University of Virginia Library

A very judicious encomiast on the “greatest man in America,” in an elegant puff, published, and republished in almost every democratic Newspaper in the United States, has among other dashing matters, drawn a flaming comparison between Messrs. Jefferson and Jupiter. These two deities seem to share the universe between them, and to hurl about their thunder and lightning at an astonishing rate. Perhaps there never was a comparison, which, as rhetoricians express themselves, went more completely on all fours, than this to which we allude. We think, however, that our Mr. Jupiter jun. whenever he condescends to put on the terrible, is much the most august of these two personages.

Butler, speaking, doubtless of a demagogue, says that he was,

A man may lie not only with impunity but with applause, provided his falshoods have a tendency to further the views of the hypocritical demagogues of the day. See note 12, p. 8. vol. 1.

Although we have not yet received official intelligence of this most extraordinary phenomenon, yet, the silence which Mr. Jefferson has of late observed on the subject of this stupendous curiosity, warrants the conclusion which we here take the liberty to draw, of its absolute fusion.

It is a fact well known to every one in the least conversant in the history of the French Revolution, that religious homage, with a great number of blasphemous ceremonies was rendered by the chief actors in that scene of desolation to a common harlot. The object of their adoration was tricked out with characteristic tawdriness, and personated Reason at that time the idol of those atrocious infidels.

We have ever greatly admired the wonderful political pliancy of some of our clerical characters, in supporting with so much ardour, a man who has ever been hostile to the christian religion. But these gentlemen no doubt suppose, that the reports of Mr. Jefferson's infidelity are all federal lies. We will however furnish them with a few facts and arguments with which the federalists fortify their assertions, not doubting in the least that these candid and learned divines will contrive to muster arguments to prove, that Mr. Jefferson is a very pious and orthodox sort of a man; and though perhaps they would not go so far as to assert with a certain itinerant holder-forth in Massachusetts, that Mr. Jefferson is the sixth angel mentioned in the revelation, yet, they will probably maintain, that he has as much political piety as Oliver Cromwell, of genuine republican memory.

Mr. Jefferson's invitation to Tom Paine, has somewhat the appearance of no great regard to religion. But doubtless it was supposed, that the claims of the latter as a politician were such, as to entitle him to the very extraordinary attention of the former, especially, as Paine had written a letter against General Washington, an opponent to Mr. Jefferson's party, which teemed with the most unqualified abuse.

Mr. Jefferson says, in his Notes on Virginia, “It does me no injury for my neighbour to say, there are twenty Gods, or no God; it neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg; if it be said, his testimony in a court of justice cannot be relied on, reject it then, and be the stigma on him;” and speaking of the state of religion in Pennsylvania and New-York, he says, “religion there is well supported, of different kinds indeed, but all good enough; all sufficient to preserve peace and order.”

Now, although federal clergymen might be induced to adopt the language of Mr. Smith, and exclaim, “which ought we to be most shocked at, the levity or impiety of these remarks?” yet, democratic clergymen will, if they would be consistent, declare all this to be a federal lie, and that those passages in the Notes on Virginia which we have quoted, are federal interpolations, intended to traduce the fair fame of the “greatest man in America.”

But there is an astonishing charge lately made by a writer in the United States Gazette, that demands a refutation, which we, although the professed eulogist of Mr. Jefferson, are sorry to confess, are unable to furnish; but we hope our fellow-labourers in the vineyard of democracy will supply us weapons, wherewith to knock down this impudent adversary of our immortal chieftain.

“The most gentle temper,” says this anti-Jeffersonian scribbler, “may be urged until it becomes impatient, and this, I confess, was the case with myself, when on the road between Baltimore and Philadelphia, I heard a minister of the gospel declare, that the report of Mr. Jefferson's infidelity was “a Federal lie.” To counteract an imputation so ungenerous and unjust, and for the information of those, who are not so entirely hoodwinked as not to see any thing, however obvious and palpable it may appear, I have thought proper to subjoin the following statement, and if Mr. Jefferson will deny its truth, he shall be immediately informed of the name of the person who made it.

“B. Hawkins Esq. (don't start Mr. Jefferson) once a member of congress, and now high in trust and presidential favour, wrote a pamphlet in vindication of the doctrines of the Illuminati, and among others, of the doctrines of chance and materialism. He sent one copy of this pamphlet, yet in manuscript, to Mr. Jefferson, and another copy to Mr. Macon, speaker of the house of representatives. I say he sent those copies, and I ask Mr. Jefferson to deny it.

“Mr. Jefferson, in order to elude the curiosity of the Post-Office, sent him an answer in LATIN, in which he has recourse to that unintelligible slang which marks his public messages, but in which he does unequivocally express his approbation of every sentiment contained in the work, and does request Mr. Hawkins to cause it to be published, in order to enlighten the minds of the people of America. I say he did send this letter, and I beseech the President to deny it. The answer of Mr. Macon was not in latin; Mr. Macon does not write latin.”

This impudent federalist, who thus slanders the chief magistrate of a christian country, certainly deserves to be indicted, and not allowed to give the truth in evidence.

Some of our good democrats, as it behoveth them, have strenously denied the fact of Mr. Jefferson's masterly retreat from Charlottesville to Carter's Mountain. Now, although we propose to proceed at least to the end of the Canto, stating “false facts” in favour of the subject of our present eulogy, yet we propose to lie with somewhat more caution than Mr. Jefferson's advocates have generally done. We therefore will state what some of the wicked federalists have asserted, and leave it to some of our fellow-labourers in the vineyard of democracy, to lie down such opposition.

Mr. Smith of South Carolina, in his impudent pamphlet, to which we have referred before (see pages 105 and 110, vol. 1.) has the following allegations against Mr. Jefferson:

“Mr. Jefferson has generally sacrificed the civil rights of his countrymen to his own personal safety. We are told in a public address, by Mr. Charles Simms, of Virginia, who must have been well acquainted with the circumstances, “that Mr. Jefferson, when governor of Virginia, abandoned the trust with which he was charged, at the moment of an invasion by the enemy, by which, great confusion, loss and distress, accrued to the state, in the destruction of public records and vouchers for general expenditures.

“Now, here was a period of public danger, when Mr. Jefferson's attachment to the civil rights of his countrymen, might have shone very conspicuously, by facing and averting the danger; here would have been a fine opportunity for him to have displayed his public spirit, in bravely rallying round the standard of liberty and civil rights; but, though in times of safety, he could rally round the standard of his friend, Tom Paine, yet, when real danger appeared, the governor of the ancient dominion dwindled into the poor, timid philosopher; and instead of rallying his brave countrymen, he fled for safety from a few light-horsemen, and shamefully abandoned his trust.

There is likewise one Thomas Turner, Esq. of Virginia, a gentleman of very respectable character, &c. &c. but we are somewhat apprehensive that he is a federalist, and as such, in our capacity of Eulogist to Mr. Jefferson, we shall most assuredly take the liberty to be very severe upon him, for stating the following most abominable TRUTHS (for, “the greater the truth, the greater the libel”) against Mr. Jefferson.

“At the time Petersburgh was occupied by the British troops, under command of Generals Philips and Arnold, Mr. Jefferson, who was then governor of the state, did participate in the partial consternation excited by the situation of the British army, and did abandon the seat of government, at a period, and with an awkward precipitation, indicative of timidity, unwarranted by any immediate movement of the enemy, and forbidden by a regard to those duties, which belong to the station he held. This fact is well recollected, and can be proved by many of the oldest and most respectable inhabitants of the city of Richmond, and I believe would not be denied by the candid supporters of Mr. Jefferson himself.

“The sequel of his conduct, after the assembly returned to Charlottesville, and on the approach of Colonel Tarleton, to that place, stands attested by thousands of witnesses, and can never be forgotten by those of his countrymen, who respect the character of a firm and virtuous public officer, and who abhor that of the dastardly traitor to the trust reposed in him. His retreat, or rather his flight from Monticello, on the information that Tarleton had penetrated the country, and was advancing to Charlottesville, was effected with such hurried abruptness, as to produce a fall from his horse, and a dislocation of the shoulder. In this situation he proceeded about sixty miles south, to the country of Bedford, whence he forwarded his resignation to the assembly (who had in the mean time removed to Staunton, and) who thereupon elected General Nelson governor. The circumstances are substantially and literally true; nay, the abdication of the government must be a matter of record.”

Mr. Leven Powell, of Virginia, also states, in his public address, “That when Tarleton, with a few lighthorse, pursued the assembly to Charlottesvile, Mr. Jefferson discovered such a want of firmness, as shewed he was not fit to fill the first executive office; for, instead of using his talents, in directing the necessary operations of defence, he quitted his government by resigning HIS OFFICE; this too, at a time which tried men's souls; at a time when the affairs of America stood in doubtful suspense, and required the exertions of all.” The Governor of Virginia, during the invasion of the state, by a small British force, instead of defending the commonwealth at that alarming juncture, voluntarily and suddenly surrendered his office, and at a crisis, his country was required to choose another Governor! Is there any security he would not act in like manner again, in like circumstances?

This charge has been attempted to be got rid of, by producing a vote of the assembly of Virginia, after an inquiry into his conduct, acknowledging his ability and integrity, are altogether silent on his want of firmness, which had been the cause of his flight.

“It was natural for his friends in the assembly to varnish over this business as well as they could; and the danger being past, there being no prospect of his being again exposed in that station, and his flight proceeding not from any criminality, but from a constitutional weakness of nerves, it was no diffcult matter to get such a vote from the assembly; more especially, as the character of the state was no less implicated in the business than that of the governor.”

The very respectable editor of the Aurora, as well as his compeers; Mr. Richie of the Richmond Enquirer, Mr. Paine and other democratic writers, have shown wonderful adroitness in parrying the thrusts which have been made at Mr. Jefferson's character. Some have said that the accusations, provided they were all true, amounted to nothing. Others have undertaken to prove the whole a parcel of federal lies. But the Aurora-man has attacked the character of Mr. Turner, in order to invalidate his testimony with so much vigour, that the same Mr. Turner will never be able to show his head among honest men. He has told a comical, and, what is wonderful, in part, a true story, how one Tom Turner stole a cloak from a member of congress from Virginia. But the editor of the Evening Post has spoiled the whole, by the following explanation:

“The truth is, the cloak in question belonged to Mr. William Hillhouse, member of congress from Connecticut, and it was taken from him by one Mr. Thomas Turner, or as Duane has it, Tom Turner; but Tom Turner, instead of the repectable Virginia planter, who wrote the letter to Dr. Park, was a man of the same name, who belonged to the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, of which Mr. Jefferson was President; and what is more, he was like pillory-Nichols, of Boston, and Callender, one of Mr. Jefferson's confidential CORRESPONDENTS.”

This line contains, we think, what Edmund Burke would call “high matter.” Indeed, we are far from being positive, that we are not in this place somewhat beyond our own comprehension; an error of which, we are the more apprehensive, as we have observed it to be a common fault among those writers who advocate democratic politics. We think, therefore, that it will be most judicious for us to leave it to our commentators to decide, whether, by the term Sally, we mean an attack upon an enemy, or dalliance with a friend.

The preponderance which Virginia has already obtained in the scale of representation, will enable her to proceed to increase the privileges of her black population. In this she will be governed by the strict rules of republican propriety, which always consults the greatest good of the greatest number.

This is a duty, which has been proposed, and probably will at some future period, be adopted in the southern states, to prevent the importation of slaves. It is surprising, that, among all the calculations which have distinguished our penny-saving administration, this pleasant scheme has not been adopted more generally. But a word to the wise will not be thrown away. Our southern nabobs will improve on this hint: sable nabobbesses will be all the rage; and establishments for the manufacturing of slaves, will be as common as those for gin or whiskey.

In the Mercury, a democratic newspaper, was re-published from the National Intelligencer, a paper, under the immediate patronage of Mr. Jefferson, a precious paragraph, prettily prefaced as follows:

“The course of events will likewise inevitably lead to a mixture of the whites and blacks; and as the former are about five times as numerous as the latter, the blacks will ultimately be merged in the whites. This, indeed, appears to be the great provision made by nature, and, viewing the subject in its political aspects, we cannot feel too much satisfaction at there being an ultimate issue, however remote, independent of the exertions of statesmen, which, notwithstanding its repugnance to our reason, as well as prejudice, will arrive.”

No doubt, Mr. Mercury-man!—a most happy expedient truly!—“notwithstanding its repugnance to our reason”!—And what mortal can sufficiently admire thy wonderful magnanimity, O thou! the GREAT MAN, whom we are humbly attempting to eulogize, in the being one of the first to put in practice this philantrophic plan, by virtue of which, “the blacks will ultimately be merged in the whites.”!

What say you, O ye fair daughters of Columbia! (we mean the white ones) will ye be pleased with a hymeneal lottery, for the purposes aforesaid, in which every fifth lady-adventurer shall draw the delectable prize of a black paramour?

But as this notable scheme is of democratic origin, it would be the heighth of impudence for your old-fashioned, un-philosophical federalists, to interfere in the least. No—the benefits which may result from ths motley mixture, and scheme aforesaid, ought to be shared exclusively among genuine democrats. Those alone will be found worthy to walk in

To prove what a prodigiously benevolent sort of a gentleman we have taken the liberty to eulogize; and to furnish our readers with a most delightful specimen of close, accurate, and invincible logic, we will oblige them with some extracts of a letter from Mr. Jefferson to Sir John Sinclair, President of the Board of Agriculture at London, dated March 23, 1798, but lately republished in the democratic papers, by way of applauding the passive obedience and non-resistance measures of our creeping administration.

“I am fixed with awe (says our Chieftain) at the mighty conflict, in which two great nations are advancing, and recoil with horror at the ferociousness of man. Will nations never devise a more rational umpire of differences than that of force? Are there no means of coercing injustice, more gratifying to our nature, than a waste of the blood of thousands, and the labour of millions of our fellow-creatures? We see numerous societies of men (the aboriginals of this country) living together without the acknowledgment of either laws or magistracy, yet they live in peace among themselves, and acts of violence and injury are as rare in their societies as in nations which keep the sword of the law in perpetual activity. Public reproach, a refusal of common offices, interdiction of the commerce and comforts of society are found as essential as the coarser instrument of force. Nations like these individuals stand towards each other only in the relations of natural right. Might they not like them be peaceably punished for violence and wrong?” &c. &c.

Now let us look at, and of course, as in duty bound, admire this stream of humanity issuing from the fountain of philanthropy. What a sublime idea is that of providing a “rational umpire of differences” between warring nations who shall “coerce injustice” by “means gratifying to our nature,” and teach them to

And because a parcel of American savages, sparsely scattered over immense wilds, “live without the acknowledgment of either laws or magistracy, in peace among themselves,” &c. how very logically follows the ergo the populous, ambitious, and powerful nations of the old world may be ruled by Mr. Jefferson's notions of “the relations of right,” and warring empires, as well as hostile individuals be peaceably punished by “public reproach, a refusal of common offices,” &c.

Now were we not absolutely and bona fide determined to be Mr. Jefferson's advocate, we should first pick a quarrel with his premises, and then proceed to knock down his conclusions. We should say that the aboriginals of this country have their Chiefs, who have the authority of magistrates; that they are far from always living at peace among themselves, but murder is among others, a common crime, and sometimes a whole tribe is extinguished in cold blooded revenge of accidental homicide; that their wars are as bloody as those of civilized nations, and that they generally torture and put their prisoners to death, with fiend-like malice and ingenuity.

All this indeed might be said by Mr. Jefferson's opponents. But we would by no means be guilty of such an ill-advised attack on such fine practical philosophy, and recommend to this great philanthropist, and his sagacious adherents to rely altogether on the perfectibility of human nature, and the probability of nations submitting to be peaceably punished without any force, in some way gratifying to our nature. And therefore we would have them set about destroying the remains of our navy, army, forts, arsenals, &c. &c. so that it may not be possible for us to engage in any of those “mighty conflicts,” which cause Mr. Jefferson such excess of trepidation.

