CHAPTER VI.

Reflections on the conduct of the President....Dismission of Mr. Gardner of New-Hampshire.... Spies encouraged....Anecdote of the Spy Oram.... Treatment to General Sumpter of South-Carolina, at the New-Circus, Philadelphia....Federal mob on the 9th of May, 1798....Dismission of Dr. James Reynolds from the Dispensary at Philadel phia....Persecution by the Dunkards.... Federal addresses....Vanity of the President....Remarks of Mr. Callender on the President's answer to the New-Jersey Militia....Procession of the President from Quincy to Boston...Bostonian honors....Reception given to the President at Fanuiel-Hall.... Characters of the Senators and Members of the House of Representatives.

THE beginning of the year 1798 may not improperly be styled the commencement of the reign of terror in the United States. Previous to the spring of this year, the image of a republic, and the mildness of Washington's administration were preserved with a decent reverence. The unfortunate alien had not to dread a dungeon more horri ble than that which he escaped, nor was the pen or the lips of the patriot compelled to submit to the rigid forms of a sedition law. The wavering intellect of Mr. Adams had only now assumed the consistency of a tyrant. Although he might have long aspired at sovereign power, his administration

was unstained with acts of cruelty. He had not, previous to this period, calumniated virtue, punished merit, rewarded vice, and given a poignancy to the rage of contending parties. Whatever his intentions might formerly have been, his conscience and not the world witnessed their criminality.

William Gardner, commissioner of loans for New-Hampshire, a man of honor and integrity, was one of the first whom he deprived of the means of supporting a numerous family, on account of his political principles. This gentleman had in December, 1790, accepted the above office....he was then treasurer of New-Hampshire, a placé worth about a thousand dollars per annum....his situation as commissioner amounted only to six hundred and fifty....he did not solicit his new office....he was urged to accept of it by an assurance that Congress would augment the salary....as they did not, Mr. Gardner signified his intention to resign within eighteen months after his acceptance. Mr. Hamilton, then Secretary of the Treasury, sent him a léttër in answer, dated the 14th of June, 1792. In this letter, Mr. Hamilton expresses the warmest approbation of Mr. Gardner's services, and regrets that they had not been adequately rewarded....he solicited him to continue his situation, with the assurance that his salary would be enlarged. Mr. Gardner received two other letters in the same style from Mr. Hamilton, and two from his successor, Mr. Wolcott....of these, the last is dated so late as February 6th, 1797. In summer, 1798, he

was turned out, for refusing to subscribe an address to the President which was circulated at Portsmouth, in New-Hampshire, couched in the most fulsome style, and breathing only slander and servile bombast.

The same system of persecution was immedi ately extended all over the continent. Every person holding an office was obliged to resign, or adore Mr. Adams as the Augustus of the new world.... a catalogue of their expulsions would fill a pamphlet. Spies were employed to report to the Executive every action and every word which reflected upon the President or his servants. No public company was free from these hired slaves of tyranny....the tables of the virtuous were besieged by their sycophancy and betrayed by their hypocrisy. One of them, by name Oram, had even the audacity to introduce himself into a hotel where the VicePresident lodged. The mind of Mr. Jefferson is above suspicion or disguise....his conversations on philosophy and politics were carried to the Inquisition at Braintree, there new modelled, and afterwards handed to Abercromby, Linn and Mason, by whom they were trumpeted forth to the world. Mr. Adams had resolved to reward the villain by making him a captain of artillery, but the depraved part of the Senate were ashamed of his character, and the project was relinquished.

The Emperors of Rome, in the height of their power, received from their humble subjects not more servile marks of submission than were paid

to President Adams by the federal faction. The republican who had firmness enough of mind to know his own importance, was always insulted, and often in hazard of his life from this host of aristocracy. In the summer of 1798, General Sumpter, of South Carolina, was unwarrantably abusedat the new Circus, in Market-street, Philadelphia, because he did not pull off his hat, kiss the ground and clap his hands when John Adams entered the place. The General sat in one of the front rows when a rumour spread that the President was coming in....the spectators were rising from their seats, hurrying off their hats and commencing to clap, when one Fitzhugh called out in a loud voice, asking why the General did not clap? A second rumour arose, and a second demand for clapping was made upon the venerable veteran....at the same time Fitzhugh attempted to seize his hands and force him to give applause. General Sumpter represented there was no mutual acquaintance to justify such freedoms, that he was a stranger to the gentleman, and asked if the latter knew who he was? "Oh damn you, we know you and all your party," replied the tory; " I hope in six months time to see you all banished from the country;' then turning to the spy Oram, he went on thus:" "does not Dayton keep these fellows in excellent order," alluding to the ruffian insolence of this man when Speaker of the House of Representatives. The second rumour of the approach of the President proved also groundless. At last, how

ever, his Majesty did appear. Fitzhugh then attempted to snatch off General Sumpter's. hat, asking why, like the rest of the company, he did not uncover? The General found out his name, and called for him next morning at his lodgings; but Fitzhugh was gone.

The ninth day of May, 1798, which was ap pointed by the State of Pennsylvania as a day of fast and of worship to the creator, was designed by the federal faction as a day of massacre and bloodshed: they and the clergy had fixed upon it as the most proper for commencing their political persecution. A well known clerical aristocrat, of Christ's Church, Philadelphia, was to give the signal of riot from the pulpit, by a thundering declamation against philosophers and jacobins, free-masons and illuminati. Bache, the printer, whose family and house were doomed for destruction, heard, by accident, of his danger....he applied to Hilary Baker, then mayor of the city, for protection, but the mayor was in league with the conspirators, and protection was refused. Bache, as his only means of defence, collected and armed all his friends, and the other republican house-holders did the same. The aristocrats, seeing these preparations, desisted from their plan, but like cowardly assassins, they filled the streets with noise and alarm, broke several windows, knocked down the lamp-posts, bedaubed the statue of the venerable Franklinwith mud, and defiled the entrance to every pub-. lic building with crowns and ensigns of royalty.