On June 22d, Freneau, who was weak with fever, was taken to the Hunter hospital ship, lying in the East River. Here he languished with an intermittent fever, that threatened constantly to become "putrid" and fatal, until July 12th, when:
"The flag came alongside and cleared the hospital ship. But the miseries we endured in getting to Elizabeth Town were many. Those that were very bad, of which the proportion was great, naturally took possession of the hold. No prisoner was allowed to go to the cabin, so that I, with twenty or thirty others, were obliged to sleep out all night, which was uncommonly cold for the season. About ten next morning we arrived at Elizabeth Town Point, where we were kept in the burning sun several hours, till the Commissary came to discharge us.
"I was afflicted with such pains in my joints, I could scarcely walk, and besides was weakened with a raging fever; nevertheless I walked two miles to Elizabeth Town; here I got a passage in a wagon to within a mile of Crow's Ferry, which I walked; got a passage over the ferry and walked on as far as Molly Budleigh's, where I stayed all night. Next morning, having breakfasted on some bread and milk, I set homeward; when I came to Obadiah Budleigh's corner I turned to the right and came home round about through the woods, for fear of terrifying the neighbors with my ghastly looks had I gone through Mount Pleasant."
Some days later he despatched the following note to his friend at Santa Cruz:
"Sir: – I take this opportunity to inform you that instead of arriving, as I fondly promised myself, at the fragrant groves and delectable plains of Santa Cruz, to enjoy the fruits and flowers of that happy clime, I was unfortunately taken and confined on board a prison ship at New York, and afterwards in a Hospital Ship, where the damnable draughts of a German doctor afforded far different feelings to my stomach than the juice of the orange or more nourishing milk of the cocoa."
IV
On April 25, 1781, there was established in Philadelphia a new weekly newspaper, the Freeman's Journal or North American Intelligencer, which was to be "open to all parties but influenced by none," and which had for its object "To encourage genius, to deter vice, and disrobe tyranny and misrule of every plumage." The proprietor and printer of this paper was Mr. Francis Bailey, who not long before had removed his office from Lancaster, Pa. The editor and ruling spirit, although his name during three years did not once appear in its columns, was Philip Freneau. The mark of the young poet is upon every page. Its opening editorial, which was from his pen, sounded a note that was not once lowered or weakened while he was in control.
"At no period of time, in no era of important events from the first establishment of social government, have the liberties of man, have the rights even of human nature, been more deeply interested than at the time in which we presume to address you. While Liberty, the noblest ornament of society, and without which no community can be well organized, seemed to pine and sicken under the trammels of despotic restraint in every one of the ancient nations of the earth, it fairly promises to resume its pristine majesty here, and the new world begins to emerge from the fangs and tyranny of the old… One of the first sources of her decline in those countries where she last resided spring from the wanton and unhallowed restraints which the jealous arm of despotism hath imposed on the freedom of the press…
"That freemen may be made acquainted with the real state of their affairs, and that the characters of their public servants, both individually and collectively, be made manifest, is our object. With this patriotic view, and under the tutelage of law and the constitution, has the subscriber opened a Free Press, universally free to every citizen indiscriminately, whose principles coincide with those of the Revolution, and whose object is confessedly known to point at public or private good."
From this time until June, 1784, Freneau resided principally in Philadelphia, and edited the journal. During all of this time his muse was exceedingly active. He followed carefully the last years of the war, and put into satiric verse every movement of the "insolent foe." He sang the victory of Jones, and mourned in plaintive numbers the dead at Eutaw Springs. He voiced his indignation over the destructive career of Cornwallis, and burst into a Laus Deo at his fall. The ludicrous plight of Rivington and Gaine, the distress of the Tories, and the final departure of the British filled him with glee, which he poured out in song after song. It was his most prolific and spontaneous period.
He wrote, too, an abundance of prose. The series of graceful papers entitled "The Pilgrim" is from his pen, besides many a political study and literary sketch signed with a sounding name. Everywhere are manifest his love of true literature and his desire to lead a merely literary life, but here and there are notes of discouragement. "Barbers cannot possibly exist as such," he writes, "among a people who have neither hair nor beards. How, then, can a poet hope for success in a city where there are not three persons possessed of elegant ideas?"
During the year 1783 Freneau's pen was very busy in various lines of work. It is probable that he assisted Bailey in many ways, – writing introductions to publications issued by the office and performing the various other duties incumbent upon the literary editor of a publishing house. During this year he translated the "New Travels through North America," which had just been issued by the Abbé Robin, one of the chaplains of the French Army in America, and the translation was issued first by Bailey and later by Powers and Willis of Boston. Freneau's introduction is characteristic:
"Most of those accounts of North America, given to the public by British explorators and others, previous to the Revolution, are generally taken up, with the recitals of wonderful adventures, in the woods beyond the Lakes, or with the Histories and records of the wild Indian nations, so that by the time the reader gets through one of those performances, he never fails to be better acquainted with the Ottagnies, Chereokees, Miamees, Nadouwessians, and a hundred others, with their various customs of paw-wawing, or methods of making wampum, than with the most interesting particulars relative to the inhabitants of the then colonies these were but rarely thought worthy mentioning by those gentlemen, and when they are, it is mortifying enough to see them constantly considered as mere beasts of burden, calculated solely for the support of the grandeur, wealth and omnipotence of Great-Britain, than as men and Free-Men.
"Our French Author is more liberal – two years before the present peace he considered the United States as a great independent nation, advancing with hasty strides to the summit of power and sovereignty."
It was during this year that the poet, for the first time, met with positive opposition and abuse. Oswald, the editor of the newly established Gazette, quarrelled with Bailey, and a poetical battle was one phase of the contest. The details of this affair will be found in the proper place, and I need not recount them here, but suffice it to say that Freneau soon found his muse assailed by the meanest of all critics. His extremely sensitive nature could brook no criticism. His Celtic temperament could fight fiercely in the presence of an open foe, but it was easily depressed and discouraged by criticism and covert attack. He lost heart in his work, and at the end of the third volume he quietly withdrew from his editorship.
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