We cannot but observe, that Mr. Jefferson's being so terribly terrified at the thoughts of shedding human blood, even in a “mighty conflict,” is a total departure from the principles of his sect of philosophers. The illuminati in general, and Mr. Godwin in particular, have no scruples of that sort.

See Note 53. p. 76. Vol. I.

This mode of subduing the refractory was probably invented by Mr. Gallatin, who in his whiskey insurrection concern, was chairman of a committee of insurgents, who resolved to have no intercourse nor dealings with the officers of government, to “withdraw from them every assistance, and withhold all the comforts of life,” &c.

Here we shall be obliged, once more, to be severe on the before-mentioned Thomas Turner, Esq. for having the temerity to tattle slander against the man, whom good democrats delight to honour.

“The father of Colonel John Walker (says this man, who thinks he can “tell truth and shame the devil”) was the guardian of Mr. Jefferson, and advanced a part of those funds, which were applied to the education of the latter; an education affording those talents, which have been so strangely perverted, which have been insidiously employed in the conception of schemes, foul, ungrateful, horrible. At a very early period of their lives, Colonel Walker and Mr. Jefferson contracted an attachment which grew up with their years and ripened into the closest intimacy. —Their professsions were mutual; their confidence unbounded. While things were in this situation, Mr. Jefferson was meditating the unnatural purpose of seducing the wife of his best friend, and to this end (taking advantage of the confidence of Colonel Walker, and availing himself of the timidity of the lady, whose affection for her husband prevented the disclosure of a transaction, which might lead to an exposure of his life) devoted himself for ten years, repeatedly and assiduously making attempts, which were as repeatedly, and with horror repelled. For ten years was this purpose pursued, and at last abandoned (as he himself acknowledges) from the inflexible virtue of the lady, and followed (as he also acknowledges) by the deepest and most heart-wounding remorse.”

All this I have seen: not in newspapers; not in extracts; not in copies of letters.—I have seen it in the original correspondence between Messrs. Walker and Jefferson, every letter of which bears the signature of the writer, or has been since acknowledged by him, under his own hand. In this correspondence Mr. Jefferson repeatedly and fervently confesses that the guilt is all his own; the innocence all Mrs. Walker's; and that he shall never cease to revere, and attest the purity of her character, and deprecate his unpardonable and unsuccessful attempt to destroy her. His contrition, his misery, are asserted in the warmest terms, and his acquittal of Mrs. Walker pronounced in the strongest language of his pen. Among other concessions he owns, that in order to cover the real cause of the separation between Colonel Walker and himself, he did FABRICATE a NOTE respecting an unsettled account which he said had produced the schism, and which he expressly acknowledges HAD NO FOUNDATION IN TRUTH. Let it not be forgotten that the attempts against the honour of Mrs. Walker were carried on during the life time of Mrs. Jefferson, than whom a better woman and better wife never existed.”

And must the head of a great nation, the idol of a free people, and the patron of Tom Paine, be lacerated and scarified in this manner? Surely not with impunity, for lo, Tom Paine hath taken up the gauntlet in his defence! and now it behoveth all who would not choose to be buried alive in the filth of obloquy, to sneak out of the scrape of opposition to Mr. Jefferson, with all possible celerity. The letter of Mr. Turner, says the author of the Age of Reason, and the enemy of Washington, and the friend of Mr. Jefferson, is a “putrid production,” but “having nothing else to do” he has “thrown away an hour or two,” in “examining its component parts.” Mr. Turner and Mr. Hurlburt, (the latter is the gentleman, who distinguished himself by a famous speech in the Legislature of Massachusetts, in the laudable attack made by the minority of that body on the liberty of the press) he politely stiles “two skunks who stink in concert.” This is succeeded by other arguments at least as convincing, and as delicately expressed, but somewhat too “lengthy” for insertion.

The reader will please to observe, that this remorse of Mr. Jefferson, so unworthy a philosophist, took place before his illumination.

C. C.

We have heard it reported by some vilifier of Mr. Jefferson, that he endeavoured to induce Mrs. Walker to compliance with his wishes, by putting in her way certain sentimental treatises, said to be proper on such occasions.

For some further illustration of this delectable doctrine, we would refer our reader to p. 57, Note 45. Vol. I.

The Boston Chronicle, and we believe many other democratic papers, declared that the report of Mr. Jefferson's having invited Paine to return to this country, was a falsehood of federal fabrication, invented on purpose to slander Mr. Jefferson. But, when Paine published the letter, with that accommodating versatility, which is no doubt absolutely necessary for the support of their party, they applauded the President for that very measure. The letter itself is couched in terms highly respectful, and is highly honorary to both parties in the correspondence. The following are extracts:

“Dear Sir,

“Your letters of Oct. 1st, 4th, 6th, 16th, came duly to hand, and the papers which they covered were, according to your permission, published in the newspapers, and under your own name. These papers contain precisely our principles, and I hope they will be generally recognised here.

“You expressed a wish to get a passage to this country in a public vessel. Mr. Dawson is charged with orders to the captain of the Maryland to receive and accommodate you back, if you can be ready to depart at such a short warning.

“That you may long live to continue your useful labours, and to reap the reward in the thankfulness of nations, is my sincere prayer. Accept assurances of my high esteem and affectionate attachment.”

Paine has given us a specimen, in one of his letters to the citizens of the United States, of the success of his labours in the cause of liberty in that genuine republican country. Robespierre seized him, together with many other eminent patriots, and imprisoned him eleven months, proposed to requite his revolutionary services with the guillotine. The downfal of the tyrant, however, prevented this termination to Paine's political labour, and the arch Infidel has come, not to infect this country with the poison of his seditious and blasphemous publication, but, as Mr. Jefferson says, to “continue his useful labours among us.”

But it somehow unfortunately happens, that Tom Paine's merits are not fully appreciated by certain of Mr. Jefferson's admirers. In a newspaper entitled the Freeman's Journal, established under the auspices of Governor M'Kean & Co. at Philadelphia, we find Mr. Tom Paine's quondam friends attacking him in a most merciless manner. We will give a short paragraph as a specimen of the unmerited abuse which is lavished on this almost a martyr, in the cause of licentiousness and infidelity.

“Had this polluted monster remained in France, he would have conferred a particular favour on this country. Infamous and execrated, he might have “gone to his own place,” unheeded and unregarded, like any other outcast from society. But, as if the measure of his iniquity was not yet full, this foe to God and man has come hither to plague us.”

But let Mr. Tom Paine never seem to mind a little quid abuse, for he has received “assurances of” Mr. Jefferson's “high esteem and affectionate attachment.”

A specimen or two of delicate invective, taken from Paine's letter to George Washington, President of the United States, dated Paris, July 30th, 1796, and printed by Benjamin Franklin Bache, the worthy predecessor of William Duane, the present editor of the Aurora, will doubtless very much oblige our good democratic readers and show what a well qualified champion Mr. Jefferson has enlisted in his defence.

“I declare myself opposed to almost the whole of your administration; for I know it to be deceitful, if not even perfidious.”

“Injustice was acted under pretence of faith; and the Chief of the army became the patron of the fraud.”

“Meanness and ingratitude have nothing equivocal in their character. There is not a trait in them that renders them doubtful. They are so original vices, that they are generated in the dung of other vices, and crawl into existence with the filth upon their back. The fugitives have found protection in you, and the levee room is the place of their rendezvous.”

“The character which Mr. Washington has attempted to act in the world, is a sort of non-describable, camelion coloured thing, called prudence.”

“As to you, Sir, treacherous in private friendship, and a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate, or an impostor; whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any,” &c. &c.

Mr. Jefferson's writings, both political and philosophical, have been so often the subject of the very just encomiums of his party, and have on the contrary been so often bandied to and fro as the footballs of federal raillery, that it would be difficult to excite public attention to a critical canvass of their merits. His pretensions to meritorious authorship appear to be founded, principally on his “Notes of Virginia,” a work which few village schoolmasters could not have executed better. We will however compare some of his tenets as displayed in that work, with some later productions of the distinguished author, for the purpose of showing his consistency as a politician.

Speaking of the population of America, Mr. Jefferson remarks, that “the present desire of America is to produce rapid population, by as great importation of foreigners as possible. But is this founded in good policy? Are there no inconveniences to be thrown into the scale against the advantage to be expected from a multiplication of numbers, by the importation of foreigners? It is for the happiness of those united in society to harmonize as much as possible in matters which they must of necessity transact together. Civil government being the sole object of forming societies, its administration must be conducted by common consent. Every species of government has its specific principles: Ours, perhaps, are more peculiar than those of any other in the universe. It is a composition of the first principles of the English Constitution with others, derived from natural right and reason. To these nothing can be more opposed than the maxims of absolute monarchies. Yet from such we are to expect the greatest number of emigrants. They will bring with them the principles of the government they leave, imbibed in their early youth; or if able to throw them off, it will be an exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing as usual from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty. Their principles with their language they will transmit to their children. In proportion to their numbers, they will share with us in the legislation. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp and bias its direction, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mass. I may appeal to experience, during the present contest, for a verification of these conjectures; but if they be not certain in the event, are they not possible, are they not probable? Is it not safer to wait with patience for the attainment of any degree of population desired or expected? May not our government be more homogeneous, more peaceable, more durable? Suppose twenty millions of republican Americans, thrown all of a sudden into France, what would be the condition of that kingdom? If it would be more turbulent, less happy, less strong; we may believe that the addition of half a million of foreigners, to our present number, would produce a similar effect here.”

Now for the display of that convenient versatility, which is one of the most essential characteristics of a great statesman. In the President's message of December, 1801, we are told that “a denial of citizenship under a residence of 14 years, is a denial to a great proportion of those who ask it, and controls a policy pursued from the first settlement, by many of these states, and still believed of consequence to their prosperity. And shall we refuse to the unhappy fugitives from distress that hospitality, which the savages of the wilderness extended to our fathers arriving in this land? Shall oppressed humanity find no assylum on this globe? Might not the general character and capabilities of a citizen be safely communicated to every one manifesting a bona fide purpose of embarking his life and fortune permanently with us?”

In the Notes on Virginia we also learn, “That the political economists of Europe have established it as a principle, that every state should manufacture for itself: and the principle like many others we transfer to America, without calculating the different circumstances, which should often produce a different result. In Europe, the lands are either cultivated, or locked up against the cultivation. Manufacture must, therefore, be resorted to of necessity, not of choice, to support the surplus of their people. But we have an immensity of land, courting the industry of the husbandman. Is it best, then, that all our citizens should be employed in its improvement, or, that one half should be called off from that, to exercise manufacture and handicrafts for the other? Those who labour in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people; whose breasts he has made the peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue.—It is the focus in which he keeps alive that sacred fire, which otherwise might escape from the earth. Corruption of morals in the mass of cultivators is a phenomenon of which no age nor nation has furnished an example. It is the mark set on those who, not looking up to heaven, to their own soil and to industry, as does the husbandman, for their subsistence, depend for it on the casualties and caprice of customers. Dependence begets subservience and venality; suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition. This, the natural progress and consequence of the arts has sometimes perhaps been retarded by accidental circumstances: but generally speaking, the proportion which the aggregate of the other classes of the citizens bears, in any state, to that of its husbandmen, is the proportion of its unsound to its healthy parts, and is a good enough barometer, whereby to measure its degree of corruption. While we have land to labour let us never wish to see our citizens occupied at a work-bench or twirling a distaff. Carpenters and smiths are wanting in husbandry: but for the general operation of manufacture, let our workshops remain in Europe. It is better to carry provisions and materials to workmen there, than bring them to the provisions and materials, and with them their manners and principles. The loss, by the transportation of commodities across the atlantic will be made up in happiness and permanence of government. The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government, as sores do to the strength of the human body.”

The above was written in 1782. In the year 1793, Mr. Jefferson, then Secretary of State, having occasion to fall out with Great Britain, in a report relative to commercial restrictions of other nations, and the measures which the United States ought to pursue to counteract them, recommends the imposition of heavy duties, or excluding such foreign manufactures as we take in greatest quantities, for “Such duties (he observes) having the effect of indirect encouragement to domestic manufactures of the same kind may, induce the manufacturer to come himself into these States; and here it would be in the power of the State governments to cooperate essentially, by opening the resources of encouragement which are under their controul, extending them liberally to artists in those particular branches of manufactures for which their soil, climate, population, and other circumstances have matured them, and fostering the precious efforts and progress of household manufacture, by some patronage suited to the nature of its objects, guided by the local information they possess, and guarded against abuse by their presence and attention. The oppressions on our agriculture in foreign parts would thus be made the occasion of relieving it from a dependence on the councils and conduct of others, and promoting arts, manufactures and population at home.”

Mr. Jefferson's Message contained the first proposition for an attack on the judiciary, and he is well known to have gone hand in hand with his estimable party, in the courageous and successful inroad made on the aristocratic constitution of the United States, by putting down the federal judges by the dozen. That in this respect he has made great improvements in the theory of liberty, since writing his Notes on Virginia, will abundantly appear from the following quotation from that work, so highly celebrated by the admirers of genuine freedom.

Speaking of the government of Virginia, he remarks, that “All the powers of government, legislative, executive and judiciary, result to the legislative body. The concentrating these in the same hands is precisely the definition of despotic government. It will be no alleviation that these powers will be exercised by a plurality of hands, and not by a single one. One hundred and twenty-three despots would surely be as oppressive as one. Let those who doubt it turn their eyes to the republic of Venice. As little will it avail us that they are chosen by ourselves. An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one should transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others. For this reason, that convention which passed the ordinance of government, laid its foundation on this basis, that the legislative, executive and judiciary departments should be separate and distinct, so that no person should exercise the powers of more than one of them at the same time. But no barrier was provided between these several powers. The judiciary and executive members were left dependent on the legislative for their subsistence in office, and some of them for their continuance in it. If therefore, the legislature assumes executive and judiciary powers, no opposition is likely to be made, nor if made, can be effectual; because in that case they may put their proceedings into the form of an act of assembly, which will render them obligatory on the other branches. They have accordingly, in many instances, decided rights which should have been left to judiciary controversy; and the direction of the executive, during the whole time of their session, is becoming habitual and familiar.”

One more specimen of Mr. Jefferson's openness to conviction, and the facility with which he relinquishes an error of opinion the moment he discovers it, we shall furnish from his philosophical disquisition on the colour and other properties of negroes. Our philosopher, after stating certain modes by which the evil of slavery in Virginia might be annihilated, such as that the black slaves “should continue with their parents to a certain age, then be brought up, at the public expense, to tillage, arts or sciences, according to their geniusses, till the females should be eighteen, and the males twenty-one years of age, when they should be colonized to such place, as the circumstances of the time should render most proper sending vessels at the same time to the other parts of the world for an equal number of white inhabitants,” proceeds with the following profound observation: “It will probably be asked, why not retain and incorporate the blacks in this state? I answer, deep-rooted prejudices entertained by the whites, ten thousand recollections by the blacks of the injuries they have sustained, new provocations, the real distinction which nature has made, and many other circumstances, will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions, which will never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race. To these objections, which are political, may be added others, which are physical and moral. The first difference which strikes us, is that of colour; whether the black of the negro resides in the reticular membrane, between the skin and the scarf-skin, or in the skin itself; whether it proceeds from the colour of the blood, or the colour of the bile, or from that of some other secretion, the difference is fixed in nature, and is as real as if its seat and cause were better known to us. And is this difference of no importance? Is it not the foundation of a greater or less share of beauty in the two races? Are not the fine mixture of red and white, the expressions of every passion, by the greater or less suffusion of colour in the one, preferable to the eternal monotony, which reigns in the countenances of the other race? Add to these, flowing hair, a more elegant symmetry of form, their own judgment in favour of the whites, declared by their preference of them, as uniformly as is the preference of the ourang-outang for the black women over those of his own species. Besides those of colour, figure, and hair, there are other physical distinctions proving a different race; they have less hair on the face and body; they secrete less by the kidnies, and more by the glands of the skin, which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odour.”

