Biography
William Duane was an Irish-American printer and editor who succeeded Benjamin Franklin Bache at the Philadelphia Aurora after Bache's death in 1798. He married Bache's widow Margaret Hartman Markoe Bache in 1800. Born to Irish Catholic parents in upstate New York, Duane had previously been deported from British India for press criticism of the East India Company, then expelled from the United Kingdom for his journalism, before settling in Philadelphia in 1796.
Duane was indicted at least three separate times in connection with his editorship of the Aurora. The most significant was a July 1799 prosecution under the Sedition Act for printing a story alleging that Federalist senators were corruptly influenced by Britain. A subsequent 1800 prosecution for breach of Senate privilege drove him into hiding for months; he was indicted again under the Sedition Act in October 1800 over a story alleging Federalist plans to disenfranchise voters. The cases were dropped after Thomas Jefferson took office in March 1801 and let the Sedition Act expire. Duane went on to serve as a U.S. Army adjutant general during the War of 1812 and continued editing the Aurora into the 1820s.
May 22, 1801 contempt judgment and earlier recognizance release
United States v. Duane, 25 F. Cas. 920, case 14,997, dated May 22, 1801 (original PDF pages 1 and 7), records a judgment of thirty days imprisonment including the judgment day, prosecution costs, and continued commitment until compliance. This supplies the missing sentencing date, not proof of a completed thirty-day stay or an actual release day. The opening account separately says that an attachment was served, Duane was taken into custody, and he was then admitted to bail on his own $500 recognizance to appear the following morning. He appeared accordingly. That initial custody and bail do not establish continuous imprisonment through the judgment. The report does not state a final release date, and no admission-day upgrade or custody counter is inferred. The separate Sedition Act case is unchanged.
