Aaron Hill (1758–1830), postmaster of Boston from 1808 until 1829, graduated from Harvard in 1776 and served during the American Revolution as an ensign and surgeon’s mate in the Continental army and as a naval surgeon. He worked as a merchant in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and later served his native Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the state legislature, 1795–1808 (Lucius R. Paige, History of Cambridge Massachusetts 1630–1877 [1877], 460–1, 532; Harvard Catalogue description begins Harvard University Quinquennial Catalogue of the Officers and Graduates, 1636–1925, 1925 description ends , 170; Heitman, Continental Army description begins Francis B. Heitman, comp., Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Army during the War of the Revolution, April, 1775, to December, 1783, rev. ed., 1914 description ends , 289; Hill to John Langdon, 14 Nov. 1801, and Langdon to Albert Gallatin, 20 Nov. 1801 [DNA: RG 59, LAR, 1801–09]; DNA: RG 28, RAP; Washington Daily National Intelligencer, 7 Dec. 1830).

Osgood based his political sermon on 2 Samuel 15.6: “So Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel.” He superimposed onto the contemporary political scene the Biblical story of the deposition by the Israelites of the just and honest King David in favor of the deceptive and dishonest Absalom, casting George Washington as David, TJ as Absalom, and James Madison as Absalom’s devious partner Ahitophel.

On the 15th page Osgood depicted TJ’s failure to consult with the Senate before rejecting the 1806 Monroe-Pinkney Treaty as evidence of his pro-French bias. On the 19th page he argued that TJ’s insistence on financial support for a fleet of gunboats that, “when finished, he himself acknowledged to be useless,” demonstrated his contempt for the intellectual capacity of the American people. On the 27th page Osgood contrasted what he saw as TJ’s insulting and provocative behavior toward Great Britain with his administration’s “tame and submissive tone” toward France. On the 34 page he told of a Baltimore man who was attacked by a mob after stating “that he hoped Bonaparte would never be able to conquer and enslave England.” Osgood added that although several of the attackers were indicted, Governor Robert Wright ultimately issued a pardon “in conformity to the example of his admired friend Mr. Jefferson,” whose record as president included “pardoning a man convicted of forgery, reversing the sentence of the law against Callender and remitting to him his fine after it had become the property of the nation, and in arbitrarily and illegally stopping the prosecution ordered by the Senate of the United States against the infamous Duane.”