“They are in reason much inferior to the whites. It is not against experience to suppose, that different species of the same genus, or varieties of the same species may possess different qualifications. Will not a lover of natural history, then, one who views the gradations in all the races of animals, with the eye of philosophy, excuse an effort to keep those in the department of man as distinct as nature has formed them.”

He afterwards observes, “that the improvement of the blacks in body and mind, in the first instance of their mixture with the whites, is observed by every one, and proves that their inferiority is not the effect merely of their condition in life. Among the Romans, their slaves were often their rarest artists; they excelled too in science, insomuch as to be employed as tutors to their masters' children. Epictetus, Terence and Phoedrus, were slaves; but they were of the race of whites. It is not their condition, then, but NATURE, which has produced the distinction.”

Mr. Jefferson doubtless wrote these observations previous to his having obtained an intimate acquaintance with the good qualities of the blacks. But some subsequent investigations, could not but lead a man of his penetration, to reject any pre-conceived opinion, unfavorable to this “race of animals.” And instead of keeping those in the department of man as distinct as possible, he now not only maintains, that the “true path to national glory,” leads to a mixture of the whites and blacks, (See note 11, p. 22, Vol. II.) but has condescended to add example to precept, to teach us by his own experiments the soundness of his philosophy.

It is probable that the new light, which he obtained by the only true mode of philosophising, led him to the candid confessions contained in a congratulatory letter to his worthy and learned brother, Benjamin Banneker, said to be, the author of an almanack, &c. In this last production, he declared in the teeth of his former theory, that “he rejoiced to find that Nature had given to his black brethren talents equal to those of other colours, and that the appearance of a want of them, was owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa and America.”

There is a philosopher of pliability for you! none of your rigid personages who will remain obstinate in error against the light of reason, and his own and other men's experiments. This whirling to the left about, in consequence of the wonderful phenomenon of a Negro Almanack, (probably enough made by a white man) was as masterly a manœuvre, in a political, as the retreat to Carter's mountain, in a military point of view.

Mr. Jefferson's report on weights and measures has been highly celebrated by his party, but the mischief making Federalists have made many unmerciful strictures on its defects. To show with what kind of logick Mr. Jefferson, has been assailed we shall again have recourse to the pamphlet of Mr. Smith, in which Mr. Jefferson and his pretensions are so roughly handled.

Mr. Jefferson was required “to report to the House a proper plan for establishing uniformity in the currency of weights and measures of the United States.”

“The object of a plain, sensible man, more anxious to render solid services to the country, than to acquire reputation by a pedantick display of science, would naturally have been, to ascertain the existing currency, weights and measures in the United States, and to establish such a standard, as would be most conformable to the general use, and attended with the least innovation and distress.

“In respect to uniformity in measures, nothing more would have been requisite than to have proposed that some determined standard should be made and lodged in some public depository, to which access might be had, when necessary.

“Instead of this, Mr. Jefferson proposes a system, which professes extreme minuteness, precision and accuracy, and yet, when examined, is found to leave every thing to the skill and accuracy of a Watchmaker; a system, depending on criteria, which he considered as important, and yet, which are not defined in such manner as to admit of an application of them.

“He begins the report with observing, “that there exists not in nature a single subject, or species of subject accessible to man, which permits one constant and uniform dimension.” The causes of this variation of dimension are stated to be expansion and contraction, occasioned by change of temperature. Iron is stated to be the least expansible of metals, and the degree of expansion of a pendulum of 58. 7, inches is said to be from 200 to 300 parts of an inch.

Mr. Jefferson, however, says, “that the globe of the earth might be considered as invariable in all its dimensions, and that its circumference would furnish an invariable measure.” But if a small portion of the least expansible metal, iron, is so affected by temperature, how can it be true, that the globe would furnish an invariable measure? Is not the whole earth, composed as it is of various elements, all more expansible than iron, liable to be affected by changes of temperature? Are not different sides of the earth presented to the sun, at different seasons of the year? Is not the whole globe nearer to the sun in some parts of its orbit, than at others? Is it not, of course, more susceptible of heat, and more affected by attraction, both of which operate to affect the dimensions of our globe? Is it likely that earth, water, and other elements, are so equally distributed through our globe, as that the degrees of expansion and contraction, occasioned by changes of seasons, exactly counter-balance each other? Was it not known to Mr. Jefferson, that no two of the great circles of our globe are of equal circumference, and that this rendered his position, at least doubtful?

“Mr. Jefferson says, “that no one circle of the globe is accessible to admeasurement in all its parts, and that the trials to measure portions have been of such various result, as to shew that there is no dependence on that operation for certainty. If this be true, what were the data upon which it was asserted, that the whole circumference would furnish an invariable measure? The French philosophers now say the contrary, and they have lately actually taken a section of the earth for their standard. Who is to decide between these doctors, or are they all aiming to puzzle plain people, by an affectation of accuracy, which is unattainable?

“Mr. Jefferson's standard is “a uniform cylindrical rod of iron, of such length, as in latitude 45 degrees, in the level of the ocean, and in a cellar or other place, the temperature of which does not vary throughout the year, shall perform its vibrations, in small and equal arcs, in one second of mean time.”

“The degree of 45 degrees is assumed, because it was proposed by France, and because it was the northern boundary of the United States. He says, “let the completion of the 45 degrees then give the standard for our union, with the hope, he facetiously adds, that it may become a line of union, with the rest of the world;” a pleasant conceit! it was kind in this profound philosopher to emerge from the depth of his experimental cellar, to enliven this scientific and abstruse subject with a pun.

“But our philosopher's hope of a line of union with the rest of the world is already defeated; the French, have, since his report, taken a section of a meridional line for their standard . Their pendulum for 45 degrees is to vibrate 100,000 seconds, while Mr. Jefferson's is vibrating 86,400.

“The French have outdone even Mr. Jefferson in innovation; thus illusory has the expectation proved, that the hobby-horse of one philosopher will be respected by another.

“But why this attempt at absolute accuracy? He admits that the pendulum of 45 degrees differs from the pendulum of 31 degrees, only 1–679 part of its whole length, and that this difference is so minute that it might be neglected, as insensible for the common purposes of life. There was some reason for the attempt beyond a display of learning, or there was not; if perfect exactness was desirable, why where the following causes of uncertainty and error unnoticed?

“1st. The experiment, he says, must be made in the level of the ocean, to prevent that increment to the radius of the earth and consequent diminution of the length of the pendulum, which a higher situation would produce: what is the level of the ocean? the tide rises in 45 degrees about fifteen feet, and there are levels of the ocean at high-water, low-water, and at all points between these extremes. Perfect exactness required that the expression, level of the ocean, should have been defined: this omission has since been rectified in a bill which passed the House of Representatives last session.

“2d. The experiment, says the report, must be made in a cellar or other place, the temperature of which does not vary throughout the year. This is important, or it is not: if important, why not define the temperature, that it might be ascertained by a thermometer. There are few or no natural caves or cellars, in which the temperature does no vary: variations are frequently noticed in the deepest caves and mines: various causes may affect the temperature: Mr. Jefferson admits this, in his Notes, p. 21, where he allows that “chymical agents may produce in subterraneous cavities, a factitious heat;” and these may more or less, affect the temperature in most caves or cellars.

“The pendulum is, however, admitted by Mr. Jefferson, to be liable to uncertainties, for which he offers no remedies: how does it appear that these uncertainties are not more important than the causes of error, to which his attention has been directed?

“3d. Machinery (says the report, page 8,) and a power are necessary, which may exert a small but constant effort to renew the waste of motion, but so that they shall neither retard nor accelerate the vibrations.”

“But it adds, in the next page, “to estimate and obviate this difficulty is the artist's province.” What is this, but to say, that the standard of the United States shall be the pendulum of some clock, made by Mr. Leslie, or some other artist, thus discarding at once all reliance upon the principles before advanced. The difficulty of ascertaining the centre of oscillation, (which he admits to be impossible, unless in a rod, of which the diameter is “infinitely small,”) he thinks however can be obviated by Mr. Leslie, the watchmaker.

“Mr. Jefferson then proceeds to apply his standard,

“1st. To measures of capacity. These he proposes should be four-sided, with rectangular sides and bottom, for which he gives the following reasons: “cylindrical measures have the advantage of superior strength; but square ones have the greater advantage of enabling every one, who has a rule in his pocket, to verify their contents, by measuring them.” Did it not occur to this profound mathematician, that a man with a rule in his pocket, could as easily measure the diameter and depth of a cylindrical half bushel as the sides and depth of a square box?

“2d. To weights. The standard of weights is proposed to be a definite portion of rain water, weighed always in the same temperature. “It will be necessary, says he, to refer these weights to a determinate mass of substance, the specifick gravity of which is invariable; rain water is such a substance, and may be referred to every where, and through all time.” But the temperature is not defined; rain water is varied by several causes; dust, insects, &c. will create a difference in its weight. The French, in their late plan, have outdone Mr. Jefferson; their standard is distilled water, ascertained by a defined temperature.”

Such is the cruel manner in which the federal rogues cut up a genuine philosopher.

“Report, p. 3. “In order to avoid the uncertainties which respect the centre of oscillation, it has been proposed by Mr. Leslie, an ingenious artist of Philadelphia, to substitute for the pendulum, an uniform cylindrical rod, without a bob.”

Notwithstanding this friendly hope, the French have treated our philosopher very cavalierly, by altogether disregarding, in their late system, his learned labors. Though he was so ready to adopt whatever they proposed, they have not even condescended to take the least notice of his report. Even Fauchet, in his letter to the secretary of state, communicating the French standard of weights and measures, seems not to have even heard of the secretary's report; for he says, “France was the first to place those researches among the cares of government. America, if I mistake not, has since followed the example, for I think I have heard that the present government were engaging in the same changes, and even waited the result of the operation made in France on this subject, for the purpose of commencing their return.”

That bill directs, that “the experiments shall be made in the latitude of Philadelphia, at any place between the rivers Delaware and Schuylkill, at a known height above the level of common high water in the Delaware, and in a known temperature of the atmosphere, according to Farenheit's thermometer.

A part of Mr. Jefferson's report on weights and measures, was founded on ideas taken from a volume of the society of Arts and Agriculture, published in Europe. The fluxional calculations are the work of a Professor in Columbia College.

There is a great affinity between that obliquity of intellect, which leads a man to think incorrectly, and that depravity of heart, which tends to immoral conduct. A wrong-headed enthusiast, who is addicted to an incorrect and whimsical mode of reasoning and thinking, may easily allay the qualms of conscience by the opiate of sophism, and even become what Godwin calls an “honest assassin.” Perhaps there have been but few crimes of magnitude committed, in which the perpetrators have not been able to persuade themselves, that they were justifiable, if not commendable. Religious, political and philosophical enthusiasm have, each in their turn, impelled mankind to deeds of horror, from which the most abandoned would revolt with abhorrence, if they did not believe that they were actuated by motives which are praise-worthy.

The dexterity with which our knight-errants in sedition reconcile their conduct to the dictates of their reason, is well exemplified by Butler, in the character of Hudibras, who thus justifies the breaking of his oath:

But these being grave old-school reflections, it would be very improper to indulge them in a canto, set apart like this, for celebrating an illuminatus.

It is well known that Mr. Jefferson made a very pretty and suitable parade of grief at the tomb of General Washington. And as remarked by a poet in the Utica Patriot,

The federal editor of the New-York Evening Post, in his aristocratical way thus remarks upon this subject:

“Will the reader once accompany us to the saddened groves of Mount-Vernon. Behold this same Thomas Jefferson at the tomb of Washington! See him approach the hallowed spot, surrounded by spectators!—he kneels before the sacred dust!—he weeps outright at the irreparable loss of this greatest, best, and most beloved of men!—sobs choak his utterance! he clasps his hands in token of pious resignation to the will of heaven, and retires in silence amidst the blessings of those whose sympathy he had beguiled by “presenting his profession of sorrow.”

Though the circumstance of Mr. Jefferson's having paid Callender for his services in abuse of the Federal Constitution, Washington, Adams, and many others of our revolutionary patriots, is proved by letters written with his own hand, yet democrats, with that laudable pertinacity, which is the soul of their party, would never believe a word about the matter.

The intelligent and indefatigable editor of the Boston Repertory, makes the following plaint on the occasion:

“How often have we been stigmatised as infamous slanderers, for asserting that Mr. Jefferson patronised Callender in his virulent abuse of the Federal Constitution, Washington and Adams. It was a federal lie, and no democrat would yield credit to a circumstance, which, if true, would exhibit Mr. Jefferson in the blackest colours of political hypocrisy, and allied to that demon of slander, for the purpose of lying down his betters. We now offer irresistible proof—Mr. Jefferson's letters to Callender, in his own hand writing. One democrat, and one only, has called to satisfy himself!”

Now this is as it should be. Stick to your party, genuine republicans! right or wrong.

Our good democrats, with the greatest propriety, as it adds to their popularity, are always fond of uniting the names of Washington and Jefferson. That Mr. Jefferson was friendly to General Washington, and his administration, will appear from the following elegant extracts, taken from the “Prospect before Us,” at that time patronised and its specimen sheets inspected by Mr. Jefferson:

Speaking of General Washington, Mr. Jefferson's editor says, “He could not have committed a more pure and net violation of his oath to preserve the constitution, and of his official trust; or a grosser personal insult on the representatives.”

“By his own account, Mr. Washington was twice a TRAITOR. He first renounced the king of England, and thereafter the old confederation. His farewell paper contains a variety of mischievous sentiments.”

“Under the old confederation matters never were nor could have been conducted so wretchedly, as they actually are under the successive monarchs of Braintree and Mount Vernon.”

“Mr. Adams has only completed the scene of ignominy, which Mr. Washington had begun.”

“The republicans were extremely well satisfied at the demise of the general. They felt and feared his weight in the scale of aristocracy; but they found it necessary to save appearances with the multitude by presenting a profession of sorrow. It is a real farce to see the manner in which the citizens at large were treated, in this instance, by both parties. The second burial! But it is impossible to proceed with gravity; or to comprehend by what means Adams and congress kept from laughing in each other's faces, when they past their unanimous resolution to recommend the delivery of suitable orations, discourses and public prayers.”

Callender having thus handsomely handled Gen. Washington, attacks Mr. Adams in a manner equally masterly. But by further quotations we may perhaps, by the weight of our notes, break the peg of our poetry, and fall into the merciless fangs of the criticks. Good democrats, however, with their usual ingenuity, have attempted to wipe away every stain from Mr. Jefferson's immaculate character.

In the first place they contended that the report of Mr. Jefferson's having been concerned in the Prospect before us was a “federal lie.” Mr. Jefferson's letters however put them down on that point.

They then affirmed that Mr. Jefferson paid Callender one hundred dollars after having read the specimen sheets of “the Prospect” out of charity. Finding this ground untenable they pretend that Mr. Jefferson knew nothing of the contents. But it appeared that Mr. Jefferson paid Callender fifty dollars, in part, after Callender had been convicted of sedition for publishing “the Prospect,” and of course Mr. Jefferson must have been acquainted with the contents of the work, and that Mr. Jefferson moreover remitted Callender's fine of 200 dollars, when the contents of the Prospect had long been known.

The editor of the Boston Repertory declared that he was possessed of a paragraph in Mr. Jefferson's handwriting, which was incorporated with Mr. Jefferson's own slander in the body of the Prospect “without marks of quotation.” The Enquirer (a man hired to vindicate Mr. Jefferson) admits that Mr. Jefferson wrote a short and harmless paragraph and but one, in the whole book. Unfortunately, however, for Mr. Jefferson's advocate the paragraph which he acknowledges was written by Mr. Jefferson is totally different from that mentioned by the editor of the Repertory. But this Enquirer-man is doubtless well versed in what Cheetham calls the “arts of able editors.”

