University of Virginia Library

It is indeed wonderful, (if any thing in the annals of Democracy can be so) that Democrats should, without a blush, affirm that the Sedition Law was “Law against Constitution.” Yet they have not only frequently asserted this among other LIES, but have represented it as a most horrible engine of tyranny, fabricated by the Federalists, for no other purpose but to oppress the people! And this was one, among many other still more atrocious falsehoods, which has formed the basis of their political consequence. The fact is, that this law not only mitigated the rigour of Common Law on that subject, but guarantied to the American Citizen an important right, which, under the domination of the now ruling party, he is not permitted to exercise. A prosecution has been instituted against Harry Croswell for a libel, but our Democratic liberty and equality gentlemen in office, would not permit the defendant to prove the truth of the matter alledged to be libellous!!

The attempting to hew blocks with razors, is a very foolish affair. The more knowing Democrats, who lead by the nose the simpletons of the party, are sensible of it. They therefore work upon their thick-headed supporters, with such sorry tools as the pair of Tonies aforesaid, parson Griswold, &c.

The person who in these times dares to rend the veil of Democracy, and disclose the demon in his naked deformity, must expect that the worshippers of that infernal idol, will vow vengeance on his devoted head. The sword of the duellist, it is to be feared, may merely precede the dagger of the assassin. But it is the duty of every real Republican, to be ready, like the Roman Curtius, to plunge into the gulf, and sacrifice himself to save his country.

I am no farther a foe to any of the characters who are the subjects of the following Satirical Strictures than as they are foes to good order, morality, and to my native country. Personal animosity is not among the motives which produced this Poem.

Reader, I will here present thee with one among many specimens, of the adroitness of our self-styled friends to the people, in the art and mystery of political lying.

At the time that our Envoys to France, Messrs. Marshall, Pinckney and Gerry, were insulted by those infamous propositions, from the French Directory, made through the medium of X. Y. and Z. which justly excited the indignation, not only of America, but of all Europe, it was promulgated by good Democrats among their ignorant supporters, that the dispatches from our Plenipotentiaries, were forged by Federalists at Philadelphia, for the purpose of throwing an odium on our great and magnanimous sister republic!! This impudent falsehood answered good democratic purposes. A full blooded Jacobin was sent to Congress, in retaliation of the aforesaid Federal forgery!!

This however is only one in a million. A long life devoted to the express purpose of detecting the falsehoods of the deceitful demagogues, who have crowded themselves into consequence, would be too short a period for that purpose; but

These pure patriots shall receive, with those mentioned in the preceding lines, the homage of our attention in the 5th Canto of this our Poem!

We are informed by historians, that this Emperor amused his leisure hours, by impaling flies on the point of a needle.

Nothing can exceed in impudence the Democratic false hood, sooften repeated, that the Federalists were Tories under British influence &c.; when the truth is, that the Federalists were, most generally, active supporters of American Independence, while Jefferson was hiding himself in the cave of the mountain, and Tench Coxe was piloting the British army into Philadelphia.

This couplet has before occurred, but our predecessors, Homer and Virgil, were much addicted to iterations of this kind. The reader may please to consider it as the

Incipe Mænalios mecum mea tibia versus of this Poem.

No doubt every hound in the Democratic pack, will open upon me, for introducing in this place what they would call the phantom of Illuminism. But, scriptæ literæ manent. There are certain damning facts, which, with all their shuffling ingenuity, and sneaking evasions, will ever stare them in the face. They never have been able to prove, that either the Abbe Barruel, or Professor Robison, (who with a great number of other credible witnesses have testified to the existence of Illuminism and its damning tendency) were weak or wicked men, were deceived themselves, or entertained a wish to deceive others. Besides, the documents which have been adduced, and the multitude of corroborating circumstances, which go to prove that this mystery of iniquity has a real existence, cannot fail to enforce conviction on the minds of the most credulous. How far the developement of the plans of the Illuminati by Professor Robison and others may have induced them to defer the execution of their nefarious projects, it is impossible to determine. They may, perhaps, be resting on their oars, and watching, till the popular current, shall set in their favour. It certainly behoves those who wish well to society, who prefer the social to the savage state, and who would not wish that American should realize all the horrors of the most bloody revolutions recorded in history, to keep a watchful eye over the motions of this most infernal of all JUNTOS.

I know there are many of our politicians, who seem determined not to believe that Illuminism to any dangerous extent has ever existed in America, and that its influence in Europe has been much less than has by many been apprehended. I wish for the honor of human nature that there was less proof of the existence of such a combination. As the fact of the existence, or at least of the pernicious tendency of Illuminism, is by our democrats generally denied, I shall confine myself in this note to the establishment of the credibility of one of the principal witnesses in convicting this nefarious gang of their diabolical conspiracy.

“As Dr. Robison is a principal evidence in the cause now pending, it will be necessary to enquire, whether we have a just view of the man. The result of this inquiry, will serve to give the public some idea of the means which have been made use of to discredit Illuminism, and how benevolently disposed some among us are, to prevent their countrymen from being misled by what are called, the ridiculous reveries of Robison. The reader's patience, it is feared, will be exhausted by the detail of credentials which the effrontery of his accusers have rendered necessary; but the character of a witness is of the first importance. The following sketch of the principal events of the life of Dr. Robison, was drawn up from authentic documents, received directly from Edinburgh, through a respectable channel.”

“The father of the Professor, a respectable country gentleman, intended him for the church, and gave him eight years of an University education at Glasgow. Prefering a different profession, he accepted an offer of going into the Navy, with very flatering prospects. He was appointed Mathematical Instructor to his Royal Highness the Duke of York. In that office, he accordingly entered the Navy in February, 1759, being that day twenty years old. He was present at the siege of Quebeck. With the late Admiral Knowles, he was particularly connected, and his son, afterwards captain Knowles, one of the most promising young officers in the British Navy, was committed to his charge.

“In 1761, he was sent by the board of Admiralty, to make trial of Harrison's Watch of Jamaica. At the peace of 1763, he returned to College. In 1764, he was again appointed by the Admiralty to make trial of Harrison's improved Watch at Barbadoes; but his patron, Lord Anson, being dead, and the conditions not such as pleased him, he declined the employment, returned again to College, and took under his care the only remaining son of his friend, Sir Charles Knowles. This son is the present Admiral Sir Charles Knowles.

In 1770, Sir Charles was invited by the Empress of Russia to take charge of her Navy. He took Mr. Robison with him as his Secretary. In 1772, Mr. Robison was appointed superintendant of the education in the Marine Caslet Corps, where he had under his direction about 500 youth, 350 of whom were sons of noblemen and gentlemen, and 26 masters in the different studies. The Academy being burnt, Mr. Robison, with his pupils, removed to an ancient palace of Peter the Great at Constradt, a most miserable, desolate island, where, finding no agreeable society, he availed himself of the first opportunity, of quitting so unpleasant a situation, and accepted an invitation from the Magistrates of Edinburgh, to the Professorship of Natural Philosophy in the University in that city, which ranks among the first Universities in the world. To this very honorable office he acceded in August, 1774, and from that time continued his lectures, without interruption, till 1792, when illness obliged him to ask for an assistant. To enable him to give such a salary to his assistant, as would make the place worth the acceptance of a man of talents, the King was pleased to give him a pension of 100l. a year. After five years confinement, by a painful disorder, he resumed his chair, in 1797.

