe will thank you for your assiduity.’[821] Soon the Democrats were grinning over the satirical announcement of the forthcoming book ‘collected from the immortal work of Pacificus’ on how to destroy free government by ‘aristocracy and despotism.’[822]