Genet was privately encouraged by Mr. Jefferson in his projects to prostrate America at the feet of France, but opposed officially in his capacity of Secretary of State. Genet complained that Mr. Jefferson had treacherously become the instrument of his recall, after having persuaded him that he was his friend, and initiated him into the mysteries of state. And declared “if I have shown my firmness (in opposing the President,) it is because it is not in my character to speak as many people do in one way and act in another, to have an official language and a language confidential.”

When Mr. Jefferson entered on the duties of his office as Vice-President he eulogised Mr. Adams, then President, in the following terms, “No man more sincerely prays that no accident may call me to the higher and more important functions; (the presidency) they have been justly confided to the eminent character, which has preceded me here, whose talents and integrity have been known and revered by me through a long course of years, and I devoutly pray he may be long preserved for the government, the happiness, and the prosperity of our common country.”

This was a masterly stroke of policy, more especially, when it is considered that Mr. Jefferson, at the time of uttering this solemn petition was employing his purse, pen and influence, in ruining the reputation, and destroying the influence of Mr. Adams.

Mr. Jefferson is one of the principal patrons of the Aurora, and was the institutor and patron of the National Gazette, which abounded with abuse against the federal administration, with Washington at its head.

Of thirty-four armed ships, our administration have sacrificed, at the shrine of economy (sold for one-fourth part of their cost) all but thirteen, and some of those which remain are rotting in philosophical dry docks. But economy is the order of the day, and a wasteful economy, is a contradiction in terms.

Depredations on our commerce are committed daily, by the Spaniards and other nations of Europe (Sept. 1805.) Mr. Jefferson however, has said, that “history bears witness to the fact, that a just nation is trusted at its bare word, when recourse is had to armaments and wars to bridle others.” It is to be lamented that these depredators should spoil the president's fine theory.

The federalists are accused by their political opponents of having been sparing of their eulogies on the heroes who distinguished themselves at Tripoli. This, if true, evinces the folly and stupidiy of that party; for those men, who have been most distinguished by their exploits against those pirates, were federalists, and most of them commissioned by Washington and Adams.

To show to what an amount the impudence of some federal newspaper editors will carry them, we will make one or two extracts from remarks of the editor of the New-York Evening Post, on Mr. Jefferson's inaugural speech No. 2.

Mr. Jefferson, having reference to some tough libellous truths, which have appeared in the federal newspapers against him, observed in his speech, that “the artillery of the press has been levelled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare,” and that “he who has time, renders a service to public morals and public tranquillity, in reforming these abuses by the salutary coercions of law.” Coleman, supposing, no doubt, that nobody could ever find “time” for attending to these “salutary coercions,” makes, perhaps very true, but very libellous remarks.

Mr. Jefferson in his speech had observed, “I fear not that motives of interest may lead me astray; I am sensible of no passion which could seduce me knowingly from the path of justice.” Mr. Coleman comments as follows: “He, who with the bribery of office has corrupted the integrity of the nation, has demoralized the American people for the purpose of personal aggrandizement, now boasts that no motives of interest can lead him astray. He, who in a publick address to the senate of the United States, solemnly declared that Mr. John Adams was an eminent character, whose talents and integrity had been long known and revered by him (Mr. Jefferson) through a long course of years, and had been the foundation of a cordial and uninterrupted friendship between them; and concluded with “devoutly (his own word) devoutly praying,” that the same Mr. Adams “might be long preserved for the government, the happiness, and prosperity of our common country,” went away and hired a mercenary rascal to make it his business to traduce this very Mr. Adams, in the most violent language that his invention could supply. Yes, he feasted his eyes with the perusal of the manuscript, in which the man with whom he had so long, as he told the senate, “maintained a cordial and uninterrupted friendship,” was spoken of as the lowest of wretches, where he was denominated the most execrable of SCOUNDRELS, the scourge, the scorn, the outcast of America, without abilities, and without virtue, and then returned it with the most unqualified approbation, saying, that “such papers could not fail to produce the best effect,” and as a part recompence, sent him an order for fifty dollars on account of previous work. Need any thing more be added? yes, one tale shall be added, and in very explicit language, so that if the Attorney General of the United States can “find time,” and Mr. Jefferson should still remain of opinion, after seeing the article, (and I know he honours the Evening Post with his perusal) that it will be rendering a “service to publick morals and publick tranquillity,” to resort to the “salutary coercion of law,” and prosecute the editor for a libel, matter may not be wanting on which to found the indictment. I only stipulate for the privilege of giving the truth in evidence. Then be it known, that he who now holds himself up to the world as a man incapable of being seduced by passion from the path of rectitude, stole to the chamber of his absent friend by night, and attempted to violate his bed. [OMITTED]

“As it generally happens, that when once the devil gets hold of a man he seldom lets him go with a single crime on his head, so this man, to the baseness of his first attempt, added a second. As a cover to the abrupt disconnection of intercourse that followed the disclosure of the secret to the husband, he told a base and slanderous lie, and said, that his intimacy with Mr. Walker had been broken off by Mr. Walker's unhandsome conduct in the settlement of an estate, which he had in charge; all which now stands on record, being very handsomely engrossed with his own hand. Now let Mr. Jefferson, if he pleases, call this a “false and defamatory publication,” and recommend a prosecution accordingly.”

What a daring fellow this, but nobody can “find time” to prosecute him. Moreover, Mr. Jefferson's vindicator in the “Richmond Enquirer,” has made this appear to be a very trivial affair, for he says,

If the tale of Mrs. Walker was rehearsed to a nation of Anchorites, they would smile at its absurdity; that an individual should be abused, censured, and threatened with exposure in the publick prints, for having, forty years since, felt an improper passion: at a time when youth, (exemption from matrimonial obligations,) and the force of feeling might be pleaded with justice!!!

The Essex Junto is one of the bugbears, with which the Boston Chronicle scribblers frighten the babes and old women of democracy. But this, like many other gun-powder plots against the peace and dignity of the sovereign people, is a phantom which they have conjured up for the purpose of deception. The men whom they would designate as an Essex Junto, are as much interested in the preservation of a Republican government, as any men in the community, and would, by the introduction of a Monarchical government, dig a pit for their own destruction.

So say the Federalists, but they are Monarchy-men notwithstanding, and wish to make John Adams king.

The curious system of Mr. Jefferson, for creating a naval force adequate to the defence of our commerce, by gun-boats, No's. 1, 2, &c. up, perhaps, to 5 or 6, is thus described in the New Year's Message, from the carriers of the Boston Palladium. Although gun-boat number one, as there exhibited, may appear to be somewhat too consequential to be introduced by way of comment on our political text, yet, as it appears to have some connection with our simile, we give it a place.

The wisdom of our democratick members of Congress was never more abundantly manifested, than in the affair of their condescending to remain silent, when they had nothing to say for themselves. There is, unquestionably, no small share of prudence and self-denial necessary, for an individual to curb that unruly member, the tongue. How great then must have been the prudence and resolution of our good democrats, in congress assembled, who, for the sake of expediting publick business, could sit mute, and endure to be pelted by arguments which they could not answer.

Mr. Dana's eulogy upon the “dumb legislature,” will remain a monumentum ævi of the wonderful wisdom which was manifested by the majority on that occasion.

See debates of congress, 1802.

This beautiful simile we have borrowed from Butler. That author applies it as descriptive of the democracy of the body natural of his hero, Hudibras; but we think it happily illustrative of the present organization of the body politick of our country. If the reader, however, better likes the following simile, from the same author, Butler, it is much at his service.

The appointment of a Mr. Hunt to be governor of a district in Louisiana, exhibits wonderful proof of Mr. Jefferson's solicitude to reward merit, and long tried and faithful services. It is true, that this gentleman is yet a boy in years, to say nothing of his intellect; but his exertions in favor of Mr. Jefferson, have been to the full amount of—his abilities. Only those who are best acquainted with his excellency, governor Hunt, can appreciate the stupendous degree of discernment, which Mr. Jefferson has displayed in his appointment.

General Washington expressed this idea in his letter to Mr. Carrol. See note 145, p. 168, Vol. I.

Citizen Fauchet of glorious memory, in his intercepted letter, (which caused the dismission of citizen Randolph, also of glorious memory, the virtuous author of “Precious Confessions”) has the following passage: “Mr. Randolph came to see me with an air of great eagerness, and made the overtures of which I gave you an account in my No. 6.—Thus, with some thousands of dollars, the Republic of France could have decided on CIVIL WAR, or on peace! Thus the consciences of the pretended patriots of America, have already their prices! What will be the old age of this government, if it is thus early decrepid!”

The “Precious Confessions,” of Pseudo-Patriot Randolph, are too well known to require any elucidation in this place. Mr. Randolph, however, is not the only pretended good republican, who has been a public defalcator.

We speak of the leaders of the Faction. There are, undoubtedly, a great number of honest Democrats, who have been led away by the Faction, to whom this line is not applicable. If a man has no better means of political information, than the Jacobin Newspapers throughout the union, he can be no other than a Democrat, although he may be deficient neither in integrity nor discernment.

This Honestus is a well known scribbler in the Boston Chronicle, one of the most mischievous and malignant democratic Newspapers in the United States. We should say nothing of the man's phiz, did we not believe it to be indicative of the qualities of his mind.

By adverting to Mr. Honestus's writings, with the signature of “Old South,” &c. we shall perceive that his demagogue-ship has spirted his venom at many of the most distinguished characters in the union. He has attacked the clergy in a most insidious manner, and some of his essays are better calculated to do mischief with a certain class in society, than if they were better written; as they are addressed to the prejudices and weaknesses of the lowest classes in the community.

He is constantly criminating the clergy for interfering in politics. The “People (he says, p. 218, of his volume of Chronicle Essays) are willing to hear gospel truths, though they may be displeased with political heresy.” And pray what is this political heresy? Opposing the man with “no God or twenty Gods.” Again, p. 220 of the same volume: “If the apostles had acted as some of our modern clergy do, they would have ruined, in the first outset, the whole system of revelation!” Mr. Jefferson has here an advocate worthy of himself!

I think I can in no way express the reasons why the clergy ought to exert themselves in opposition to Mr. Jefferson, more forcibly than by presenting my readers with the following extract from remarks on the Thanksgiving Sermon of Mr. Parish, by the Editor of the Boston Repertory.

“It is true, the President of the United States, and the clergy of our country are at variance; but the controversy is not on subjects of politics, on forms of government, or measures of administration. The clergy have not “quit their proper character, to assume what does not belong to them.” It is their misfortune to live in an age, when a man is promoted to the chief magistracy of the nation, who has wantonly assaulted the religion of our fathers, and treated those doctrines with contempt, which christianity teaches us are essential to human felicity. It is Mr. Jefferson who has left the character of the civilian, who has sported with the principles of our religion, and no alternative is left for the watchmen of the christian faith, but to retreat before his baleful influence, and apostatize from the injunctions of their divine teacher, or to step forth like faithful soldiers, and repel the scoffs, the sneers, and sophistry of the assailant. The elevated station of Mr. Jefferson, so far from imposing an obligation of silence, calls on the clergy for a more zealous exertion of their powers in defence of religion, in proportion as his writings are like to possess greater weight from his political ascendance.”

We do not pretend to give a history of Honé's private Jockey-club. Suffice it to say, that the nefarious renegade, Pasquin, is one of his privy counsellors, and he alone is a gang.

Since writing the above, Pasquin has relinquished the service of the Boston Chronicle, in which he and Honestus were Co-editors.

This observation does not apply, exclusively, to the demagogue now under consideration. None of those measures, of which democrats have been such strenuous advocates, have been found of practical utility; and since they have been in power, they have copied the example of the federalists, except in certain measures, which are calculated to oppress the poorer people; such as repealing taxes on carriages, loaf-sugar, and other luxuries, and increasing them on salt, and other necessaries of life.

A review of the scrawl of this, and other Chronicle patriots, on the subject of the French revolution, ever recalls to memory, the following lines from Cowper:

We believe Honestus is the personage who introduced in Massachusetts that appendage of British corruption, self-electioneering. He first mounted the hustings, Westminster-like, and told all the world what nobody knew before, that he was himself a very proper candidate for office, a friend to the people, &c.

Honestus was once a very strenuous opponent to the funding system. Now, forsooth, as Commissioner of Loans, he is pocketing the people's money, in consequence of holding an office, which is an appendage of the same once obnoxious system. What a pure patriot!!

We have but one simple apology to make for taking notice of “Old South,” alias “Honestus.” In this apology we beg leave to repeat a sentiment which we have before expressed, that the bite of an asp may be as fatal as the paw of a lion. Old South's writings would be esteemed by us as too insipid for animadversion, were they not calculated, by virtue of that same insipidity, to be very mischievous. He never soars above the level of the understanding of the lowest class of the community, and like a fanatical preacher, his essays are always addressed to the passions and the feelings of those men, whose passions and feelings are strong, but whose intellects are weak, and who are the soul of all those violent revolutions, which leave society worse than they found it.

“Old South” is ever harping on the subject of the “BENEVOLENCE AND THE DIGNITY OF THE PEOPLE.” It would be very well to recommend those virtues, and to suppose that they do exist in a high degree in America, as this supposition may do something towards forming a NATIONAL CHARACTER among Americans, and lead to a high sense of honor and honesty, without which there can be no real freedom, or long continued national prosperity. But what conclusions does Mr. Old South draw from his premises under that head? That if the people were left destitute of restraints, by enjoying liberty without law, all would be “BENEVOLENCE and DIGNITY.” But the experience of all ages is against him. A purely democratick government would soon be a savage state.

“Old South,” in a long essay on the subject of “the benevolence and dignity of the people,” produces one extraordinary instance of democratick insanity, in proof of his assertions: “As soon,” says he, “as peace was proclaimed between the two nations, (France and England) the people exercised their natural benevolence, and rushed forth like a torrent, to receive with open arms, the messenger of this joyful intelligence; the city of London resounded with “long live Bonaparte! long live the French nation! the horses were dismissed from the carriages, as being too slow in their progress, and the people became the promulgators of the glad tidings, by conducting the herald to the metropolis.”

Here is Hone's specimen of “BENEVOLENCE AND DIGNITY.” These biped coach-horses of Mr. Lauriston, exhibited much democratick dignity in their silly manœuvre of dragging this “herald of peace,” to St. James's palace. But what said those who knew something of this subject? That the peace was hollow, insincere on the side of Bonaparte, and that England must arm, and be on the alert, or submit to the domination of that unprincipled usurper.

This is an instance among a thousand, of Honé's inconsistencies. The man is wrong-headed; he has furnished his noddle with a jumble of facts and principles, but has not sufficient strength of intellect to digest, and draw proper conclusions from the things which come within the sphere of his knowledge. A “little learning,” with a great deficit of common sense, makes a man very mischievous in society.

See note 29. p. 21, Vol. I.

We are not fond of calling names, but it sometimes becomes necessary for a right understanding of things. That Mr. Honestus has endeavoured to make his patriotism a stepping-stone to power, is evident from his conduct, which has not been quite so equivocal as his professions.

Mr. Honestus pretends to rank himself with the patriots of 1775, and anathematizes all those who will not pronounce his Shibboleth, as old tories. But unless we are wrongly informed, this gentleman, during our revolutionary war, although perhaps not in a cave, sought an asylum in obscurity. He began, however, to fish in the troubled waters, which succeeded the revolution, about the time of Shays' insurrection, and has been ever since constant in his efforts to arm the passions against the intellect of the community, and set the physical, in battle array against the intellectual powers of society.

