The Poems of Philip Freneau, Poet of the American Revolution. Volume 1 (of 3). Freneau Philip Morin

the time that the writings of Publicola, and the discourses on Davila, had a good deal excited the public attention, I took for granted from Freneau's character, which had been marked as that of a good Whig, that he would give free place to pieces written against the aristocratical and monarchial principles these papers had inculcated. This having been in my mind, it is likely enough I may have expressed it in conversation with others, though I do not recollect that I did. To Freneau I think I could not, because I had still seen him but once, and that at a public table, at breakfast, at Mrs. Elsworth's, as I passed through New York the last year. And I can safely declare that my expectations looked only to the chastisement of the aristocratical and monarchial writers, and not to any criticisms on the proceedings of Government. Colonel Hamilton can see no motive for any appointment, but that of making a convenient partisan. But you, sir, who have received from me recommendations of a Rittenhouse, Barlow, Paine, will believe that talents and science are sufficient motives with me in appointments to which they are fitted; and that Freneau, as a man of genius, might find a preference in my eye to be a translating clerk, and make good title to the little aids I could give him as the editor of a gazette, by procuring subscriptions to his paper, as I did some before it appeared, and as I have with pleasure done for the labors of other men of genius. I hold it to be one of the distinguishing excellences of elective over hereditary successions, that the talents which nature has provided in sufficient proportion, should be selected by the society for the government of their affairs, rather than this should be transmitted through the loins of knaves and fools, passing from the debauches of the table to those of the bed. Colonel Hamilton, alias 'Plain Facts,' says, that Freneau's salary began before he resided in Philadelphia. I do not know what quibble he may have in reserve on the word 'residence.' He may mean to include under that idea the removal of his family; for I believe he removed himself before his family did, to Philadelphia. But no act of mine gave commencement to his salary before he so far took up his abode in Philadelphia, as to be sufficiently in readiness for the duties of the office. As to the merits or demerits of his paper, they certainly concern me not. He and Fenno are rivals for the public favor. The one courts them by flattery, the other by censure, and I believe it will be admitted that the one has been as servile, as the other severe. But is not the dignity, and even decency of Government committed, when one of its principal ministers enlists himself as an anonymous writer or paragraphist for either the one or the other of them? No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free, no one ever will. If virtuous, it need not fear the fair operation of attack and defence. Nature has given to man no other means of sifting out the truth either in religion, law, or politics. I think it as honorable to the Government neither to know, nor notice, its sycophants or censors, as it would be undignified and criminal to pamper the former and persecute the latter."12

      But if the National Gazette concerned Jefferson not at all, as he alleged, it certainly did exasperate Washington. Later on, when the Genet affair had urged Freneau into still greater excesses, Washington, on the 23d of May, 1793, had a conversation with Jefferson, which the latter recorded in his Ana:

      "He [the President] adverted to a piece in Freneau's paper of yesterday, he said he despised all their attacks on him personally, but that there never had been an act of the government, not meaning in the Executive line only, but in any line, which that paper had not abused. He had also marked the word republic thus – where it was applied to the French republic [see the original paper]. He was evidently sore & warm, and I took his intention to be that I should interpose in some way with Freneau; perhaps withdraw his appointment of translating clerk to my office. But I will not do it. His paper has saved our constitution, which was galloping fast into monarchy, & has been checked by no one means so powerfully as by that paper. It is well and universally known, that it has been that paper which has checked the career of the monocrats, & the President, not sensible of the designs of the party, has not with his usual good sense and sang froid, looked on the efforts and effects of this free press and seen that, though some bad things have passed through it to the public, yet the good have preponderated immensely."13

      Washington even brought the affair into a meeting of the Cabinet, declaring, according to Jefferson's Ana, that,

      "That rascal, Freneau, sent him three copies of his paper every day as if he thought he (Washington) would become the distributor of them; that he could see in this nothing but an impudent design to insult him; he ended in a high tone."14

      The National Gazette published its last issue, October 23, 1793. The collapse of the Genet bubble – the revulsion of feeling after the Frenchman had threatened to appeal from Washington to the people, brought on a tidal wave which swept away all the idols of French Republicanism in America, and the National Gazette could not withstand the tide. Subscribers withdrew their subscriptions at a ruinous rate, the notes of the proprietors were protested, and the paper was abandoned. Freneau had no idea, however, of final surrender. His last word was a promise which, however, was never fulfilled.

      "With the present number concludes the second volume and second year's publication of the National Gazette. Having just imported on his own account a considerable quantity of new and elegant printing types from Europe, it is the editor's intention to resume the publication of this paper in a short time and previous to the meeting of Congress in December next."

      It is upon this episode that the reputation of Freneau among the generality of people chiefly rests. "That rascal Freneau" is the epithet that has clung to his name through all the intervening century. It is this one affair, more than anything else, that has kept him from the recognition he deserves, both as a patriot and a poet. The attitude of New England may be expressed in the words of President Dwight, written during the summer of 1793:

      "Freneau, your printer, linguist, &c., is regarded here as a mere incendiary, or rather as a despicable tool of bigger incendiaries, and his paper as a public nuisance."

      Letters might be multiplied in showing the same spirit in all of the Federalists.

      It must not be forgotten, however, that Freneau acted from pure and honest motives; that the excitement and bitter partisanship of the period were extraordinary, and that the air was heavily charged with the subtle magnetism that in France had created a reign of terror. It cannot be denied that Freneau went to excess in his denunciations; but so did Hamilton, who in reality began the conflict; so did Jefferson; so did many others. As to the extent to which Jefferson went in subsidizing the Gazette for his own use, the reader may judge for himself. Neither side is free from blame; Freneau is certainly no more culpable than the others who held far higher positions than he. It is but justice to say of Freneau, in the words of Jefferson's biographer, Randall —

      "He was always a warm, and after the period of which we write, became a violent partisan. It is but justice to his memory, however, to say that his honor and his veracity as a man were never questioned by those who knew him, and that his reputation in these particulars is now as free from all taint of suspicion as is that of any of the distinguished gentlemen whose names were associated with his in the controversy."

      The following words of Madison, taken from Mr. Trist's memoranda of a conversation, May 25, 1827, and published in Tucker's Life of Jefferson, probably presents the affair in its true light:

      "Mr. Madison said: 'Freneau's paper was another cause of soreness in General Washington. Among its different contributors, some were actuated by over-heated zeal, and some, perhaps, by malignity. Every effort was made in Fenno's paper, and by those immediately around him (Washington) to impress on his mind a belief that this paper had been got up by Mr. Jefferson to injure him and oppose the measures of his administration. Freneau himself was an old College mate of mine, a poet and man of literary and refined tastes, knowing nothing of the world. He was a French scholar, and employed at first as translator. Henry Lee, who was also his College mate, and had also a friendly feeling for him, was the more immediate cause of his establishing a paper. Our main object in encouraging it, was to provide an antidote against Fenno's paper, which was devoted to monarchy, and had begun to publish extracts from Mr. Adams's book. I used occasionally to throw in an article, all of which I have marked, and some of which I have shown