The new (Constitution was to bring new journals and new editors. In the Gazette of the United States, of April 25, 1789, it is stated that on the Saturday previous " the most illustrious President of the United States arrived in this city. At Elizabethtown he was received by a deputation of three senators and five representatives of the United States, and the officers of the state and corporation, with whom he embarked on the barge for the purpose of wafting him across the bay. It is impossible to do justice to an attempt to describe the scene exhibited in his Excellency's approach to the city."
The same paper also noted the arrival of the schooner Columbia, Captain P. Freneau, eight days out of Charleston. On board was "Dr. King, from South Africa, with a collection of natural curiosities, particularly a male and female ourang outang." As the escort for Washington proceeded up the bay. Captain Freneau, poet, seaman and scholar, brought his ship—with its cargo of monkeys—into line and sailed along with the gorgeous procession that was escorting the Presidentelect to the capital city.
As the editor of the National Gazette, Freneau was, more than any one else, to be responsible for the political acrimony that marked the beginning of government in this country. To him John Adams traced his downfall. It was this man, Freneau, of whom Jefferson said, when Washington had practically urged him to get rid of his services, that he (Freneau) and his paper, the National Gazette, had done more than any other single agency to combat the Hamiltonian political theories and to keep the country from all monarchical ideas.