“In 1796, he was elected a member of the Philosophical Society at Philadelphia, of which Mr. Jefferson is President; and in 1797, a member of the Royal Society of Manchester. In 1799, after the publication of his book, the University of Glasgow, where he received his education, conferred on him, unsolicited, the honor of a Doctor's degree in Law, in which, contrary to the usual custom in these cases, is given a very particular and flattering account of his nine years studies in that University. This peculiar evidence of esteem and respect was given in this way, in order that his Diploma might have all the civil consequences which long standing could give. When he published his book, in 1797, he was Secretary of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In April, 1800, without solicitation of a single friend, he was unanimously elected a Foreign Member (there are but six) of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, at St. Petersburg, which, in point of reputation, is esteemed the third on the continent of Europe in the room of the much lamented and highly celebrated Dr. Black. To prepare for the press and superintend the publication of the Chemical writings of this great man, required the ablest Chemist in Great Britain. This distinguished honour has been conferred on Professor Robison, who has undertaken this important work. This appointment, for which no man perhaps is more competent, together with the numerous, learned, and copious articles which he has furnished for the Encyclopedia Britanica, fully evince that in reputation and solid learning, he ranks among the first literary characters in Europe. Add to all this, he sustains a MORAL character, so fair and unblemished, that any man may safely be challenged to lay any thing to his charge of which an honest man need be ashamed.”

“The following account of Professer Robison, is from a work entitled “Literary Memoirs of Living Authors of Great Britain,” &c. in two volumes, 8 vo. published in London, 1798, for R. Faulder:

“John Robison, Esq. M. A. Secretary of the Royal Society at Edinburgh, and Professor of Natural Philosophy, in the University. Professor Robison is distinguished for his accurate and extensive knowledge, especially on subjects of science. He contributed to the Encyclopedia Britanica the valuable articles, Physics Pneumatics, Precession of the Equinoxes, Projectiles, Pumps, Resistance of Fluids, River, Roof, Rope-making, Rotation, Seamanship, Signals, Sound, Specific Gravity, Statics, Steam, Steam-Engine, Strength of Materials, Telescope, Tide, Articulating-Trumpet, Variation of Compass, and Water-works, also Philosophy, in association with Dr. Gleig.

“In the autumn of the year 1797, Professor Robison published an octavo volume, entitled “Proofs of a Conspiracy,” &c. This volume has been favourably received, and although too hasty a performance for a work of so much consequence, is well entitled, both from its subject and its authenticity, to the serious attention of every reader. It arrives at the same remarkable conclusion as the celebrated Memoirs of the Abbe Barruel, Illustrating the history of Jacobinism, though the authors were perfectly unconnected with each other, and pursued their enquiries in very different ways. It has raised (we are sorry for such an appearance) a considerable clamour and enmity against the Professor; though it was written, we are fully convinced from the best of motives. We cannot conclude this article without observing that the principles, and honest zeal which Professor Robison has displayed upon this occasion, are higly creditable to him, and merit the warmest acknowledgments from society in general.”

Concerning the facts contained in this historical sketch, which were communicated to Dr. Erskine, he writes thus; “The most important facts in it I have had access to know, being first settled at Kirkintillock, the neighbouring parish to Bederoch, where lay, the estate of his worthy father. For the few facts of which I know less, full and unexceptionable vouchers can be produced.”

I shall in the following notes in this endeavour to point out the connection between Illuminism and those causes which produced the French revolution, and the present establishment of tyranny in France.

Jean Jaques Rousseau, the father of modern Democracy. For some further account of the levelling tenets of this profligate wretch, see Abbe Barruel's History of Jacobinism, vol. 2. chap. iii. and “Rosseau's confessions.”

By New Lights, I mean not merely the particular sect or denomination of fanatics, who are known exclusively by that appellation; but all your itinerant, ignorant, bawling, field and barn preachers, whatever may be their professed tenets, who go about “creeping into men's houses, leading captive silly women,” exerting themselves to destroy regular and established societies, alienating the minds of the people from their established pastors, and indeed from all clergymen regularly inducted to their sacred office. These wretches are generally demagogues, and the characters of most of them stained with vices.

Fanatics have ever been, like Cromwell and his faction, fomenters of that spirit of turbulence and insurrection which leads to anarchy, and invariably terminates in despotism.

Most of the bawling Itinerants who have fallen within the sphere of our observation, are perfectly French in their politics. They have been correctly described in the following lines:

But we have another pill for them in our 5th Canto.

Voltaire, in some of his writings, has affirmed in substance, that his countrymen were a strange compound of the subtility of the Monkey and the ferocity of the Tiger. That in his time, they were amusing themselves and other by their apish airs, but that he foresaw the time in which they would put off the Monkey and put on the Tiger to the infinite annoyance of mankind. Here it seems that “Saul was among the prophets!”

I cannot resist the temptation of transcribing, from “Guthrie's Tour through the Taurida, or Crimea, the ancient kingdom of Bosphorus,” &c. the following remarks, relative to this savage sort of innocence, with which the founders of Democracy in Europe, and our American Jacobins, seem so highly enamoured.

“We saw nothing in passing this extensive stept or plain, but an immense extent of pasturage, well adapted for the wide range of these Nomades, (savage inhabitants) with their flying camps and numerous herds. But it is by no means with a mind at ease, that one passes through the country of a people, who have kept the surrounding nations, for ages, in continual alarms by their predatory excursions.

“It is imposible, in a tour through the wilds of Scythia, not to smile at the ideas which speculating philosophers, from their cabinets, have spread abroad on the innocence and happiness of the pastoral state; probably by confounding men who follow the occupation of shepherds in civil society, with the shepherds of Holy Writ, and the pastoral Tartars of Arabs, who have, at different periods, drenched the world in blood, and put whole nations to the sword. This ridiculous ignorance is of a piece with the eulogiums of the same speculatists on man in a state of nature, whom we are sorry to acknowledge, after the new light thrown on the subject by our late circumnavigators, joined with other circumstances, to be the most savage and dangerous animal in nature, often feeding on his vanquished enemies. We find however, that he is always mild, humane, and rational, in proportion to his advancement to civilization; although even that seems to have its limits, after which he again becomes a savage. Of this we have a recent instance in the most highly polished nation in Europe, destroying all human and divine institutions.”

