“Our Telegraphe much news relates”

Yesterday I quoted the introductory lines of the verse for 1 Jan 1799 printed for the subscribers to the American Telegraphe in Newfield (later Bridgeport), Connecticut. In the voice of the newspaper carrier Polly, the wife or perhaps the stepdaughter of printer Lazarus Beach, that poem asked readers to “excuse what you cannot commend” in the rest of the broadside. But what might need excusing?

Those verses that followed were a poetic review of the year 1798, and they emphasized political controversies. For example:

Of Frenchmen’s “Diplomatic skill,”
Which many a Telegraphe did fill,—
Of X, Y, Z, and Talleyrand,
And ladies too, a chosen band,
Who undertook t’extort a fee,
From nations sovereign and free,
And after we had crouch’d and feed ’em,
To make us swallow Gallic freedom…

That’s a reference to the XYZ Affair (lampooned above), in which French officials had demanded bribes from American diplomats. With the facts gradually coming out, the nascent American political parties maneuvered for advantages and openings to blame the other side.

At home—of these United States,
Our Telegraphe much news relates:
How French-Americans are bang’d,
Yet Doctor L——n goes unhang’d.
How B——w a long letter wrote,
In right French stile and Gallic note:
For showing which, the Vermont L—n
The cold stone doublet has to try on.

“Doctor L——n” was Dr. George Logan, a Jeffersonian who had tried to effect peace between the U.S. of A. and France through informal contacts. Federalists denounced him as a traitor and passed a law making such unofficial diplomacy illegal.

“B——w” was the American diplomat Joel Barlow, who sent a long, one-sided letter from Paris to his brother-in-law Rep. Abraham Baldwin on 1 Mar 1798 about the friction between America and France. Rep. Matthew Lyon (the “Vermont L—n”) printed that letter and went to jail for that and other offenses under the Sedition Act. The American Telegraphe celebrated rather than condemned that attempt to limit the free press.

How Kentucke and the old Dominion,
(Akin by nature and opinion)
Are ’bout resolving, all at once,
To act the madman and the dunce.
But Carolina and Georgia too,
Are honest, Fed’ral, firm and true,
What then can poor Virginians do?
Why after they’ve cut all their flashes,
Repent in sackcloth, dust and ashes.

That refers to the conflict over the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, challenges to the central government drafted by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, respectively.

There were also some ethnic insults aimed at the French:

Great Buonaparte with his war dogs,
Has gone to Egypt after frogs…

In sum, the bulk of this broadside was Federalist invective. The American Telegraphe was one of the few newspapers to adopt that name which didn’t support the Jeffersonian party. And even at New Year’s, the paper’s employees were spreading its politics. The carrier delivering the verse was therefore in the potentially difficult position of asking for generous contributions while insulting a portion of the public.

But it could have been worse. In The Revolution of American Conservatism, David Hackett Fischer classified the American Telegraphe as “moderately Federalist in 1798.” In The Opposition Press of the Federalist Period, Donald H. Stewart called it “Independently Federalist.” Imagine what those verses would have sounded like if the paper had been strongly Federalist.

“For Carriers must sing, whether female or male”

Each New Year’s season Boston 1775 has shared an example of a newspaper carrier’s verse—topical lines printed, sung, and sold for the benefit of the apprentices who delivered newspapers in colonial and early federal America. The carriers got to keep the tips they collected on New Year’s, as other apprentices collected tips in their workshops around the same time.

This year’s example comes from the American Telegraphe of Newfield (later Bridgeport), Connecticut, as printed at the end of 1798:

ADDRESS of the Carrier of the American Telegraphe to its PATRONS.
January 1, 1799.

Ye friends of good order, ye men of reflection,
(On whom the press rests for support and protection)
Whose judgments are candid, whose censures well founded,
Who never revenge, although injured and wounded,
Who claim no perfection, while on earth you may live.
Who, seeing your own faults, can a neighbour forgive;
To you, generous PATRONS, see Polly appear,
To congratulate you on the birth of a Year.
A Song—a mixture of humour and folly,
At a season like this, is expected from Polly;
For Carriers must sing, whether female or male,
On a New-Year’s-Day morn, or their purses will fail.—
Here then I present it—and I shall depend
That you will excuse where you cannot commend.
If a line does not please you, why skip it and say,
“This does not please me, but others it may.”
You’ll doubtless find something to pay for your treasure,
So please—give—you know what—and read at your leisure.

Two things are notable about this verse. First, the carrier was a (gulp) girl. Or perhaps a woman. Either way, she was definitely a “female” named Polly.

The printer of the American Telegraphe was Lazarus Beach (1760-1816). In August 1797 he married Polly Hall, born Thompson (1764-1824), widow of Dr. Charles Hall. As 1799 began, Polly Beach was probably raising the three surviving children of her first marriage and mourning the loss, at the end of November 1798, of a stillborn son.

It looks like Polly Beach was also delivering her husband’s newspapers and asking its readers for a little cash. Alternatively, her daughter Maria Hall (1784-1849) could have been nicknamed “Polly” and handling the delivery chores for her stepfather. To confuse matters further, the poet later refers to “we children” and writes of retiring from the job of “Post-boy” in favor of someone else.

Another striking quality of this carrier verse is how apologetic it was.

TOMORROW: What was Polly apologizing for?