The motives of Honestus in such proceedings, are probably, similar to those of all other demagogues. Pride and ambition impel him to strive to be a great man. But nature having been somewhat niggardly with regard to those endowments, which, in regular governments, are thought necessary to qualify a man for office, Honestus has no other way of gratifying his leading propensity, than to excite confusion, in order to rise in the tumult. But, notwithstanding all his canting about his friendship to the people, we have never heard of his hesitating to pocket their money, even for services in those offices which he had stigmatised as burthensome and expensive. A fig for such a friend to the people!

This reptile, who is the right hand Chronicle-man, has been so pre-eminently infamous, that it appears there was put one step which the creature could take to complete the degradation of his character, to the lowest pitch of which human nature is capable. This step he has taken, by enlisting into the Chronicle service, and exerting himself to diffuse the poison of his principles among the poor deluded beings, who are so simple as to reap the effusions of his “jobbernowl.”

We shall not here attempt, what we once intended, a sketch of his biography, but merely state a few particulars, which will be evincive of the kind of talents, which are necessary to qualify a man for the eminent station of Editor of a democratic Newspaper.

In Tony's celebrated law-suit against Faulder and others, which has been published in the Repertory in this town, and which we remember to have seen in England, there appears such a developement of the infamy of this most detestable of all wretches, that one would not think it possible, that a human being, who possessed the least pretensions to respectability in society would be his associate.

I will not trouble the reader with any minute strictures on the character of this pitiful vagrant, but merely conclude this note with the concluding remark of Mr. Garrow, in the trial to which I have above referred, together with a statement of the result of the trial, in which this pure-hearted patriot sought recompense for having been calumniated.

“I see by your countenances, gentlemen, that it is unnecessary to proceed any further with this man's infamous and abominable productions. I will not, therefore, harrass your feelings; let them rest for the present—but I will appeal to your sense of propriety, to that of all who hear me, and ask, whether this common libeller, this vile traducer of honour and integrity, this hireling blaster of youth and innocence, should be suffered to come into this court, and ask satisfaction for being described under the character he has voluntarily and ostentatiously assumed? Should he, who has been proved before you to be the author of works, of which every line is calumny, sue for your protection, under the pretence that he is calumniated? Shall he say to you, gentlemen, I have been, from my youth up, earning a scandalous subsistence by vilifying my sovereign, insulting his august family, belying his ministers, traducing his courts of justice and subjects, from the highest to the lowest; give therefore, ample damages, because this dirty occupation is not sufficiently profitable?

“Shall he say, I have violated the ear of modesty in my writings, I have ridiculed the ordinances of our holy religion, I have blasphemed—”

Here some of the jury got up, and Lord Kenyon desired Mr. Garrow to stop, that more was evidently unnecessary.

He then said, that it was their duty to consider whether the author of such works as they heard read and described, had a right to call for damages.

“With what face (continued his lordship) can this fellow find fault with the publication of the defendant, when it appears that the passage here libelled, attaches to him merely as Anthony Pasquin, a name which he has prefixed to writings of the most infamous nature? It appears to me that the author of the Baviad, has acted a very meritorious part in exposing this man; and I most earnestly wish and hope that some method will, ere long, be fallen upon to prevent all such unprincipled and mercenary wretches from going about, unbridled in society to the great annoyance and disquietude of the public.”

The jury, without a moment's hesitation, nonsuited the plaintiff, and the audience “hissed him out of Court.”

Among other stupid productions of Tony, which were read on this occasion, was his Pin-Basket for the Children of Thespis. In this he thus speaks of the celebrated Edmund Burke:

—“And—Mun, with his mouthful of Christ!!” Horrid wretch!

We have good authority for asserting, that this fine writer, received a very handsome douceur from Mr. Jefferson, for his services in puffing the Notes on Virginia.

We have seen sundry specimens of Tony's “admired performances,” as he calls them, which were so stupidly wild, unmeaning, and unintelligible, that we have thought with Mr. Gifford, in a similar case, that nothing could match them short of a “transcript from the darkened walls of Bedlam.”

Mr. Garrow has justly said of Tony, that his English was as incorrect as his conduct.

This paltry scribbler, since the above was written, has quitted the Chronicle service, after grumbling a few anathema respecting the small encouragement afforded him in his labours in the cause of republicanism. What we have written, however, will serve to show what sort of beings constitute the best of democratick newspaper editors, and stand as a monument of infamy against the party in whose service such a notable advocate was retained; and in whose service he would, probably, have continued his meritorious exertions, had not the voice of publick contempt fairly hooted him from the scene of action.

A wooden sword is said to have been presented to this warrior, who is alike renowned in the cabinet and in the field, as a tribute of respect for having prudently retreated from a post, where it is not impossible he might have been killed or taken by the enemy, had he remained. General Gates, however, like an old aristocrat, ordered our Irish Fabius to be drummed out of camp for cowardice.

We are extremely solicitous to eulogise this wonderful warrior, and have even gone so far as to hammer out a song, in the prettiest stile imaginable, for no other purpose than to celebrate, and, if possible, to perpetuate the achievements of our Hibernian hero. Although we are not addicted to be very vociferous on the theme of our own praises, still we must beg leave to observe, that in our opinion, the following song has more delicacy, sweetness, sense, sensibility, &c. &c. than all the sonnets of Miss Charlotte Smith put together, and we recommend it to be sung by way of catch, glee, sonata, &c. &c. at all the meetings of good democrats, assembled in self-created constitutional societies, or midnight electioneering caucusses, ox-roasting junkets, &c. &c. &c.

‘Thereby hangs a tale.’

We mention this circumstance to shew that the price of the beast has risen. When he first landed in this country, he was sold to a Mr. Hugh Hanna, of Litchfield, in Connecticut, for a pair of steers.

This pair of paddies have lately attacked each other with no small degree of virulence. Lyon, (the less ferocious beast of the two) by turning States' evidence, has brought out his friend Duane, and given some characteristick sketches of himself and party, which cannot fail to amuse all those who can contemplate the backside of human nature with complacency. Had not the tail of the body politick in America, got the upperhand, and as Butler says, “sergeant bum invaded shoulders,” we would turn with disgust from such exhibitions of enormity as are presented to view by the falling-out of these rogues among themselves. But as they have a more intimate acquaintance with each other's projects than honest men can have, it may not be bad policy to attend to their criminations, set a thief to take a thief, and pardon a few who will be active in convicting the rest.

Lyon has lately addressed a letter to Duane, which perfectly bewrays the character of both these turbulent demagogues; and if Americans will hereafter be duped by such unprincipled wretches, they will deserve to be doomed to slavery. A short extract or two from Lyon's letter, will show what sort of a tool Duane is supposed to be, by his own party, and what honest means those in power have employed, in order to aggrandize themselves at the expense of the country.

After comparing Duane to a “skunk,” and declaring him to be a “would-be tyrant,” he proceeds as follows:

“A wretch (to wit, Duane) hunted for his crimes, from Asia to Africa, from Africa to Europe, from Europe to America, landed on the Atlantick shore of the United States, seven or eight years ago, incapable of earning his bread, by common honest laborious industry, poor and pennyless, driven for his petulence from the station which first offered him subsistence in America, when a ragged vagabond, with a downcast guilty look like Cain, expecting every man's hand to be raised against him; bemired with filth, and shunned as a spectre; with no other distinguishing property than that of ability to write with severity; to give falsehood and lies some semblance of truth, and to give truth the appearance of falsehood. The democrats of this country were taken in by him; by their countenance and indulgence, he became the conductor of a press, which had been distinguished for its correct course: they enabled him to put on a clean shirt, to fill his belly, to look a little sleek and hold up his head. [OMITTED]

“I told the members (of Congress) to give the man money, all you can afford—let us support him through the crisis, and if our party succeeds in obtaining the reins of the government, the paper will support itself; if we fall, it must fall.”

“I foresaw, his charges would be made up, something like those made for printing for the house of representatives of the United States, which the committee of that house, with all their vigilance, have not been able to reduce, nearer than 30 per cent. to what other people will [illeg.] do it for, when the lowest bidder has the work.”

“I often told my republican friends, in those days, that the LIES of this man would injure our cause, if the conflict lasted long enough to have them exposed. A thousand times has he brought a blush on the face of the honest men of our party, when they read his unfounded attacks against their opponents; with regret, the most discerning foresaw, that themselves would be subject to the same insults and indignities, whenever they happened to displease this unprincipled scaramouch of their own architecture.”

“This person is suspected by some, to be at this time favourable to the views of a foreign potentate, [Buonaparte] who wishes to see democracy and republicanism,” (very distinct things by the way) “wrote down and brought into disgrace in this country, &c. &c.”

Thus spake the valorous knight of the wooden sword; but he still remains the very good friend of this “unprincipled scaramouch,” and, tells Duane “although a provoked monitor, still your old friend is not your enemy,” That “his republican friends think highly of Duane's services.” &c.

One would suppose, that if Lyon had the least symptoms of returning honesty, he would not continue to support a man, whom he declares to “be a wretch hunted for his crimes from Europe to Africa,” &c. and whose claims for patronage, consist altogether “in ability to write with severity; to give falsehood and lies some semblance of truth, and to give truth the appearance of falsehood;” one that he suspects to be “favourable to the views of a foreign potentate,” &c. &c. And that his party would not feel proud in having employed, and continuing to employ, an “unprincipled wretch, whose LIES, they were told, would injure their cause.” But like masters like man. They are all democrats, they are all shuffling demagogues.

The Genevan evinced his partiality to the paddy, as follows:

The Knight of the Wooden Sword, was, in 1803, agent to the United States, for furnishing supplies to the army. He drew a bill on the treasury of the United States, for money which would not be due for a number of months. The bill, however, was presented, and immediately paid.

Mr. Steele, late secretary for the Missisippi territory, drew on the treasury of the United States, for money which was then due to him, under an act of congress, for services performed in collecting the direct tax. The bill was presented, and Gallatin acknowledged it to be due, but would not pay it until all the returns under the direct tax had come in, and the accounts were settled. The bill remained unpaid fourteen months, till the accounts were settled, when the holder called again on Mr. Gallatin. But the cunning Genevan would not then pay the bill, because all the money due for these services was not drawn for at the same time.

The Washington Federalist makes the following remarks on this scandalous procedure:

“The baseness of this transaction is only to be fully understood, by comparing it with the one first detailed. In the first, we see a man despised by every person of character in the United States, made the agent of Government, and such anxiety shown to render him services, and to honour his drafts, that they are paid many months before they are due. On the other hand, we see a faithful and good officer, universally respected and esteemed, drawing upon the treasury for money acknowledged to be due to him. The secretary, instead of paying it, puts it off on frivolous pretexts, for more than a year, and then subjects the drawer to very great expense, trouble, and delay, which might have been avoided, by stating the objections at first. The damages occasioned by the protest, are regulated by the different states. In few are they less, and some more than 15 per cent on the whole amount, besides interest, cost, and charges. A pretty little sum for an American to pay, for the whim or caprice of an insolent foreigner!

Many of our formerly violent democrats, have become disgusted with their party, and have learned in the dear school of experience, what was foreseen by the federalists from the time in which our government was first organized, that the kind of liberty and equality, for which they have been contentious, would not be practicable in society. These gentlemen talk about forming a third party, of what they are pleased to call true Americans, which is to comprise all the moderates of both parties. This may be well enough, but these true Americans, must become in effect Federalists, whatever they may be pleased to denominate themselves, if they purpose to pursue the real interests of their country. But if their intention is to introduce a new order of things, a system of measures different in principle from those of the Washington and Adams administration, their leaders should be chosen from among the Democrats who distinguished themselves by thwarting the views of those men who laid the foundation for whatsoever of national prosperity we now enjoy. Among these we can think of no person whose courage and conduct so well entitle him to that superb station, as the Knight of the wooden Sword.

This petty dealer in sedition, has, a number of years past, edited a Newspaper, printed at Bennington, Vermont, which has been as virulent and mischievous, as the limited talents of the particle, which conducted it, would permit.

We once endeavoured to give the public an idea of the thing, and its Newspaper, in the following lines:

Tony, however, continuing to swell like the frog in the fable, we were under the disagreeable necessity of making a second attempt to hit him, and in our opinion, made a very good shot, in the following sketch of

But, mirabile dictu! notwithstanding we thus impaled this insect on the point of the needle of Satire, the puny, cat-lived animalcule is still in existence, and dashes in the character of a leading Democrat in Vermont.

The idea expressed in this stanza, we have borrowed, with some little alteration, from The Battle of the Kegs.

A notorious Counsellor at Law, who displayed much of the art of turning and twisting, in the Legislature, in the famous case of Young and Minns, alias the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, vs. Mr. Jefferson.

Perhaps some of our readers would prefer to have the story of this famous cause told in prose, and as we are solicitous to gratify the palates of all those who expect entertainment from our Parnassian Restaurateur, we beg leave to present them, together with the flummery of our poetry, a relish of roast beef from the Frederickstown Herald, of September 29, 1804.

The editor of that excellent Newspaper, thus expresses himself of the personage whose case is now under consideration:

“In the National Intelligencer of the 19th inst. the following compliment is paid to Mr. Lincoln, by a writer under the signature of Curtius. “The short period during which he held his seat [in Congress] had not admitted of a developement of his talents, but he entered the body with the reputation of eminent talents.”—We should be glad to know with what reputation he left it? The truth is, that he entered the body with the reputation of being one of the writers of a Worcester paper called the Ægis, and was supposed to be one of the authors of a series of essays, (if a mass of slander, personal, vindictive and unjust, deserves the name) called the “Farmer's Letters;” this was the only evidence which the public had received of his talents, and with this reputation he entered the house, and with this reputation only he left it. It is true, that a farther “developement of his talents” did not take place during his stay in Congress; but it is not true that it was owing to “the short period” to which it was confined. He remained sufficiently long to have developed his talents on the many important and interesting topics which were each day the subject of discussion. Awed by the splendor which surrounded him, he dared not expose his prate to the keen animadversion of his contemporary opponents. Having just sense enough to practise the maxim of “vix sapit qui pauca loquitur,” he shielded himself in a stupid silence, and sat scowling at the eminence which he had not the power to resist. He therefore went out of Congress as he came in, with the reputation of being a weak spoke in the wheel of government.

“Mr. Lincoln was now appointed Attorney General of the United States, and during the long period in which he has held, we will not say discharged, that office, he has permitted a farther developement of his talents, by making one speech and an half in the Supreme Court.

“The first speech was a sufficient developement of his talents, to induce Administration to believe that in any future developement, it might be necessary for the interests of the country, that he should be assisted by other counsel, and therefore, in the celebrated case of the Sugar Refiners, Mr. Dallas was employed, at the expense of several hundred dollars, to render this assistance. The cause was tried at the capitol, in Washington, during the sitting of Congress, before chief Justice Marshal, and Judges Chase and Washington. The hall of the court was crouded with spectators, among whom were observed many foreigners of distinction, and members of Congress. The honourable Levi Lincoln arose—one hand was rested on a large pile of law books, which it would seem he intended to use, the other contained a roll of manuscript notes of the case, to which it would seem he intended to refer. He neither used the one nor referred to the other. He was on the floor about ten minutes, when having concluded his prefatory remarks, he said, “I will now inform this honourable Court, of the first point which I have taken in this case.”—He paused, “I say, may it please your honours,” (continued he, after a little hesitation) and paused again.—The Court listened with the utmost attention; the spectators who were at a little distance from the bar, anxious to witness the event which this illustrious instance of the “montes parturiunt,” seemed to promise, closed up in a semicircle around the balustrade of the forum. “And I was saying, (said Mr. Lincoln) I have made a point.”—He had so. He had reached one which he could not surmount. He told the Court that he begged their kind indulgence; that he felt exceedingly embarrassed, and wished a few minutes for recollection. The Court bowed assent, and Mr. Lincoln sat down.

