Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 | Page 4

farmers, with their frocks and utensils, and with a tree on
their shoulders, were escorted by the military company formed in a
hollow square to the Common, where the tree was planted in form, as
an emblem of freedom, and the Marseillaise Hymn was sung by a choir
within a circle round the tree. Major Boardman, by request,
superintended the business of the day, and directed the manoeuvres."
In the Gallic jargon then fashionable, England was "an insular Bastille
of slaves," and New England "the Vendée of America." On the other
side, the Federalists returned cheer for cheer,--looked with true British
contempt on the warlike struggles of the restless Frenchman,--chuckled
over the disasters which befell "his little popgun fleets,"--and damned
the Democrats for a pack of poor, dirty, blasphemous cutthroats. Hate
one another was the order of the day. The religious element, which
always exasperates dissension, was present. French Democrats had set
up the Goddess of Reason (in private life Mme. Momoro) as an object
of worship; American Democrats were accused of making Tom Paine's
"Age of Reason" their Bible; "Atheist" and "Infidel" were added to the
epithets which the Federalists discharged at their foes. So fierce and so
general was the quarrel on this European ground, that a distinguished
foreigner, then travelling in this country, said that he saw many French
and English, but scarcely ever met with an American. Weld, a more

humble tourist, put into his book, that in Norfolk, Virginia, he found
half the town ready to fight the other half on the French question.
Meanwhile, both French and English treated us with ill-disguised
contempt, and inflicted open outrages upon our commerce. But it made
little difference. One faction was willing to be kicked by England; and
the other took a pleasure in being _souffleté_ by France. The rival flags
were kept flying until the close of the war of 1812.
An outbreak of Democratic fury bordering upon treason took place,
when Senator Mason of Virginia violated the oath of secrecy, and sent
a copy of Jay's treaty with England to the "Aurora." Meetings passed
condemnatory resolutions expressed in no mild language. Jay was "a
slave, a traitor, a coward, who had bartered his country's liberties for
British gold." Mobs burned Jay in effigy, and pelted Alexander
Hamilton. At a public meeting in Philadelphia, Mr. Blair threw the
treaty to the crowd, and advised them to kick it to hell. They carried it
on a pole in procession, and burned it before the English minister's
house. A Democratic society in Richmond, Virginia, full of the true
modern South Carolina "sound and fury," gave public notice, that, if
the treaty entered into by "that damned arch traitor, John Jay, with the
British tyrant should be ratified, a petition will be presented to the next
General Assembly of Virginia praying that the said State may recede
from the Union, and be left under the government and protection of one
hundred thousand free and independent Virginians!" A meeting at
Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, resolved, "that it was weary of the tardiness of
Congress in not going to war with England, and that they were almost
ready to wish for a state of revolution and the guillotine of France for a
short space, in order to punish the miscreants who enervate and
disgrace the government." Mr. Jefferson's opinion of the treaty is well
known from his rhetorical letter to Rutledge, which, in two or three
lines, contains the adjectives, _unnecessary, impolitic, dangerous,
dishonorable, disadvantageous, humiliating, disgraceful, improper,
monarchical, impeachable_. The Mazzei letter, written not long after
the ratification, displays the same bitter feeling.
The Federalists had a powerful ally in William Cobbett, who signed
himself Peter Porcupine, adopting for his literary alias a nickname
bestowed by his enemies. This remarkable writer, who, like Paine,
figured in the political conflicts of two nations, must have come into

the world bristling with pugnacity. A more thorough game-cock never
crowed in the pit. He had been a private in the English army, came to
the United States about 1790, and taught French to Americans, and
English to Frenchmen, (to Talleyrand among others,) until 1794, when
the dogmatic Dr. Priestley arrived here, fresh from the scene of his
persecutions. The Doctor losing no time in laying his case before the
American public, Cobbett answered his publication, ridiculing it and
the Doctor's political career in a pamphlet which became immediately
popular with the Federalists. From that time until his departure for
England, in 1800, Cobbett's pen was never idle. His "Little Plain
English in Favor of Mr. Jay's Treaty" was altogether the best thing
published on that side of the question. Cobbett had more than one point
of resemblance to Paine, the object of his early invective, but later of
his unqualified admiration. These two men were the best