him for having preferred that paper as the channel of his communication with the people—especially as I viewed this selection as indicating his approbation of the principles and manner in which the work was conducted. He silently assented, and asked when the publication could be made. I answered that the time should be made perfectly convenient to himself, and the following Monday was fixed upon. He then told me that his secretary would call on me with a copy of the address on the next Friday morning and I withdrew.
"After the proof sheet had been compared with the copy, and corrected by myself, I carried another proof, and then a revise, to be examined by the President, who made but a few alterations from the original, except in the punctuation, in which he was very minute.
"The publication of the address—dated 'United States, September 17, 1796'—being completed on the 19th, I waited on the President with the original, and in presenting it to him expressed my regret at parting with it, and how much I should be gratified by being permitted to retain it. Upon which in an obliging manner, he handed it back to me, saying that, if I wished for it I might keep it; and I then took my leave of him."[1]
The stepping down of Washington from the seat of power let loose the political furies. Freneau having retired, Bache had become the chief Republican editor. In the Aurora he went as far as a critic could possibly go:
"If ever a nation was debauched by a man, the American nation has been debauched by Washington. If ever a nation was deceived by a man, the American nation has been deceived by Washington. Let his conduct, then,
- ↑ Memoirs Pennsylvania Historical Society, 1864, reprint of edition of 1826, 265. The original "copy" is now in the New York Public Library.