“After a pause of fifteen minutes, during which there was the most solemn stillness, Mr. Lincoln rose again. He continued to speak about ten minutes more. His manner was wild, incoherent, and unargumentative, and seemed to be an unconnected, promiscuous, and irregular assemblage of words, without the smallest attention to an ordo verborum. “I have now come, (said he) may it please your honours, to the second point proposed —I say—the second point which I have taken is this—I have got (said he) to the second point.”—He, however, was never able to get any farther, and the Court remain yet to be informed what that second point was. Mr. Lincoln was obliged once more to apologize to the Court for being unable to proceed. He said, he felt an embarrassment which he could not conquer, and that Mr. Dallas would go on with the cause. A confused murmur was heard throughout the hall; it was the hum of vexation, disappointment, and keen remark. Some of the auditory felt chagrined at this debasement of our national dignity; some felt disappointed and astonished that this exertion of forensic eloquence, should have terminated in such a mortifying developement of the talents of the Attorney General; and others laughed at the impotency which they had predicted—whilst the poor Mr. Lincoln sat down at the bar, and covered his face with his hands. It would be vain to deny the truth of this statement; the hundreds who were present can testify to its truth.

The following account of the leading features of the case to which we here allude, is extracted from the New-York Evening Post:

“On the 28th of May, 1800. James Thompson Callender, was legally convicted of a misdemeanor, and sentenced to pay a fine of two hundred dollars, to be imprisoned nine months, and find security for his good behaviour for a certain term, “beyond the expiration of his imprisonment.” Shortly after Callender had paid the fine into the hands of the Marshal, and after the term of his imprisonment had expired, a general pardon of the misdemeanor, remitting and releasing all penalties incurred, or to be incurred, by reason thereof, was granted, and sent to the Marshal. Doubts were suggested, whether, having once received the money from Callender, the officer could legally pay it back to him. These doubts were communicated to the acting Secretary of State; [to wit, the Hon. L. L. Esquire] who, after a delay of nearly a month, replied, that the question had been considered, and that “before a fine is paid into the Treasury, a pardon remits and restores it to the party; concluding with a direction to “restore the money to Mr. Callender,” which was accordingly done.”

The arguments which are adduced in the able discussion of the subject, a part of which we have here quoted, proving that when a fine is paid, it becomes property vested, and that a charter of pardon does not imply restitution, are too long to be here inserted.

I have often thought Pope's sentiment, expressed in the following lines, peculiarly applicable to the profession of law.

A man who has but a smattering of law knowledge, is sure to steer wide of justice and common sense, and attempt to make mischeivous distinctions between law and right.

The acute, sagacious and subtle essays, which are supposed to have been written by our American Junius, with the title of “A Farmer's Letter to the People,” will ever remain a stupendous monument of the astute, penetrating and profound genius of Democracy's “Demosthenes.” Such ductility of fancy, such malleability and intertexture of simple nonsense, into complicated and unintelligible rhapsody, was never, perhaps, exceeded by the mad cap French revolutionary declaimers on liberty and equality. We did intend to have favoured our readers with our critical remarks on these wonderful productions, pointing out some of those passages which seem possessed of Colossean merit. But as we do not wish to inundate our readers with a flood of verbiage, without so much as a tinkling rill of meaning, we cannot do ourselves the high honour of making copious quotations. We will, however, mention two sentences from Letter No. X. the one a little involved, and the other not quite true.

“If there is no sense of decency remaining, none inculcated by public teachers; IF no beauties are seen in propriety or consistency of conduct; IF principles of enmity to public authority are disseminated and nurtured; IF the precepts of the wisest, and the experience of the greatest men of ancient and modern times, are held in contempt and rejected, because they are embraced by the officers of government; IF their unexamined, and untried measures should continue to be rudely, suddenly, prematurely and wickedly anathematised by vulgar rashness and sacerdotal prejudice, merely because they are theirs; vain will be our retrospect on past exertions, or revolutionary acquisitions; delusive our hopes of the future, and miserable the condition of the present and after generations.”

“If a body meet a body”—&c. or to rise to the “pinnacle of the foundation” of this subject,

If a man be like a man, who

pray who else is he like?

The next paragraph which we shall select for our readers “negative instruction,” is an absolute falsehood.

Speaking of a Note addressed to the public by the Editors of the Mercury, proposing to enlarge its size, and entitle it the New-England Palladium, our author says, that “for less, infinitely less, was Lyon convicted, Callender and Cooper punished.” To those who have read the note and the libels to which it was compared, any comments on this round assertion, would be perfectly frivolous.

The merit of this figure, we confess, consists entirely in its application, for we borrowed it from one of the Farmer's Letters (we forget which) wherein the prophet Habakkuk is styled “Prophecy's Demosthenes.”

said the Poet; but had he been so fortunate as to have heard the Sugar Cause argued, and have perused the “Farmer's Letters,” he would have ejaculated something very like the above happy couplet, on perceiving the fine-writer, and profound lawyer, happily blended in the person of the Attorney General.

The following sketch, from the Boston Gazette of July, 1804, is somewhat declarative of the demerits of this renegado Parson:

“The Walpole Observatory is understood to be edited by a broken Parson, who, we are told, was drummed out of a parish in Connecticut. There is no want of candor in remarking, and we leave it to others, to apply the remark, if they think it applicable, that there is no worse man in society that he who is a renegado from his own profession. When a black coat is too tight for a man's limbs he seldom gets any decent one that will fit them. When the virulence of a man's politics or temper, or the high bribes that a party offers for his profligacy, have induced a person to strip off the clergyman, he is generally found to be more deeply corrupt than if he had never endured the restraints of a good character. Tired of being a hypocrite, he spits, like Matthew Lyon, in the world's face, and says, Shame, I defy you—Faction pay me and I will lie for you.

“In the most Federal part of Newhampshire, there was, and still is, a very respectable and useful Newspaper, called the Farmer's Museum. The old revolutionary patriot, so well known, Isaiah Thomas, whom Mr. Jefferson has dismissed for his good services from the Post office, is the principal proprietor. To attack Federalism in its strong holds, and to carry the party war into the enemy's country, like Scipio when he invaded Africa, this Parson, who had never seen a Printer's type, was sent every one will believe, by the Administration, to print an Opposition Paper, at Walpole, where it was not wanted for information, as there was an excellent paper printed there before. There must be something found to encourage this poor Parson to set up a press, where it is manifest there was so little room for his business. What could be done for him better than resort to the Administration for a good fat offering, that this Priest of Jacobinism might live upon it, till he could revolutionize the state of New-Hampshire, and bring in Mr. Langdon to be governor. For that end no doubt he was sent, and to cover up from the eyes of the people the intermeddling of our rulers in the politics of the state, this new comer was appointed Printer of the Laws of the United states. But the office, it is understood, was erected for the man and for the occasion; for the Laws were printed before in Portsmouth, and one printer to a State is as much as has been heretofore deemed necessary, especially when we consider that New-Hampshire is a small state.

“A needy tool for our great men, was, however, wanted, and must be provided for, and in such a way as to hide or seem to hide the business—for in truth, saving appearances was all that was regarded.

“Now we beg to know, how much is allowed to the Observatory for printing the Laws of the United States. Enough, we believe, to support a Jacobin press. If we are right in this conjecture, then the people's money is taken by the friends of reform and economy, and squandered on a worthless tool of office, a profligate minion, in reward for deceiving and inflaming the people of New-Hampshire. We hope the accounts of the Department of State for publishing the Laws, will be scrutinized, and though the Federal members cannot hinder the work of corruption, they may be able publicly to expose it. Instead of the press being free to combat error, as a great man chooses to say we make no doubt the Jacobin press is supported by the people's money, to deceive them. It is a servile, base, wicked tool of a Jacobin faction. It is a bell that never ceased ringing for fire, when there was none; and now the Brissotiness and Robespierrists are in power, and have set the country and constitution in a blaze, at the four corners, the bell is muffled.

“No sooner did this man come into New-Hampshire, than he began to know more than any body else about the affairs of the state; and very busily spread jealousies and suspicions about the honesty and correctness of the State Treasurer's accounts. In this he followed the example of the Committee of Calumnies in Congress, who reported against Wolcot, Pickering and McHenry, a number of charges, that even a Democratic majority in congress did not dare to support. In like manner there was a Democratic majority in the New-Hampshire legislature; but they, more candid than the Nicholson and Randolphs, did examine the charges and found them false.

“The same Observatory man has stated in his paper, that the votes for Governor Gilman were a minority. In this he has been solidly confuted; still, however, a lie well stood to, he thinks, as good as the truth, and he stands to it. He stands to it, that Mr. Jefferson is chaste— no poacher in Mr. Walker's family—is a brave man— never hid from Tarlton—is a good christian—as good as Condorcet or Pain—and breaks out into the most outrageous exclamations against the Federal slanderers, who can dare to publish that such a Joseph for virtue, such a Joseph Surface for talking about it—such a Solomon in council—such a Sampson in combat—who so abhors to shed blood, and so delights to shed ink—such an Old Testament saint, as his Notes on Virginia attest, can be nothing less than an American Bonaparte, a Dieu donnè —heaven sent to be our Consul for life, and our Emperor by inheritance—with remainder over to Mr. Eppes and his issue.

“A good salary for printing the laws, requires, that tough stories by Col. Walker, or Callender, or any body else, should be resolutely brow beaten. A thousand dollars a year will greatly assist a man to stand strong in his faith. This reverend Vicar of Bray will not believe, nor allow the people of New-Hampshire to believe a word to the prejudice of his patron, as long as he holds his office.

“The post riders make their contracts with the Post-Master General, and it is easy to see that Jacobin zealots will be preferred. See then how completely the press is made subject to the new administration; how the Observatory can be almost forced upon readers, and how the Museum can be obstructed. The French is not more subject to his Imperial Majesty, the Citizen Consul, than the Jacobin press to Mr. Jefferson.

“We are told that for weeks before election in this state, the Federal papers did not circulate in some parts of the district of Maine. Every one can conjecture why it happened, though no one can precisely unravel the circumstances, and tell how.

“Is it the opinion of the Administration, that the people of New-Hampshire are more easily deluded than those of Connecticut? This Observatory man was known in Connecticut, and there he had no influence. Was it necessary to send him away from home, to enable him to do mischief; or is New-Hampshire thought to be stupid enough to give success to a baffled and disgraced Connecticut, Jacobin? For our parts, we believe better things of the Citizens of New-Hampshire; and as the attempt to influence them is bareface, and truely insulting to their independence, they will, we trust, evince at the next election, that they are as Federal as Connecticut.”

This stupid fib-teller hammered out half a dozen falsehoods about a single toast, drank on the 4th of July, 1804. What made the thing the more ridiculous, and would have silenced him for ever, had he not been a Democrat, and ergo, a friend to the people, was, the circumstance of there being a number of respectable persons in the neighbourhood, who were witnesses to his falsehoods on that occasion.

This man, with matchless effrontery, has repeatedly affirmed in his lying vehicle, in substance, that a purer and more spotless character than that of Mr. Jefferson never was enjoyed by any mere man; and even goes so far in his blasphemous impudence, as to compare this man, with “twenty Gods, or NO God,” with our Saviour!!!

Mr. G. is appointed Secretary to his Excellency Gen. Hull, who is also appointed Governor of Michigan.

That Mr. Gallatin was active in the Pittsburgh insurrection, will not, we presume, be disputed by Democrats, if we present them with vouchers, extracted from a Newspaper under the direction of their own party.

In Bache's paper of Sept. 1, 1792, appeared the following account of the proceedings of the insurgents, at the commencement of an insurrection, which cost the United States above a million of dollars:

At a meeting of sundry inhabitants of the Western Counties of Pennsylvania, at Pittsburgh, on the 21st day of August, 1792:

The Excise Law of Congress being taken into consideration, a committee was appointed to prepare a draught of resolutions, expressing the sense of the meeting on the subject of said law.

Adjourned to 10 o'clock to-morrow.

The committee appointed yesterday, made report, which being twice read, was unanimously adopted:

“And whereas some men be found amongst us so far lost to every sense of virtue and feeling for the distresses of this country as to accept offices for the collection of the duty:

“Resolved therefore: That in future we will consider such persons as unworthy of our friendship: Have no intercourse or dealings with them, WITHDRAW FROM THEM EVERY ASSISTANCE, and WITHHOLD ALL THE COMFORTS OF LIFE, which depend upon those duties, that as men and fellow-citizens, we owe to each other, and upon all occasions treat them with that contempt they deserve, and that it be, and it is humbly, and most earnestly recommended to the people at large, to follow the same kind of conduct towards them.”

Mr. Gallatin, afterwards, perceiving the insurrection would fail, sought and obtained pardon of General Washington. But that he retained his political rancour, is evident from the dismission of General Miller from the office of Supervisor, immediately after Mr. Gallatin's coming to the Treasury, whose offence consisted in his having commanded a body of troops who were active in quelling Mr. Gallatin's insurrection.

We find many of our moderate Federalists somewhat squeamish in this particular. They urge, that the exposition of the crimes of great men chosen into office by the people, is a disgrace to our national character. But these to very candid gentlemen should inform us, whether our national character would not be more disgraced by suffering such characters and such conduct as enter into the composition of our men and measures to pass without animadversion?

The idea pourtrayed in this simile we borrowed from the “Balance,” an excellent federal paper, printed at Hudson, (see an editorial article of Jan. 1st, 1805) Mr. Croswell will be good enough to help himself to an equivalent from any of our best rhetorical flourishes, and accept of our acknowledgment into the bargain.

This vile renegado, by virtue of his influence with the mob, is one of the most powerful personages in the United States. He is said to have remarked, that Mr. J---a dare as well be d---d as affront him.

The efforts of Duane, and of his designing and wrongheaded scribblers who labour for the Aurora, are ever directed to the purpose of destroying all kinds of distinction in society, except merely such as a cunning man may establish as leader of a mob. The learned professions are the constant objects of his abuse, and that of the advocates for levelling systems who dash in the Aurora. Should his plans succeed, brutal strength, and savage cunning, will be the only foundation for eminence. Indeed he has laid the axe at the root of civilization, and unless great exertions are made to counteract the influence of that vile vehicle of poison, which he publishes, its deleterious effects will, for ages, be felt in America.

The man who cannot otherwise be convinced of the turpitude of this and certain other artful Pseudo-Patriots, is requested to peruse certain statements made by a Mr. John Wood, a foreigner, printed at New-York, 1802, relative to a history which he had undertaken to write of the “Administration of John Adams.” This history was compiled, as the author states, from materials collected from the Aurora, Duane's private letters, and Callender's works, and was suppressed by the influence of Col. Burr.

Mr. Wood's statement bears many marks of veracity and candor, and if we may believe him, the Jacobins who furnished him with materials for his history, are the most deceitful of mortals.

“Mr. Duane, (he says) sent me occasionally, information as to characters and events, sometimes couched in the form of history, leaving it to my discretion, whether to alter the language or not. Notwithstanding the active part which Mr. Duane had in the compilation of this history, he is pleased to assert in the Aurora of the 12th of July, (1802) that it contains neither veracity nor dignity. Such an observation would certainly have proceeded with more propriety from any critic than Mr. Duane, for the facts furnished by him, are well known to be the most false and libellous in the whole book.” p. 7.

Again, “All the circumstances furnished by Mr. Duane, in his letters to me, proved afterwards to be the grossest falsehoods, most probably fabricated by himself.” p. 26.

By turning to the Freeman's Journal, of July, 1803, published by Duane's former patrons and admirers, we shall perceive, among other proofs of the want of principle of this flagitious wretch, that he made oath to a falsehood about his having been a long time a citizen of the United States.

In the pamphlet of Wood, above quoted, we find the following remark: “A man, (to wit, Duane) who has partly the means of ransacking, in a clandestine manner, the books of a public office, who did not hesitate to publish to the world the contents of letters, evidently intended for the post-office—who glories in being the discloser of secrets and the unfolder of private caucusses, ought to veil himself from society.” p. 82.

