In November 1798, after the yellow fever epidemic had subsided Margaret Bache, Benjamin Bache’s widow, continued to publish the Aurora. She appointed William Duane as the new editor. He was Bache’s assistant and an associate of Carey’s. Duane was an incendiary writer. He was born in 1760 near Lake Champlain in what would become Vermont. His parents were of Irish descent. In 1771, a few years after his father’s death, he accompanied his mother to Ireland . In Ireland, he apprenticed to the printing trade. After breaking off relations with his mother, he moved to London, then Calcutta, India. At first he worked for the East India Company. Using borrowed funds he founded the Calcutta World and became a journalist. In 1791, authorities charged him with libel. He was banished from India in 1795 after praising French revolutionaries and espousing the grievances of soldiers against the East India Company Army. He went to London where he edited a newspaper that advocated universal suffrage and the ideals of the French Revolution. He set sail for Philadelphia a year later after government authorities moved to silence his press. An observer described him as having “wild hair, [a] long beard and fierce expression.” At the Aurora, he quickly established himself as a radical Democratic-Republican.[1]
Margaret Bache and Duane vigorously attacked John Adams and his administration.
The office of the Aurora was at 112 Market Street, a few doors away from Carey’s store at 118 Market. In the May 14, 1799 issue, Duane criticized soldiers who repressed Fries’ Rebellion in western Pennsylvania. They protested against a federal tax. At noon the following day, more than twenty-five men appeared at Duane’s offices. They demanded to know the source of his information. Duane refused to reveal it. With the Sedition Act in effect, these were serious charges.
They grabbed Duane by the collar and dragged him down a flight of stairs, pummeling him several times knocking him unconscious for refusing to reveal the writer of the article. Shocked and horrified, Carey wrote:
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“William Duane…published some attacks on the [the soldiers] for oppression and misconduct which….were partly just….Peter Miercken…went to the office of the Aurora, dragged Duane downstairs, & insisted on having the name of the writer given up. Duane manfully refused – and Miercken knocked him down…How often this was repeated I…cannot tell—for I was so shocked & horrified that I retired.”[2]
Mathew Carey
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Duane, wrote Fenno, in Philadelphia’s widely-read Federalist newspaper, “was not an American but a foreigner, and not merely a foreigner, but a United Irishman, and not merely a United Irishman, but a public convict and fugitive from justice.”[3]
Next: How William Duane Eluded Authorities (continued)
Look for it Monday, November 25.