The state of society which is here described, is precisely that which Democracy let loose, would introduce into this country. But our most refined Democrats appear to have a wish to save the intermediate stages which the French have passed; and, by “Destroying all human and divine institutions,” step into a state of nature at once.

See Rousseau's Emilius, Godwin's Political Justice, and other writings of the canting philosophists of the same school. It is one of the inconsistencies of these black-hearted, and wrong-headed enthusiasts, to be ever prating about maintaining society without law or subordination, by the social feelings, while they are busily employing themselves to annihilate those feelings. But I cannot better express my ideas on this subject, than in the following words of Professor Robison:

“Indeed of all the consequences of Illumination, the most melancholy, is the revolution which it seems to operate in the heart of man. The forcible sacrifice of every affection of the heart to an ideal divinity, a mere creature of the imagination. It seems a prodigy, yet it is a matter of experience, that the farther we advance, or vainly suppose that we do advance in the knowledge of our mental powers, the more are our moral feelings flattened and done away. I remember reading, long ago, a Dissertation on the Nursing of Infants, by a French Academician, Le Cointre, of Versailles. He indelicately supports his theories, by the case of his own son, a weak, puny infant, whom his mother was obliged to keep continually applied to her bosom, so that she rarely could get two hours of sleep during the time of suckling him. M. Le Cointre says, that she contracted for this infant, une partialité tout á-fait deraisonable. Plato, Socrates, or Cicero, would probably have explained this by the habitual exercise of pity, a very endearing emotion. But our Academician, better illuminated, solves it by stimuli, on the papilla, and on the nerves of the skin, and by the meeting of the humifying aura, &c. and does not seem to think that young Le Cointrè was much indebted to his mother.”

Rousseau wrote a book, with the title of “The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau,” and a very precious legacy is therein bequeathed to mankind. The outlines of our short sketch of his character are taken chiefly from these memoirs. A writer in the Encyclopædia Britannica has the following remarks on that performance.

“In the preface to these memoirs, which abound with characters well drawn, and written with warmth, with energy, and sometimes with elegance, he presumes (says M. Palissot) like a peevish misanthrope, who boldly introduces himself on the ruins of the world, to declare to mankind, whom he supposes assembled upon these ruins, that in that innumerable multitude, none could dare to say I am better than that man. This affectation of seeing himself alone in the universe, and of continually directing every thing to himself, may appear to some morose minds a fanaticism of pride of which we have no examples, at least since the time of Cardan. But this is not the only blame which may be attached to the author of the Confessions. With uneasiness we see him, under the pretext of sincerity dishonour the character of his benefactress, lady Warrens, &c. Again the same writer remarks. “It is certain that if Rousseau has given a faithful delineation of some persons, he has viewed others through a cloud, which formed in his mind perpetual suspicions. He imagined he thought and spoke truly; but the simplest thing in nature, says M. Servant, if distilled through his violent and suspicious hand, might become poison.”

A very proper person truly to write political essays, “Social compacts,” &c. to which mankind are to have recourse for standards in forming a government, and political societies.

The odd mixture of heterogeneous qualities, which distinguished this singular character is thus described by himself. Speaking of an interview with a patron, who designed to promote him if found worthy of promotion, he thus describes his own behaviour and that of his friend.

“He took an excellent method of making me chatter, spoke freely with me, put me under as little restraint as possible, talked to me of trifles and on all sorts of subjects; all without seeming to observe me, without the least affectation, and as if pleased with me, he would converse without restraint. I was delighted with him. The result of his observations was, that, whatever my exterior and my animated physiognomy might promise, I was if not absolutely a fool, at least a boy of very little sense, without ideas, almost without acquirements; in a word, a very shallow fellow in all respects, and that the honor of becoming the parson of a village, was the greatest fortune I ought to aspire to. This was the second or third time I was thus judged, it was not the last.”

He explains this stupidity in the following manner:

“Two things almost inalliable, unite in me, without my being able to perceive the manner. A constitution extremely violent, impetuous and lively passions, and ideas slowly produced, confused, and which never offer till after the proper time. You would think my heart and mind do not belong to the same individual. Sentiment, quicker than light fills my soul, but instead of enlightening, fires and dazzles me. I feel every thing and see nothing. I am transported but stupid; I must be cool to think. What astonishes is that I have my feeling pretty sure, penetration, and even delicate wit, provided they'll wait for me: I can make an excellent impromptu, at leisure, but in an instant I never wrote or said any thing clever.

“Thence comes the extreme difficulty I find in writing. My manuscripts scratched, blotted, mixed, not legible, attest the trouble they cost me. Not one, but I was obliged to transcribe four or five times before it went to the press. I never could do any thing, the pen in hand, opposite a table and paper: 'twas in my walks, amidst rocks and woods; 'twas in the night, during my slumbers I wrote in my brain, you may judge how slowly, particularly to a man deprived of verbal memory, and who in his life never could retain six verses by heart. Some of my periods have been turned and winded five or six nights in my head before they were in a state for going on paper.

“I am not only troubled to render my ideas, but also in receiving them. I have studied mankind, and think myself a tolerable good observator: nevertheless I cannot see any thing in that I perceive. I see clearly that only which I recollect, and I have no knowledge but in my recollections.” &c. Thus it appears this philosopher's wits were always a wool gathering. He possessed undoubtedly what– Dr. Darwin would style the temperament of genius, which might qualify him for a smooth and pretty writer of “Reveries,” but that best boon of heaven common sense is never the lot of such a genius.

I may perhaps seem unjustifiably harsh in applying the epithet knave to this great modern philosopher. But if the reader will please to consult his confessions he will find a sorry story, which he tells of himself, which is sufficient to justify me in bestowing on him appellations still more severe. He will there find that our great philosopher stole a ribband, and attributed the theft to a servant girl, by which she was ruined. Ingratitude is likewise a trait in his character entirely consistent with his sublime sentiments and perfect philosophism.

In this he was not quite alone in the world, there appears to be an order of beings, to whom nothing but the stimulus of being in distress can give energy. Some of the English poets were of that description of character. Thomson proposed to write a poem on the man who loved to be in distress, and if we are to judge of the character by the conduct of many of his tuneful brethren, they courted, rather than shunned misfortune, perhaps that they might enjoy the luxury of being pitied. Pope, Addison, Swift, and many others, however, were willing enough to be exempted from the iron hand of the relentless power yclep'd ADVERSITY, to whom Gray has addressed one of the finest odes in the English language. But to return to Rosseau, he gives this account of his circumstances, while a vagrant in France.