Here we have Jacobin against Jacobin, and it is to be hoped that those who reject Federal testimony, will not refuse credence to their own party.

This wretch continued to publish slanderous lies about the alledged defalcations of Mr. Pickering, while Secretary of the Treasury, long after a committee, composed of Gallatin and others, had acquitted Mr. Pickering of any malconduct in his office. After as minute an investigation as could be made by the eagle eye of party, these democrats themselves testified to his innocence (see Vol. I, Note 93, page 135) still this factious cur kept yelping against Mr. Pickering with as much virulence as ever!

In the Aurora, of March 21st, 1805, are the following expressions, which shew what are the views of this would-be tyrant:—

“—They will petition loudly for a repreive—they will stir up every interest in their power to procure their pardon—they will writhe, and twist, and turn—they know THEY ARE ON THE ROAD TO THE SCAFFOLD AND MUST MEET THEIR FATE; but that FATE they will endeavour to procrastinate—Republicans, be not moved by their intreaties.

These expressions, say the editors of the Freeman's Journal, are “diabolical.” They most truly are so, but they present nothing new to the Federalists. The Federalists knew from the beginning, where Duane and the faction of which these gentry composed a part would lead us. But Duane, M'Kean and Co. were then all Democrats, all Republicans.

We shall trouble our readers with an extract from one of these libels. Although it has frequently appeared in fugitive publications, by way of testimony against the daring demagogue, by whom it was first penned, it ought to be again and again presented to those who pretend that the supporters of the present administration were the friends of Washington.

In the Aurora of March 6th, 1797, this favorite of Mr. Jefferson thus expresses himself:—

“Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation,” was the pious ejaculation of a man, who beheld a flood of happiness rushing in upon mankind—if ever there was a time, which would licence the reiteration of the exclamation, that time is now arrived; for the man, who is the source of all the misfortunes of our country, is this day reduced to a level with his fellow-citizens, and is no longer possessed of power to multiply evils upon the United States. If ever there was a period for rejoicing, this is the moment— every heart in unison with the freedom and happiness of the people, ought to beat with high exultation that the name of Washington from this day, ceases to give a currency to political iniquity, and to legalize corruption— a new æra is now opening upon us, a new æra, which promises much to the people; for public measures must now stand upon their own merits, and nefarious projects can no longer be supported by a name.—When a retrospect is taken of the Washington administration for eight years past, it is a subject of the greatest astonishment, that a single individual should have cancelled the principles of Republicanism in an enlightened people, just emerged from the gulf of despotism, and should have carried his designs against the public liberty so far, as to have put in jeopardy its very existence:—such, however, are the facts, and with these staring us in the face, this day ought to be a Jubilee in the United States.”

At least were willing to encourage him, and “give him money, all they could afford.” See vol. ii. note 56. page 108.

See the conclusion of Matt. Lyon's letter to Duane, his “old friend,” &c.

Duane is said to have set up the trade of a Patriot at Calcutta, and commenced his useful labours as Editor to a Newspaper, by exerting himself to foment a quarrel between the civil and military departments. Sir John Shore, the English commander, paid so little regard to the rights of man, that he merely rewarded him with a kind of wooden-horsical promotion, which is not thought to confer very great honour on those who are the subjects of that kind of elevation. He then sent him to England, from whence he was imported, to teach Americans liberty and equality, under the auspices of Emperor Jefferson. Duane says, that he was kidnapped by Sir John, having been invited to breakfast. But the man is so given to lying, that we wish our readers to place no dependence on that part of the story.

This Gentleman, if I mistake not, is now Lord Teignmouth, and author of “Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Correspondence of Sir William Jones.”

We mean no reflection upon mechanics. But a man to be an editor of a news-paper, in a large city like New-York, of a paper too, which boasts the patronage of government, ought, together with natural powers, to have possesed the means of information, and to have superadded culture to native luxuriance of genius. Even a “needy knife grinder,” must serve some apprenticeship before he can set up for himself. But in our land of Liberty ignorance may be so qualified by impudence and scurrility as to entitle its happy possessors to the patronage of our first characters in the capacity of News-paper editors, and thus to occupy the most important and least responsible situations in our government.

Had we nothing of more importance to command our attention, we might point out hundreds of instances, in which this Mr. “Daggerman,” has absolutely assassinated the English Language. Sometimes Mr. Jefferson's dress is “Terse,” sometimes he is not “impopular,” sometimes we are told “Mr. Denniston, another gentleman and me called on him at his house.”—But really we wish to get the creature off our hands as quick as possible, and shall not therefore enlarge upon these minor faults.

Somebody once stole two letters, written at the City of Washington, one on the 6th and the other on the 7th of December, 1801, by Richard Peters, Jun. Esq. both sealed and directed to E. Bronson, Esq. editor of the United States Gazette. These letters were on political topics, and were afterwards published in the Aurora.

Mr. Bronson states a number of circumstances which seemed to implicate one James Cheetham, an Englishman, a hatter by trade, and editor of a paper called the American Citizen.

The editor of the New-York Evening Post, after attending to the evidence which appeared against this man, declares that “he either stole the letters himself, or that he received them from another, knowing them to be stolen. In the eye of the law both are equally guilty.” He afterwards invites this immaculate patriot to either sit down “infamous and contented,” with the reputation of being a Thief or to appeal to the laws of the land for redress. Patriot Jim. was best pleased with the former alternative.

This true imported, “genuine republican,” in an unguarded moment fairly threw off the mask, and told the world what kind of treatment his political opponents may expect, if he and his gang should ever obtain their meditated ascendency. He declared in the Citizen that the anti-revolutionists deserved to be assassinated “in the unsuspecting moments of sleep.” Can it be possible that such a ruffian is suffered not only to go at large, but that he and other incendiaries, of similar views, are patronized by some of our most prominent political characters.

Patriot Jim was furnished with lodgings at the expence of the Government of Great Britain, as a token of regard for his prowess exhibited in the nocturnal adventure, which terminated in the demolition of the unfortunate Constable's ribs.

The Third Party gentry of Pennsylvania, a spawn from the same litter with the New-York Burrites, have made violent news-paper attacks on most of their quondam friends and associates, with whom they were formerly united in sapping the foundations of the Federal Government.

It has been said that this divine whose guilt, contrition and punishment have excited so much attention, after having suffered the penalty inflicted in England for the crime of forgery, was resuscitated, and lived in privacy a number of years.

Among the numerous instances of the unblushing effrontery of the dominant party, may be included their charging the Federalists with having been enemies to their country during the revolutionary war. This conduct evinces that hardihood in guilt, which distinguishes the veteran offender from the mere Tyro in iniquity. It is an attempt to fasten the dead weight of Jacobin enormity about the neck of the Federalists, and to sink the followers of Washington in the tempestuous sea of Jeffersonian liberty. See vol. I, note 147, page 165.

Seventy-sixer, a cant word adopted by some of our mushroom patriots, to designate the men who first asserted American Independence in the year 1776.

This tory of the first water, who is moreover a most charming Democrat, was attainted of treason, by the Legislature of Pennsylvania.

This man was appointed Navy Agent in the place of Mr. James Watson. The latter was an officer in the Connecticut line, in the revolutionary war.

We shall trouble our readers with but a brief specimen of this gentleman's elegant epistolary stile.

In an official letter to “Gen. Samuel Smith, Esq.” dated New-York, May 13, 1801, occurs the following highly polished paragraph.

“I had the honour of writing to you yesterday, to which beg your reference. The hasty result of my observations respecting a navy yard are as follows. The situation combined has, undoubtedly, advantages for the purposes intended—one disadvantage most striking to me is the exposure to an enemy landing in the rear, the dangers of which is not so great on reflection, and more in sound than in reality.”

The “result are” that, in the appointment of such an ignoramus, in the “situation combined” there is “one disadvantage” which although “most striking” “the dangers is very great on reflection”!!

This Gentleman has tasted of Mr. Jefferson's bounty in an appointment to a Consulship in London.

We have before had the honour to allude to a sublime specimen of this young man's eloquence in vol. 2, note 1, p. 3.

The father of this sprig of Democracy was one of Governor Hutchinson's Mandamus Counsellors.

The cloven-foot of the vile faction was never more completely displayed than in this infamous transaction.

Gen. Rufus Putnam served under Washington during the revolutionary war. He had grown poor in his country's service, and was obliged, in the decline of life, to migrate into the wilds bordering on the Ohio, and endeavour to provide for a rising family, by submitting to the hardships of a first settler in a dreary wilderness.

Gen. Washington, in order to smooth the path of his life's declivity, appointed him Surveyor General, with a handsome salary.

He was, however, marked as a victim to the relentless tyrants now in power, and the war-worn veteran was displaced to make room for Jared Mansfield, a worthless old Tory, but a good Democrat. Yes, this same Mansfield was not only a notorious British partizan, but was active in the destruction of some books, in New-Haven College Library, which were supposed to be favourable to liberty.

Thus does Mr. Jefferson fulfil his promise of “injuring the best men least,” and placing the hand of power on “anti-revolutionary adherence to our enemies.”

This gentleman, tory, democrat, and tomahawk vendor, has been repeatedly honored with the confidence of the New-York genuine republicans, &c. He has been chosen to represent that party in the legislature; is one of the directors of the Manhattan Bank and is in high repute, no doubt, for revolutionary services.

William Stevens of Georgia, was appointed Judge of the District Court by Mr. Jefferson. The amount of his claims for that station consist, we believe, in his being a good democrat; in his having been Chief Justice of the State of Georgia, and Lieutenant-Colonel of the Chatham county militia, in our revolutionary war, and while holding those offices of trust and confidence, deserting from the American service; receiving a British commission; being attainted for treason by the Legislature of the State of Georgia. Such are the men whom our pretended Republicans “delight to honour.” Wilson is a tory Democrat, of Worcester, Massachusetts, advanced to office by the present administration. Harrison is in office by virtue of an appointment by the New-York tory hating democratic corporation, as a reward for his services as a midshipman on board one of his Britannic Majesty's ships, during the revolutionary war. This gentleman supplanted Mr. Jeremy Marshal, dismissed from office, for having been, as Governor Clinton (then General Clinton) affirmed of him, one of the most useful men in the American army. These are only a few of the many instances, which might be adduced to prove that our good Democrats have been, and still are, hostile to those who were found faithful in times which “tried men's souls.”

For a more particular account of the proceedings of the New-York corporation, the reader will please to consult the New-York Evening Post of June 25th, in which the able and indefatigable editor has exhibited in its just light, the management of this immaculate junto of genuine Jeffersonians and redoubtable seventy-sixers.

Philip Arcularius was appointed, by the New-York Corporation, Superintendent of the Alms-House. He is a Hessian by birth, and, during the revolutionary war kept a sutler's shop for the supply of his countrymen in the British army. We cannot, in this place, give a detail of the particular services which recommended this man to our Democrats. To complete the story, it is to be added, that he supplanted Mr. Richard Furman, an American, who had served his country, both by sea and land, during the whole war, and was several times wounded. This gentleman had been frequently employed by his fellow citizens in offices of trust and confidence, and had ever approved himself a faithful public servant and worthy man. He had been extremely useful in the office of Superintendent of the Alms-House; but, as he was neither a Tory nor a Democrat, he was obliged to give place to the fellow who has the honor of a peg on our Gibbet.

Captain Burnet, another of our revolutionary officers, and one of the oldest post-masters in the United States, has been turned out of employment by Mr. Jefferson.— Here again we perceive the sincerity of Mr. Jefferson's declaration, that removals from office should be thrown as much as possible on “anti-revolutionary adherence to our enemies.”

As soon as he was displaced, patriot Cheetham began to open upon him for misconduct in having been in the habit of “stopping and destroying Republican papers.” Indeed, in every instance where the mushroom tyrant Granger, has exerted his “brief authority,” by a removal from office, we have seen the paltry prints of his party replete with lying statements, designed to destroy the character of those they had offered at the shrine of the Democratic Moloch.

Mr. Foote was another revolutionary patriot who has been displaced by the intolerant demagogues who are now dominant. Foote had the misfortune to think with Washington on political subjects, and was, of consequence, deprived of office, and his reputation afterwards attacked, by way of palliating such an iniquitous proceeding.

“We do not give you to posterity, as a pattern to imitate, but as an example to deter.—We mean to make you a negative instruction to your successors for ever.” Junius to the Duke of Grafton.

We always possessed a violent antipathy to your bawling, itinerant, field and barn preachers; and having promised them a dose, (P. 20. N. 24) we now proceed to administer a little of the nitrous acid of Satire, which we hope may effect a radical cure of their disorder. Our medicine is as follows:

Twistical is a Yankeyism, which we have introduced, by virtue of our authority as a poet (Poetica Licentia.) The idea is borrowed from an anecdote related of a countryman, who made use of similar terms, in giving a character to a fanatic of his acquaintance.

We have particular reference to certain notable Democrats of our acquaintance, who make extraordinary piety a pretence for “leading captive silly women.”

Some of the most fiery Rhode-Island republicans out of their superabundant regard to the “rights of Man” are concerned in the slave trade. One Collins a violent Jacobin, and of consequence appointed a Collector for Newport, is a patriot of that description.

We are told that a gentleman who complained of the impropriety of which a friend had been guilty, by introducing him to his Excellency while he was in a state of intoxication, was silenced by a reply, that it could not be otherwise, for his E---y, when awake, was never sober.

We propose, “till time shall wear us out of action” to continue our strictures on certain flagitious demagogues, who have hitherto escaped our notice. We shall, however, probably publish them in such form that they may serve as a continuation to this work without their being blended with what we now place before the public.

For a particular account of this journey, See Book VI. of the Æneid.

Richard Brothers and Polly Davis, well known personages, whose missions and voyages, to the world of spirits, have caused much speculation among some very knowing ecclesiastics, whom one would suppose were rather of the lying, than the standing order.

See Barlow's “Vision of Columbus,” and “Trumbull's McFingal,” in which the heroes of the poems respectively, after the manner of the ancients, take a peep into futurity.

Numa Pompilius was a King of the Romans, who pretended to intimacy with a female spirit, whom he named Egeria, and whose monitions were probably as prophetic as those of our invisible lady.

We have before observed, Vol. I. p. 10, that we have no private nor party views to subserve in this poem. We have no interest distinct from the good of our country, and no patron but the public.

Our leading Demagogues, are quite as likely to be offered as victims at the shrine of Democracy as the Federalists. Governor McKean, who was active in bringing about a Democratic order of things in Pennsylvania, stands on very slippery ground, and is in danger of being denounced by the Aurora-man, who is the Wat Tyler of the Pennsylvania Democrats.

To enumerate the most prominent measures of the Federal Administration, and the benefits which have resulted to the nation from the Federal system, would require volumes. We shall slightly advert to a few particulars, by way of elucidating this fact.

The Federalists found the country without permanent revenue, and without money in the Treasury sufficient to defray the necessary expences of Government; upwards of seventy-six millions in debt; the securities of Government selling at two shillings on the pound; the nation distracted at home and despised abroad—

Such was the state of things when they commenced their operations.

They liquidated the public funds for the extinction, of the national debt; punctually paid the interest and part of the principal.

They fortified our harbours.

They sought for and obtained indemnity for British and French spoliations.

They suppressed insurrections.

They built and purchased a Navy of thirty-six armed ships.

They secured peace abroad.

They established a Government at home.

They exalted our national character: under their auspices Agriculture flourished, Commerce was protected, a Revenue created without burthening the people, and Two Millions and an Half Dollars left in the Public Treasury.

McFingal.

If any of our readers are not yet fully acquainted with the despicable means by which our Jacobins attained the great end of destroying the Federal Administration, they are referred to Mr. Bayard's speech on the Judiciary Bill, spoken February 19, 1802. We should be happy to insert that part of it which relates to a vindication of the measures of the Federal Administration, did not its length exceed our limits. One sentence, however, relative to the clamour, which the Antifederalists have raised against direct taxation, the abolition of which, according to Mr. Jefferson's late speech, (March, 1805) is one of the measures so highly commendable in the gentlemen now at the head of our affairs, we cannot forbear to quote.

