Madison, which indirectly accused the
Administration of encouraging Miranda's preparations, or at least of
conniving at the expedition. This perverse Marquis, who gave Mr.
Jefferson a taste of the annoyance which Genet, Adet, and Fauchet had
inflicted upon the previous administrations, was clamorous and
persisting. The authorities in Washington thought it proper to order
the arrest of Mr. Ogden, and of Colonel William Smith, son-in-law of
John Adams and Surveyor of the Port of New York, under the Act of 1794.
The prisoners were taken before Judge Tallmadge of the United States
District Court. They were refused counsel, and were forced by threats
of imprisonment to submit to a searching examination. They were then
held to bail, both as principals and witnesses, in the sum of twenty
thousand dollars. Soon after, the President removed Colonel Smith from
his office.
Such a waste of editorial raw-material appears very singular to
newspaper-readers of the present day, accustomed as they are to see in
print everything that has happened or that might have happened; but we
must recollect that our grandfathers found the excitement necessary to
civilized man in party politics, national and local. This game they
played with a fierce eagerness which is now limited to a small class of
inferior men.
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