“Being reduced to pass my nights in the street, may certainly be called suffering, and this was several times the case at Lyons, having preferred buying bread with the few pence I had remaining, to bestowing them on a lodging; as I was convinced there was less danger of dying for want of sleep than of hunger. What is astonishing, while in this unhappy situation, I took no care for the future, was neither uneasy or melancholy, but patiently waited an answer to Madamoiselle du Chatelet's letter, and laying in the open air, stretched on the earth, or on a bench, slept as soundly as if reposing on a bed of roses. I remember particularly to have past a most delightful night at some distance from the city, in a road which had the Rhone, or Saone, I can't recollect which, on one side, and a range of raised gardens, with terraces on the other. It had been a very hot day, the evening was delightful, the dew moistened the fading grass, no wind was stirring, the air was fresh without chillness, the setting sun had tinged the clouds with a beautiful crimson, which was again reflected by the water, and the trees that bordered the terrace were filled with nightingales who were continually answering each other's songs. I walked along in a kind of extacy, giving up my heart and senses to the enjoyment of so many delights, and sighing only from a regret of enjoying them alone. Absorbed in this pleasing reverie, I lengthened my walk till it grew very late, without perceiving I was tired; at length, however, I discovered it, and threw myself on the step of a kind of niche, or false door, in the terrace wall. How charming was the couch! the trees formed a stately canopy, a nightingale sat directly over me, and with his soft notes lulled me to rest: how pleasing my repose, my awaking more so. It was broad day; on opening my eyes I saw the water, the verdure, an admirable landscape before me. I arose, shook off the remains of drowsiness, and finding I was hungry, retook the way to the city, resolving, with inexpressible gaiety, to spend the two pieces of six blancs I had yet remaining in a good breakfast. I found myself so chearful that I went all the way singing; I even remember I sang a cantata of Baptistin's called the Baths of Thomery, which I knew by heart.”

Thomson has given us no bad picture of Rousseau, and some other pretended philosophers of the visionary cast in his personification of Hypochondria.

Madness is frequently mistaken for inspiration, and want of common sense, is often thought a proof of I know not what sublime sense. Thus the ravings of Della Crusca and the moon struck tribe of sonneteers in the same school, have been thought to be the perfection of poetry. Indeed Della Crusca's poetry and Rosseau's politics are different diagnostics of the same disease, and the poor creatures who are affected with these symptoms are absolutely mad!

Some of these lay scatter'd here and there in his “Confessions.” It appears that this geat man, first ran away from his father, then from his patroness and mistress Madame de Warrens, and that he was ever and anon eloping from his benefactors, in pursuit of some chimerical project.

Rousseau's Emilius and Social Contract are proofs in point of our assertion. A regular critique upon these publications would exceed our limits. A word or two, however, upon the latter may not be useless, especially as this is the fountain from whence Pain and other Sciolists of the new school appear to have derived their political principles.

“Man” (say Rousseau) “is born free and yet we see him every where in chains.” Social Contract. Book 1. Chap. 1. Again in the same Chapter he observes,

“If I were only to consider force, and the effects of it I should say that, when a nation is constrained to obey and does obey it does well; but whenever it can throw of the yoke, and does throw it off it does better.”

Now this profound philosopher does not attempt to tell us what he means by the term yoke, but he says that man is every where in chains, and we are led to conclude that those nations who mean to “do better” than “well” will immediately set themselves about overturning their governments.

After a great number of paradoxical observations, the substance of which had been before made by Montesquieu, and have since been enlarged upon by Tom Pain and his disciples, we are presented with paradox of paradoxes, as follows,

“Where shall we find a form of association which will defend and protect with the whole aggregate force the person and the property of each individual, and by which every person, while united with ALL, shall obey only HIMSELF, and remain as free as before the union? Book 1. Chap. 6.

Hic labor, hoc opus est. I have my doubts whether all this will ever be found. Rosseau however says,

“Every malefactor who, by attacking the social right becomes a rebel and a traitor to his country ceases by that act to be a party in willing the laws and makes war, in fact, with himself.” Book 2. Chap. 5.

Here we learn that the criminal who is condemned by the laws of his country, has signed his own act of condemnation by consenting to become a member of the society from which he is cut off as an excrescence, and if he is executed for crimes committed against the society of which he is a member, he is guilty of a felo de se, in having consented to become a member of such society.

We likewise in Book 2. Chap. 3. are informed that the general will cannot err, (vox populi, vox dei) and that it tends invariably to the public advantage. Yet we are told almost in the same breath that the people, a majority of whose suffrages compose this infallible general will are often deceived. That is that the expressions of the will of a fallible body are always infallible.

The French revolutionary jargon about liberty and equality is borrowed from this production.

But we shall not fatigue our readers by a detail of of all the absurdities, and contradictions, with which this treatise is teeming. The author appears to think that a nation is a kind of machine, and may be governed by mechanical principles, but has no clear idea of the wonderful mechanism which he attempts to explain. Hence we are every where lost in a jargon of words without meaning, and perplexed by distinctions without difference. He was certainly correct in complaining that his ideas were confused. But it is really astonishing that the vain philosophy of this and similar writers, should have the effect of exciting the mad million to overturn all existing systems, without any distinct idea of what they were to substitute in the place of what they destroyed. They would demolish a palace before they had provided materials for erecting even a hovel on its site.

The author of the Pursuits of Literature has the following remarks on this writer, “Rousseau, by the unjustifiable, arbitrary and cruel proceedings against him, his writings and person in France, where he was a stranger and to whose tribunals he was not amenable, was stimulated to pursue his researches into the origin and expedience of such government, and of such oppression which, otherwise, he probably never would have discussed; till he reasoned himself into the desperate doctrine of Political equality, and gave to the world his fatal present the “Social Contract.” Of this work the French since the revolution have never lost sight. With them it is first, and last, and middle, and without end in all their thoughts and public actions. Rousseau is, I believe the only man to whom they have paid an implicit and undedeviating reverence; and without a figure have worshipped in the Pantheon of their new idolatry, like a new Chemos, the obscure dread of Gallia's sons.

Let us grant to our revolutionists that all the powers which be were originally founded on oppression, and that by tracing the titles, we shall find some defect which in the opinion of casuists like Rousseau, ought to weaken their claims. Yet they must allow there ought to be power somewhere in society, which shall be sufficient to coerce, restrain and punish the turbulent and vicious; and those who are solicitous to pull down and destroy such power, ough surely to be able to establish a better claim in those who are to succeed in its possession Besides power is more frequently abused by an upstart, who has intrigued, forced and perhaps assasinated his way into office, than by one who enjoys it by more justifiable means. The head of a man not accustomed to elevation is apt to be giddy if he is exalted, and the little finger of a Buonaparte is generally heavier than the loins of a Louis.

The following beautiful lines are from “Jacobinism,” a poem printed in England 1801.

To this quotation we are tempted to add one from Coleman's Broad Grins, which although expressed in a very different stile, is not less to the purpose than the preceding.

The arts of which the French Encyclopedists made use, for disseminating the poison of their principles, are detailed at large by the Abbe Barruel, vol. 1. chap. iv. to which we must refer the reader who wishes for more ample information on this subject. Some of the tricks, however, of these Illuminees, were so perfectly similar to those of the shuffling Jacobins of the present period, who mutilate, garble, and misquote Adams' Defence of the American Constitution, in order to show that the author of a treatise, written in defence of a Republican form of government, is at heart a monarchist, that we think it cannot be malapropos, to exhibit a few of their mischievous devices.