“Will gentlemen say that the direct tax was laid in order to enlarge the bounds of patronage? Will they deny that this was a measure to which we had been urged for years, by our adversaries, because they saw in it the ruin of the Federal power?”

This is the way they have managed—cunningly clamoured the Federal Administration into measures, which they foresaw might be rendered obnoxious to the people, and then took advantage of the odium which such measures had excited!

These laws were among the measures of the late Administration, which were obnoxious to the tyrants in power, merely because they were favourable to the rights of the citizen. The Alien law provided for the deportation, under certain circumstances, of turbulent and seditious foreigners; the latter gave our citizens a right to publish the truth concerning the measures of government. See Vol. I. N. 12. P. 8.

No man whose head is not very weak, or his heart very wicked, can contemplate, without emotions too vivid to be expressed, the conduct of the Faction in their destruction of the Judiciary. The sound arguments on the one side, and the flimsy sophisms on the other side of that great national question, when contrasted, must convince every person, that those men who laid their sacrilegious hands on the ark of our safety, were predetermined not to be convinced, but to stick to their party, right or wrong. See Vol. I. P. 168. N. 169.

More than thirty-two thousand dollars were expended in repairing the French Corvette Berceau. The Ganges, an American ship of war of 26 guns, and all her stores, were sold by administration for only 21,000 dollars, and most of the other ships of the Federal navy, we believe, in the same proportion.

See a resolve of Congress of November, 1803, that a sum of two millions of dollars in addition to the provision heretofore made, should be granted to the purposes of intercourse between us and foreign nations.

Every body knows that Master Johnny Randolph has of late been attempting to put off the monkey, and put on the tiger, and to bully the nonconformists of his party into genuine Republicanism. But his essays in the terrible, have terminated in the ludicrous, for even Miss Nancy Dawson declares that she will not be frightened out of her independence, by this whipper-in of the puppies of the party.

It is well known that the Democratic party were formerly most violent opponents of the Federal Constitution. Mr. Jefferson declared that he “disliked, and greatly disliked” many parts of it. We could, therefore, expect nothing better from the enemies of the Constitution, than that they would endeavour to destroy it. Some of the outworks are already demolished, and the citadel is to be attacked the next session, (Nov. 1805.) It is to be hoped that those Democrats, who are not rendered quite frantic by the spirit of party, will be taught, from the endeavours of our Randolphs and Nicholsons, the impolicy of placing the enemies of the Constitution of the United States in situations where they can, with impunity, aim their blows at its vitals. Would any man of a sound mind suffer his house to be tenanted by persons, who, after having vainly opposed its erection, had declared that its corner stones ought to be subtracted from the building, and its principal pillars be laid prostrate? Yet such is the part which we have acted in trusting the administration of the Federal Government in the hands of men who were inimical to that government at its establishment, and who, even now, neglect no opportunity for the display of their hostility to the constitution by which it is administered.

To wit, scribbling newspaper essays for the Snyderites at Pennsylvania.

This may seem very harsh doctrine. The sense in which I use the phrase quoted in this place, may, however, be explained, by referring to Vol. I. N. 4. P. 4.

I would not wish to hunt bad men with mobs, nor with mastiffs, but I would hold them out to society in true colours, and if the voice of the public does not consign them to infamy, Americans will pass from the “tempestuous sea” of licentiousness, to the “dead calm of despotism,” with the embittering reflection that they have merited their destiny. Thus, in France, after the destruction of Fayette and others of their leaders, who were solicitous to reform the abuses of the old government, and who were mostly well-meaning men, a succession of tygers, in human shape, afflicted the nation, till the most ferocious monster the kingdom afforded, was at length made Emperor.

There is, perhaps, no pride more preposterous than that which impels so many, in the middle and lower classes in society, to exert themselves to confer a collegiate education on their children, not only minerva invita, but when the res angusta domus opposes insurmountable impediments to their progress. “What good end (says an English writer) can it answer in these times, when every genteel profession is overstocked, to rob our agriculture or our manufactures of so many useful hands, by encouraging every substantial farmer, mechanic, or tradesman, to breed his son to the church;” and he might have added, or any other learned profession. “If now and then a very uncommon genius in those walks of life discovers itself, there are seldom wanting gentlemen in the neighbourhood, who are proud of calling forth, and if necessary, of supporting, by a subscription, such extraordinary talents.”

The multiplying of Academics, and poorly endowed Colleges, where that “dangerous thing.” “a little learning,” may be acquired, and frequently to the detriment of common Schools, in which that kind of knowledge is taught which is absolutely necessary for farmers, mechanics, &c. is, in our opinion, a great and a growing evil in America. Happy would it be for us if the number of the useful class of citizens, who form the basis of society, was greater in proportion to the population of the country.

And where subordination ends, tyranny begins; at first the “tyranny of all,” which soon becomes the tyranny of the few, or the despotism of one.

In the general scramble for political distinction, which takes place in America, in consequence of the door of office being open to every pretender, the basest means are resorted to, and the morals of the people are corrupted by the example of those who are aspiring to take the lead in the community. This evil might, in a great degree, be remedied by lessening the number of competitors for offices. Let every man have a right to aspire to the highest stations, but let the pre-requisite qualifications, respecting age, education, talents, citizenship, but above all morals, be such, that the number of competitors, would be comparatively few.

Regulations of that kind would be perfectly consistent with freedom, the ascendency of virtue and talents and the experience of ages.

These remarks apply, not only to the candidates for offices or emoluments under government, but to those who are crowding themselves into the learned professions, without those qualifications which ought to be considered as indispensable.

I know that Duane and the Jacobins of his school, maintain, that the learned professions, particularly that of Law, ought to be annihilated; and they may as well be annihilated, as to be crowded with witlings and unqualified professors. But it is to be hoped the good sense of Americans will resist the innovations of these Godwinian schemers.

Duane and his faction, may as well declare against watch-makers, tailors, or any others mechanics, as lawyers, or gentlemen of the other learned professions.— They are each subservient to the happiness or convenience of all, and altogether constitute a civilized nation. But if what we have advanced in our exposition of the principles of Mr. Godwin, in Canto II. relative to the tendency of these and similar levelling tenets, should make no impression on the reader, we must turn him over to the demagogues of the day.

If our New School politicians are not too fastidious to peruse with patience, even the Apocryphal part of the Bible, we would beg leave to illustrate our ideas on this subject, by a quotation from Ecclesiasticus, Chapter XXXVIII. v. 24, to the end of the chapter.

“The wisdom of a learned man cometh by opportunity of leisure: and he that hath little business shall become wise.

“How can he get wisdom that holdeth the plough, and that glorieth in the goad; that driveth oxen, and is occupied in their labours, and whose talk is of bullocks?

“He giveth his mind to make furrows; and is diligent to give the kine fodder.

“So every carpenter and workmaster that laboureth night and day: and they that cut and grave seals, and are diligent to make great variety, and give themselves to counterfeit imagery, and watch to finish a work:

“The smith also sitting by the anvil, and considering the iron work, the vapour of the fire wasteth his flesh, and he fighteth with the heat of the furnace: the noise of the hammer and the anvil is ever in his ears, and his eyes look still upon the pattern of the thing that he maketh; he setteth his mind to finish his work, and watcheth to polish it perfectly:

“So doth the potter sitting at his work, and turning the wheel about with his feet, who is always carefully set at his work: and maketh all his work by number;

“He fashioneth the clay with his arm, and boweth down his strength before his feet, he applieth himself to lead it over; and he is diligent to make clean the furnace:

“All these trust to their hands: and every one is wise in his work.

“Without these cannot a city be inhabited: and they shall not dwell where they will, nor go up and down: They shall not be sought for in public counsel, nor sit high, in the congregation: they shall not sit on the judges' seat, nor understand the sentence of judgment: they cannot declare justice and judgment, and they shall not be found where parables are spoken.

“But they will maintain the state of the world, and [all] their desire is in the work of the craft.”

It is impossible for any person who is truly a philanthropist not to feel his indignation excited against the perverse philosophists of the day, who, instead of inculcating patience and tranquility among mankind, are continually exciting that restive and turbulent spirit, which is the bane of civilised society. It is owing to their efforts that the hearts of the lower classes in the community /are so frequently “Cankered with discontent, that they consider themselves as condemned to labour for the luxury of the rich, and look up with stupid malevolence towards those who are placed above them.”

Johnson's Rasselas, Prince of Abysinnia.

He who has been in early life accustomed to laborious occupations, can rarely conform to sedentary pursuits: accustomed to the stimulus of violent corporeal exercise, his frame will be disordered, from its discontinuance. Listlessness, apathy, hypochondriacal complaints, and not unfrequently madness, swell the catalogue of disorders which await a transition of that kind. Hence the impracticability of civilizing the aborigines of America, who have, in early life, been inured to the toil of the hunter state.

The failure of this poor little “ghost of a monkey,” in his impeachment of Mr. Chase, cannot but afford high satisfaction to every friend to his country. We have reason to believe that had Mr. Chase fallen, it was the intention of the stripling tyrant, and his confederate mamelukes, to have destroyed all the Federal Judges, at “one fell swoop.”

It was happily so ordered, that he made his attack on one every way able to defend himself against the malicious and vindictive assaults of the Faction, and who has not only repelled the shafts of their calumny, but by his masterly vindication of his conduct, has done honour to Federalism and to his country.

The charges to which we here allude, are already before the public. We offer no comments, but merely observe, that the man, who, after having witnessed the developement of the character of this candidate for the Gubernatorial chair will give him his suffrage, has not virtue enough to qualify him to be the citizen of a free government; and if a majority of the citizens of Massachusetts are base enough to prefer this man to Governor Strong, national freedom is at its last gasp, and the character of the State is fast sinking to the lowest point of degradation.

We allude here to the well known publication in the New-England Palladium, entitled, “The monarchy of Federalism,” which gives in short hand, a correct idea of the man whom our Democrats “delight to honour.” The pamphlet, entitled, “The Defence of Young and Minns,” which contains copies of the documents, and statements of the facts alluded to in that publication, ought to be in the hands of every American freeman who is not disposed to rush blindfold into the jaws of destruction.

Nothing can be more preposterous than the declamatory nonsense of the demagogues of the day, who clamour about the “rights of man.” If these gentlemen wish to mix a little knowledge with their zeal on this subject, they will diligently con Judge Blackstone's Commentaries, particularly the first Chapter of the first Book, which treats of the “Rights of Persons.”

Mr. Elliot's letters to his constituents display very considerable candor, and certain aproximations to rectitude, for which he ought to receive a due degree of credit.

This gentleman, together with many others, much his inferiors in abilities and integrity, was elected to Congress by a party who were opposed to the Washington and Adams administration; but perceiving that the views of the leaders of that party were destructive to the Constitution, Laws and Liberty of the Union, he appears now to halt between two opinions. He will, by no means, acknowledge himself to be a Federalist, although his political tenets appear now to be very nearly the same with those always held by the Federal party. Perhaps, however, he may hereafter observe of some other political subjects what he has already remarked relative to a certain amendment of the Constitution, that he “had never contemplated the subject with a suitable degree of cool reflection and deep investigation.” No doubt a proper attention to contemplations of that kind might induce him to become altogether a Federalist!

We cannot, however, forbear to notice a slight inconsistency which appears in his “political creed,” as expressed in his 11th letter to his constituents. Mr. Elliot says, “I believe that Washington was the greatest warrior and probably the most correct statesman in our country. I believe Adams to be a man of integrity and talents, but the general system of his Administration was wrong.” Now a “correct statesman” is not apt to give his sanction to wrong measures, but Washington did highly approve of Mr. Adams' Administration, as appears by his letter to Mr. Carrol.

See Mr. Elliot's 3d Letter to his Constituents.

These gentlemen have all been of the Democratic party, but had honesty and independence enough to oppose the machinations of the Virginian junto.

It cannot be necessary in this place, to repeat what has been so often urged on the subject of “Universal Suffrage.” Some qualifications as respects property, residence, and citizenship, ever have, and ever will be found necessary in a civilized state of society, in order to entitle a man by his vote, to dispose of the property of others. What should we say of one, who assumed a right to direct the operations, and tax the shares of a private company of merchants, who held no stock belonging to the company?

In that invaluable digest of the principles of our government entitled “The Federalist” we find the following apprehensions expressed on this subject.

“Experience assures us that the efficacy of parchment barriers has been greatly over-rated, and that some more adequate defence is indispensably necessary, for the more feeble against the more powerful members of the government. The Legislative department is every where extending the sphere of its activity, and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.”

If this “more adequate defence” should not be found in public opinion, our Constitution will fall, our political and civil rights will soon share its fate, and despotism in America, as in France, will at length prove our only asylum from the horrors of anarchy.

The remarks of the eloquent Mallet Du Pan, on the fate of Switzerland, corroborate these observations.

One of the most dangerous errors of those among our democrats, who are rather the deluded than the deluders, is an opinion that our attention to the affairs of government ought to be directed altogether to measures without adverting to men. But an evil tree cannot produce good fruit, neither can ignorant wrongheaded and wicked men give origin and support to measures which are beneficial to the public. Yet how often do we trust those in public station in whom we could place no confidence in private life, and how many democrats like Matthew Lyon give countenance to your Duanes and Cheethams, knowing them such as Lyon has described his “old friend,” that is entirely destitute of common honesty. Such men deserve to be made “hewers of wood and drawers of water,” as a punishment for their stupidity, lack of political honesty, and public spirit.

Mr. Burr's attempt to obtain the privilege of franking letters is an indication of the kind of freedom with which he and his party would favour the simpletons, who are capable of being lulled to repose by the syren song of Liberty and Equality.

Those men who were honoured with the confidence of their fellow-citizens and appointed to office under Washington and Adams' Administration, were selected from among their fellow-citizens, because they were known to be “honest and faithful.” Now the inquiry, as Mr. J---n's answer to the New Haven remonstrance implies, is altogether whether the candidate is of the right political sect. The demon of party brought forward the Democrats, not any intrinsic merits of their own. The same evil spirit which gave France her Marats, her Roberspieres, and her Buonaparte, has given America the tyrants who have put a period to the political existence of the Federalists, and who, as Duane has intimated, would lead them to the scaffold if they dared. If we have not virtue enough to retrace our steps and return to primitive men and measures, we may foresee in the fall of France what must be the termination of our struggles for Liberty.

Many of our luke-warm Federalists, seem disposed to slide down the steep of Democracy, without an effort to save themselves and country, from the unlimited misery which awaits such a career. They say, that Americans have not virtue enough to support a Republican Government, and that we had better remain contented under the present state of our affairs, than by exertions which must prove fruitless, to hazard the introduction of a still worse order of things. But this is very foolish reasoning. As well might a physician determine to give no medicine to allay the rage of a fever, because the disorder will have its crisis. If the efforts of the Federalists should be unremitted, they will be, at least, able to muzzle the Mammoth of Democracy, and evade much of the evil which would inevitably ensue, should the monster be suffered to roam perfectly unrestrained. But we cannot better conclude this note, than with the remarks of the Editor of the Utica Patriot, an excellent Federal Newspaper.

“The cause of Federalism, we trust, has passed its most gloomy period. The ebb tide has arrived to its utmost point, and will shortly be succeeded by a flood, which will overwhelm its enemies in one prodigious ruin. The government again in the hands of the Federalists, the wounds which have been inflicted on the constitution, would be shortly healed, the government would convalesce from its present weakness, to perfect health and vigour, and the blessings of rational liberty would again be enjoyed in their pristine purity. Then let Federalists, knowing the justice of their cause, and its importance to the salvation of their country, be animated to exertion; and let each good man and true patriot adopt for himself, the language of the Poet: