[927] Robison, Jeffersonian Democracy in New England, pp. 26 et seq. Cf. Bentley, Diary, vol. ii, pp. 289, 346, 421, 429, 458.
[928] The situation is well covered by McMaster, History of the People of the United States, vol. ii, pp. 441 et seq.
[929] On account of the supposed place of concealment of the imaginary papers, this was commonly referred to as the “tub plot.”
[930] The public report of this story by Morse has already been noted. Cf. supra, [p. 306].
[931] Independent Chronicle, April 18, 1798. Cf. Constitutional Telegraph (Boston), Oct. 2, 1799.
[932] To the Freemen of Rhode-Island, etc., p. 4. This pamphlet was issued anonymously and without date. Its author was Jonathan Russell, and the date of its publication fell within the period of the Adams-Jefferson contest for the presidency, i. e., 1800–1801. The passage from which the quotation is taken is marked by not a little dignity and comprehension. “The people have been continually agitated by false alarms, and without even the apparition of a foe. They have been made to believe that their government and their religion were upon the eve of annihilation. The ridiculous fabrications of plots, which have been crushed out of being by the weight of their own absurdity; and the perpetration of massacres which never existed, but in the distempered malevolence which preached them, have been artfully employed to excite an indignation which might be played off for the purposes of party. Tubs have arrived at Charlestown. The crews of the Ocean and Pickering have been murdered…. No falsehood which depravity could invent, has passed unpropagated by credulity; and no innocence which virtue could render respectable and amiable has escaped unassailed by federal malignity. Bigotry has cried down toleration, and royalism everything Republican.” (Ibid.)
[933] Aurora, June 5, 1799.
[934] The pamphlet’s full title follows: A View of the New England Illuminati: who are indefatigably engaged in Destroying the Religion and Government of the United States; under a feigned regard for their safety—and under an impious abuse of true religion. The pamphlet passed through at least two editions. The citations of this study are from the second.
[935] Ogden (1740–1800) was rector of St. John’s Church (formerly Queen’s Chapel), Portsmouth, N. H., from 1786 to 1793. He was a well-meaning but an exceedingly erratic man. Perry, The History of the American Episcopal Church, 1587–1883, vol. ii, p. 79. He is said to have been the first Episcopal clergyman to be ordained in the city of Boston. Cf. ibid., p. 488. His death occurred at Chestertown, Md.
[936] A View of the New England Illuminati, pp. 2, 3.