“Look for the article God, (Genevan edition) and you will find very sound notions, together with the direct, physical and metaphysical demonstration of his existence; and indeed, under such an article, it would have been too manifest, to have broached any thing bordering on Atheism, Spinonism, or Epicurism; but the reader is referred to the article Demonstration, and there all the physical and metaphysical cogent arguments for the existence of a God disappear. We are there taught, that all direct demonstrations suppose the idea of infinitude, and that such an idea cannot be of the clearest, either for the naturalist, or the metaphysician. This, in a word, destroys all confidence the reader had in the proofs adduced of the existence of God. There again, they are pleased to tell you, that a single insect, in the eyes of a philosopher, more forcibly proves the existence of a God, than all the metaphysical arguments whatever; (ibid.) but you are then referred to Corruption, where you learn how much you are to beware of asserting, in a positive manner, that corruption can never beget animated bodies; and that such a production of animated bodies by corruption seems to be countenanced by daily experiments; and it is from these experiments precisely, that the Atheists conclude that the existence or God is unnecessary, either for the creation of man of animals. Prepossessed by these references against the existence of God, led the reader turn to the articles of Encyclopaedia, and Epicurism. In the former, he will be told. That there is no being in nature that can be called the first or last, and that a machine, infinite in every way, must be the Deity. In the latter, the atom is to be the Deity. It will be the primary cause of all things, by whom, and of whom, every thing is active essentially of itself, Alone Unalterable, Alone Eternal, Alone Immutable; and thus the reader will be insensibly led from the God of the gospel, to the Heathenish fiction of an Epicurus, or of a Spinosa.

The same cunning is to be found in the article of the Soul. Where the sophisters treat directly of its essence, they give the ordinary proofs of its spirituality, and of its immortality. They will even add to the article Brute, that the soul cannot be supposed material, nor can the brute be reduced to the quality of a mere machine, without running the hazard of making man an automato. And under Natural Law, we read, That if the determinations of man, or even his oscillations arise from any thing material extraneous to his soul, there will be neither good nor evil, neither just nor unjust, neither obligation nor right. Then referred to the article Locke, in order to do away all this consequence, we are told, That it is of no importance whether matter thinks or not, for what is that to justice or injustice, to the immortality of the soul, and to all the truth of the system, whether political or religious. The reader, enjoying the liberty and equality of his reason, is left to doubt with regard to the spirituality, and no longer knows whether he should not think himself all matter.

But he will decide, when under the article Animal, he finds, That life and animation are only physical properties of matter; and lest he should think himself debased by his resembling a plant or an animal, to console him in his fall, they will tell him, article Encyclopedia and Animal, That the only difference between certain vegetables, and animals such as us, is, that they sleep, and that we wake, that we are animals that feel, and that they are animals that feel not; and still further in article Animal, That the sole difference between a stock and a man, is, that the one never falls, while the other never falls after the same manner.

After perusing these articles bonâ fide, the reader must be insensibly drawn into the vortex of materialism.

In treating of Liberty or Free Agency, we find the same artifice. When they treat it directly, they will say, “Take away liberty, all human nature is overthrown, and there will be no trace of order in society. Recompense will be ridiculous, and chastisement unjust, The ruin of liberty carries with it that of all order of police, and legitimates the most monstrous crimes; so monstrous a doctrine is not to be debated in the schools, but punished by the magistrates,” &c. Then follows a portion of Democratic rant: “Oh, liberty,” they exclaim, “Oh, liberty, gift of Heaven! Oh, liberty of action! Oh, liberty of thought! thou alone art capable of great things!” (See article Authority, and the Preliminary Discourse.) But at the article Chance, (fortuit) all this liberty of action and of thought, is only a power that cannot be exercised, that cannot be known by actual exercise; and Diderot, at the article Evidence, pretending to support Liberty, will very properly say, “This concatenation of causes and effects, supposed by the philosophers, in order to form ideas representing the mechanism of the universe, is as fabulous as the Tritons and the Naiads.” But, both he and D'Alembert, descant again on that concatenation, and returning to Chance (fortuit) tell us, “That though it is imperceptible it is not less real; that it connects all things in nature, that all even's depend on it; just as the wheels of a watch, as to the motion, depend on each other: that from the first moment of our existence, we are by no means masters of our motions; that were there a thousand worlds similar to this, and simultaneously existing, governed by the same laws, every thing in them would be done in the same way; and that man, in virtue of these same laws would perform, at the same time, the same actions, in each one of these worlds.” This will naturally convince the uninformed reader, of the chimæra of such liberty or free agency, which cannot be exercised. Not content with this, Diderot, at the article Fatality, after a long dissertation on this concatenation of causes, ends, by saying, That it cannot be contested either in the physical world, or in the moral and intellectual world. Hence, what becomes of that liberty, without which there no longer exists just or unjust obligation or right?”

These examples will suffice to convince the reader of the truth of what we have asserted, as to the artful policy with which the Encyclopedia had been digested; they will show with what cunning its authors sought to spread the principles of Atheism, Materialism and Fatalism; in fine, every error incompatible with that religion, for which they professed so great a reverence at their outset.

The character of this abominable wretch, who debauched his wife's sister, and attempted to murder her, together with the fruits of their illicit commerce, is but a type of that of many leading jacobins in this country. His intimate friends and disciples, were all monsters of iniquity. See Robison's Proofs, p. 114. and 130.

“Nothing was so frequently discoursed of” (in the German Lodges) “as the propriety of employing for a good purpose, the means which the wicked employed for evil purposes.”

This abominable tenet of the Illuminati, appears to have been the principal rule of action of the monster, Roberspierre, who made France an aceldama, for the purpose of introducing his fancied perfection.

Freret, whose writings were recommended by the Illuminati, tells us expressly, “The universal cause, that God of the Philosophers, of Jews, and of Christians, is but a chimæra, and a phantom.” The same author continues, “Imagination daily creates fresh chimæras, which raises in them that impulse of fear, and such is the phantom of the Deity.”

To the opinion of these philosophists, might be opposed that of a host of real philosophers. But the following observations of Professor Robison, are so apposite, that we think they supercede our own remarks.

“Our immortal Newton, to whom the philosophers of Europe look up as the honor of our species, whom even Mr. Bailly, the president of the National Assembly of France, and mayor of Paris, cannot find words sufficiently energetic to praise; this patient, sagacious and successful observer of nature, after having exhibited to the wondering world, the characteristic property of that principle of material nature, by which all the bodies of the Solar system are made to form a connected and permanent universe; and after having shewn that this law of action alone was adapted to this end, and that if gravity had deviated but one thousandth part from the inverse duplicate ratio of the distances, the system must, in the course of a very few revolutions, have gone into confusion and ruin; sits down, and views the goodly scene; and then closes his principles of natural philosophy with this reflection, (his scholium generale.)

“This most elegant frame of things could not have arisen, unless by the contrivance and the direction of a wise and powerful being; and if the fixed stars are the centres of systems these systems must be similar; and all these constructed according to the same plan, are subject to the government of one Being. All these he governs, not as the soul of the world, but as the Lord of all; therefore, on account of his government he is called the Lord God. ... Παιτοκρατορ; for God is a relative term, and refers to his subjects. Deity is God's government, not of his own body, as those think who consider him as the soul of the world, but of his servants. The Supreme God, is a being, eternal, infinite, absolutely perfect. But a being, however perfect without government, is not God; for we say, my God, your God, the God of Israel. We cannot say my eternal, my infinite. We may have some notions indeed of his attributes, but we can have none of his nature. With respect to bodies, we see only shapes and colour; hear only sounds; touch only surfaces. These are attributes of bodies; but of their essence we know nothing. As a blind man can form no notion of colours, we can form none of the manner in which God perceives, and understands, and influences every thing.

“Therefore we know God only by his attributes. What are these? The wise and excellent structure, and final aim of all things. In these, his perfections, we admire him and we wonder. In his directions or government, we venerate and worship him; we worship him as his servants; and God, without dominion, without providence, and final aims, is Fate; not the object either of reverence, of hope, or of fear.”

These are the sentiments of a real philosopher, not a Tom Pain, a Godwin, or a Voltaire.

It has ever appeared to us as the essence of folly, for those who pretend to be philosophers, to deny the being of a God, because they cannot comprehend how he exists. As well might they deny the existence of the atmosphere, because it is invisible. Will these presumptuous mortals affirm that the magnetic needle does not point towards the pole, because they cannot develope the cause of the magnetic influence? Then may they affirm, that because they cannot

that there is no God and no mind in the universe.

“The author of Good Sense, which D'Alembert wishes to see abridged, in order to sell it for five pence to the poor and ignorant, says, That the phenomena of nature, only prove the existence of God, to a few prepossessed men; that the wonders of nature, so far from speaking a God, are but the necessary efforts of matter, infinitely diversified.”

Boulanger tells us, “That the immortality of the soul, so far from stimulating men to the practice of virtue, is nothing but a barbarous, desperate and fatal tenet, and contrary to all legislation.” “In the lodges, (of the Illuminati) death was declared to be an eternal sleep.”

Helvetius says, “That the only rule by which virtuous actions are distinguished from vicious ones, is the law of princes, and public utility. That virtue, that honesty, with regard to individuals, is no more than the habit of actions personally advantageous, and that self interest is the scale by which the actions of those can be measured.”

“The commandment of loving father and mother, is more the work of education, than of nature.”

“By a decree of the French National Convention (June 6, 1794) it is declared that there is nothing criminal in the promiscuous commerce of the sexes, and therefore nothing that derogates from the female character, when woman forgets that she is the depositary of all domestic satisfaction, that her honor is the sacred bond of social life—that on her modesty and delicacy depend all the respect and confidence that will make a man attach himself to society, free her from labour, share with her the fruits of all his own exertions, and work with willingness and delight that she may appear on all occasions his equal, and the ornament of all his acquisitions. In the very argument, which this selected body of senators has given for the propriety of this decree, it has degraded women below all estimation. “It is to prevent her from murdering the fruit of unlawful love, by removing her shame, and by relieving her from the fear of want.” The senators say, “the Republic wants citizens, and therefore must not only remove this temptation of shame, but must take care of the mother while she nurses the child. It is the property of the nation and must not be lost.” The woman all the while is considered only as the SHE ANIMAL, the breeder of Sans cullottes. This is the just morality of Illumination.”

These degrading ideas of the female sex are precisely the same, which were taught in the German Lodges, and furnish proof of the connection between Illuminism, and the causes which excited the French Revolution.

“The man who is above the law, can commit without remorse the dishonest act, which serves his purpose.”

“Modesty is only the invention of refined voluptuousness,” .... Helvetius. The French women have, however, pretty well divested themselves of this appendage. Madam Talben, accompanied by other beautiful women, laying aside all modesty, came into the public theatre, presented themselves to public view, with bared limbs a la sauvage as the alluring objects of desire.

The object of the Illuminati, as appears from Barruel and Robison, was not only anti-christian, and anti-monarchial, but anti-social. They wished to annihilate every thing which went to strengthen the bands of society, and reduce man to a state of nature. The candidate for the degree of epopt, or priest, was informed by his superior, that “These secret schools of philosophy, shall one day retrieve the fall of human nature, and princes and nations shall disappear from the face of the earth; and that without violence. Reason shall be the only book of law; the sole code of man.”

“A candidate for reception into one of the highest orders, after having heard many threatenings denounced against all who should betray the secrets of the order, was conducted to a place where he saw the dead bodies of several who were said to have suffered for their treachery. He then saw his own brother tied hand and foot begging his mercy and intercession. He was informed that the person was about to suffer the punishment due to this offence, and that it was reserved for him (the candidate) to be the instrument of this just vengeance, and that this gave him an opportunity of manifesting that he was completely devoted to the Order. It being observed that his countenance gave signs of inward horror (the person in bonds imploring his mercy all the while) he was told that in order to spare his feelings a bandage should be put over his eyes. A dagger was then put into his right hand, and being hoodwinked, his left hand was laid on the palpitating heart of the criminal, and he was then ordered to strike. He instantly obeyed; and when the bandage was taken from his eyes he saw that it was a lamb that he had stabbed. Surely such a trial and such wanton cruelty are only fit for training conspirators.”

No wonder that people trained to blood in this manner should have been guilty of the most horrid excesses. Nothing in the annals of history can equal the cruelties committed by Illuminees and Philosophists. Well might the Abbe Barruel affirm, “It was the principles of the sect that made Barnave, at the sight of heads carried on pikes, ferociously smile and exclaim, “was that blood then so pure that one might not even spill one drop of it? Yes it was those principles that made Chappellier, Mirabeau, and Gregoire, when they beheld the brigands surrounding the Palace of Versailles in sanguinary rage, thirsting after murder, and particularly after the blood of the Queen, exclaim the people must have victims. It was these principles that even smothered the affection of brother for brother when the adept Chenier, seeing his own brother delivered over to the hands of the public executioner, coolly said, If my brother be not in the true sense of the revolution, let him be sacrificed .... that eradicated the feelings of the child for his parents, when the adopt Philip brought in triumph to the club of Jacobins the head of his father and mother!! This insatiable sect calls out by the mouth of the bloody Marat for two hundred and seventy thousand heads, declaring that before long it will count only by millions. They knew well that their systems, and last mysteries of equality can only be accomplished in their full extent by depopulating the world; and by the mouth of Le Bo, it answers the inhabitants of Montauban, terrified with the want of provisions, “Fear not; France has a sufficiency for twelve millions of inhabitants. All the rest (that is the other twelve millions) must be put to death, and then there will be no scarcity of bread.”

We are likewise told by the historians of that disastrous period that new words were invented to denote the butcheries which took place. Whole hecatombs of victims were shot en masse, and this was stiled Fusillades; hecatombs were also drowned, and this species of murder was called Noyadea.

One of their own writers, a republican, gives the following description of the cruelties practised by these adepts in iniquity.

“Under the name of a revolutionary government, all the public functions were united in the committee of public safety, where Robespierre had for a long time dominated. Then it was that this committee became dictatorial, hurried into the departments that horde of ferocious pro-consuls, whom we have seen betraying and slaughtering the people, whose servants they were, and to whom they owed their political existence; sometimes carrying with them in their murderous circuits, the guillotine, at others declaring it permanent, which was saying in other words, that the executioner was not to have a moment's rest. These monsters in mission, these Colossusses of crime, these phœnomena of cruelty, hunted men as a German baron hunts wild boars. The despotic Turk, when he makes his equal expire under the bastinado of a Pacha or by the chord of the mutes, does not say to his victim, thou art free.

“We have already said that all tyrannies resemble each other; all tyrants have, like our decemvirs, employed the arm of terror; and it is not in this point of view that the history of the epoch of our revolution is new; but what has never yet been seen, and what probably will never be seen again, is a great and enlightened people, who during six months were mutilated, decimated, shot, drowned, and guillotined by their representatives; it is the extreme ferocity of so many public functionaries butchering those from whom they received their commissions. Rome had a series of tyrants in succession, or at least at short intervals; but France had at one and the same instant a host of Caligulas. Tacitus himself would have broken his pencil with regret at not being able to paint all the crimes which sprung from the monstrous junction of the ferocious Robespierre with the sanguinary Couthon; of the barbarous Billaud with the gloomy Amar; of the tiger Collot, with the tiger Carrier; of the cut-throat Dumas with the cut-throat Coffinhall; and a thousand subalterns submissive to their orders. Mirabeau undoubtedly foresaw a part of these horrors, when he said, liberty slept only on mattrasses of dead carcases.”

“What a picture! the waves of the ocean swelled by the mangled bodies, which were secretly committed to the bosom of the Loire; blood flowing in torrents down the streets of every town; the dungeons of a hundred thousand bastiles groaning under the weight of the victims with which they were incumbered; the threshold of every door stained with gore; and as the height of insult, the word humanity engraven on every tomb, and associated to death: such was the lamentable aspect which France presented! On every frontispiece were to be seen the contradictory words of Liberty, Fraternity, or Death. Alas! the last was the only one which was realized.”

Here we have the faint outlines of a picture of the horrors of the French revolution, drawn by a Frenchman and a democrat. This is the kind of liberty and equality which illuminated philosophers prepare for mankind.

“Infidelity is now served up in every shape that is likely to allure, surprise, or beguile the imagination; in a fable, a tale, a novel, a poem, in interspersed and broken hints; remote and oblique surmises; in books of travels; of philosophy; of natural history; in a word, in any form rather than that of a professed and regular disquisition.”

I do not pretend to affirm that the French revolution was altogether the immediate and direct effect of the operations of the Illuminati. But I believe that the principles inculcated in the lodges of these terrene infernals, and which were circulated by them, and by those who were connected with them, paved the way to those enormities, which rendered the French revolution by far the most bloody recorded in history. These were no doubt many who without ever perceiving it themselves were under the influence of principles taught in these lodges. There was a great difference between the systematical ferocity of the leaders in the French revolution, and the desultory efforts of the common Jack Cades and Wat Tylers of rebellion. Many of them had thoroughly reasoned themselves into a belief that their massacres were laudable, and would eventually redound to their own honor and the great good of the human species.

The following anecdote will, I think, corroborate my assertion.

“To give an idea of the temper of the people at Paris, it is proper to remark, that at the same instant when the multitude with bloody fury were massacring the menial servants in the palace, (on the memorable 10th of August 1792) and could scarcely be restrained from offering violence to the Swiss who were made prisoners, they would suffer no acts of pillage to go unpunished. Several attempts of this kind were accordingly followed by the instant death of the criminals. The plate, the jewels, and money found in the Thuilleries were brought to the national assembly, and thrown down in the hall. One man, whose dress and appearance bespoke extreme poverty, cast upon the table an hat full of gold. ... But the minds of these men were elevated by enthusiasm; and they considered themselves as at this moment the champions of freedom, and objects of terror to the kings of the earth.”

The following extract from an address to the French people by the adepts Drouet, Babieuf, and Longelat, exhibits a correct specimen of jacobin equality.

“We are all equal. ... That principle is incontestable .... very well! We mean in future to live and die as we are born. We will have real equality or death. ... That is what we want, and we will have that real equality, cost what it will. Woe be to those whom we shall meet between it and us! Woe to the man who shall dare oppose so positive a determination! The French revolution is but the forerunner of a revolution greater by far and much more solemn; and which will be the last.

“What do we ask more than the equality of rights? Why, we will not only have that equality transcribed in the declaration of the rights of man, and of the citizen; we will have it in the midst of us, under the roofs of our houses. We consent to every thing for the acquisition of it, even to clear decks, that we may possess it alone; perish the acts, if requisite, provided we do but preserve a real equality!

“Legislators and governors, proprietors, rich and bowelless, in vain do you attempt to paralyze our sacred enterprize, by saying we are only re-producing the Agrarian law that has been so often asked for before.

“Calumniators! hold your peace in your turn, and in the silence of confusion hearken to our pretensions dictated by nature and grounded on justice.

“The Agrarian law, or equal partition of lands, was the momentary wish of a few soldiers without principles, of a few clans, actuated rather by instinct than by reason. We aim at something more sublime, far more equitable, GOODS IN COMMON, or THE COMMUNITY OF ESTATES! No more individual properties in land, for the earth belongs to nobody. We demand and will enjoy the goods of the earth in common. The fruits belong to all. Disappear now, ye disgusting distinctions of rich and poor, of higher and lower, of master and servant, of GOVERNING AND GOVERNED! for no other distinctions shall exist among mankind than those of age and sex.”

Were it not true that our American jacobins are very great admirers of this disorganizing philosophist, I would not waste a syllable on his productions. His Political Justice is held in utter abhorrence by all men of sense and erudition on either side of the Atlantic. But as it is unfortunately the case that some men, who are neither men of sense nor erudition, are very aspiring characters, the said William Godwin is toasted in democratic clubs, and many of the men now in power, shape their conduct according to the models of this principal pedlar of French manufactured morality.

I would premise, however, that I shall not attempt to trace the sorry sophist through all his labyrinths of “desolating nonsense.” A concise sketch of some of the most prominent fallacies which we have observed in his Political Justice, must suffice.

He commences his theory of political justice, with a description of the “evils existing in political society,” then attempts to prove that these “evils are to be ascribed to public institutions,” and next proposes to inform us, how such evils are to be removed!

Under the head of evils existing in society, we are presented with much common place declamation, about fraud, robbery, wars, &c. To these succeed several arid chapters, relative to innate principles, antenatal impressions, instincts, &c. all of which is either very trite, or very nonsensical. We are next informed that our voluntary actions are invariably the result of reason. That passion and appetite cannot counteract its mandates .... that “truth is omnipotent” .... that when a rational being knows what is right, he will invariably act according to his knowledge.

Hence, we have nothing further to do in performing the process of perfecting man, than merely to illuminate him with some of philosopher Godwin's lucid displays of truth, as exhibited for instance, in his Political Justice, and he will be so perfect, that the now “necessary evil” of government may be annihilated.

Here, however, some slight difficulties in our progress to perfection intervene. But these cannot long retard Philosopher Godwin. He acknowledges that there are some soils in which the plant, perfectibility, will not flourish. The influences of luxury, of climate, &c. oppose something like obstacles. But these vanish before plenipotent philosopher Godwin. “For,” quoth he, “if truth, when properly displayed be omnipotent, then neither climate nor luxury are invincible obstacles.” No, our philosopher is not to be put down by trifles. He will contrive “moral causes,” to overpower all physical impediments. The shrivelled Eskimaux, or the parched African, are alike capable of perfection, and of consequence, of dispensing with the formality of government.

We are next presented with a curious chapter on “Justice.” In this we are informed that the “distribution of justice should be measured by the capacity of its subject.” That is, that in measuring such justice, we are not to consult the claims of the persons to whom it is due, but the good of the mass of mankind, abstractedly considered. Whence it follows, that if I owe a sum of money to A. but B. to whom I am not indebted, would, in my opinion, make a better use of that money than A. I am bound, in justice, to pay it to the former. It seems to be the object of this singular being, to consider justice as a sort of abstract quality, an undefinable something, due to the “system of nature,” and to be distributed where it will contribute most to the mass of enjoyment now existing, or which may hereafter exist in the universe.

Hence it appears that Mr. Godwin's Justice is not unlike Dr. Darwin's “universal philanthropy,” which is consoled for the loss of thousands of human beings, by the reflection that the matter of which they were organized, might be profitably employed in the manufacture of myriads of insects, the sum of whose happiness might be equal to that of the slaughtered armies, to whose destruction these flying and creeping things owed their existence. Phytologia.

But to return to Mr. Godwin. In proving all these fine things, however, our wonderfully profound philosopher, as might be expected, not unfrequently contradicts himself. Truth is sometimes represented as “Omnipotent,” and sometimes as totally imbecile, although by its agency all his perfection is to be brought about. For we are informed, that “Self deception is of all things the most easy. Whoever ardently wishes to find a proposition true, may be expected insensibly to veer towards the opinion that suits his inclination. It cannot be wondered at, by him who considers the subtilty of the human mind, that belief should scarcely ever rest upon the mere basis of evidence, and that arguments are always viewed through a delusive medium, magnifying them into Alps, or diminishing them to nothing.”

We are afterwards told of conscientious assassins and persecutors, who are to be governed by this “Omnipotent Truth,” but how all this will be brought about, no body but a philosophist can determine.

Mr. Godwin now proceeds to explode rights, and unshackle his unlimited morality, till at length we are presented with a new set of “Principles of Government,” in which “Omnipotent Truth,” sanctioned by justice without coercion, is to regulate society according to a new order of things, and introduce a political millenium. When this happy era commences, every man in every action, will consult at once his own happiness, the happiness of his neighbours, of the world of mankind, and the present and future good of the universe. Here our modern philosopher is placed in a situation a million times as puzzling as that of the schoolman's ass between two equally attractive stacks of hay; for if he moves but his little finger in any way not conducive to the introduction of universal felicity, the whole of Mr. Godwin's fine fabric is annihilated.

The next thing worthy of notice in the course of this gentleman's destructive career, is an attack upon the Obligation of Promises. In this he would have a philosopher be the opposite to the just man, described by Dr. Watts, who,

And because it is lawful to take, in some cases, what is not our own, to satisfy hunger, he argues thus:

“The adherence to promises, therefore, as well as their employment, in the first instance, must be decided by the general criterion, and maintained only so far as upon a comprehensive view it shall be found productive of a balance of happiness.”

Here it is to be observed, that the promissor is to be the judge, in his own case, how far the observance of his promise may be “Productive of a balance of happiness.” And with regard to the facility with which an honest man, making a promise, may deceive himself respecting this “balance of happiness,” we would refer our reader to the passage already quoted from book II. chap. iv. p. 133.

Our scheming politician is not contented with having made an end of promises, but in his second volume, Oaths of Office, are declared not only useless, but execrable. But I fear I shall trespass on the patience of my reader, by pursuing this visionary writer through the mazes of his “vain philosophy.” I shall therefore take leave of Mr. Godwin, with a quotation or two; and, 1st, from his own book, exemplifying the means by which Mr. Godwin would be willing to obtain his perfection; and, 2ndly, from the “Pursuits of Literature,” expressing the apprehensions which that great writer, in common with all men of science and reflection, have felt from the effects of such poisonous principles.

“Perhaps no important revolution was ever bloodless. It may be useful in this place to recollect in what the mischief of shedding blood consists. The abuses which at present exist in all political societies, are so enormous, the oppressions which are exercised so intolerable, the ignorance and vice they entail so dreadful, that possibly a dispassionate enquirer might decide, that, if their annihilation could be purchased by an instant sweeping of every human being now arrived at years of maturity, from the face of the earth, the purchase would not be too dear. It is not because human life is of so considerable value, that we ought to recoil from the shedding of blood. Death is in itself among the slightest of human evils. An earthquake, which should swallow up a hundred thousand individuals at once, would chiefly be to be regretted for the anguish it entailed upon survivors; in a fair estimate of those it had destroyed, it would often be comparatively a trivial event.”

In this sentence we have Illuminism completely unmasked. This was the principle, which actuated the blood-thirsty tygers of the French revolution.

I cannot better conclude my remarks on this work, than by quoting from the Pursuits of Literature, a passage, which evinces the apprehensions which the author of that poem entertained from the prevalence of these and similar tenets of modern philosophy.

“My conviction and my fears on this most awful subject (while it may yet avail us to consider) sometimes overpower me, till I absolutely sink under them.”

I have heard it asserted that Godwin has retracted some of the tenets advanced in this horrid production. But the recantation, if such exists, has not been made sufficiently public to serve as an antidote to the poison contained in the principles, and our American democrats still pretend to admire the destructive sophisms with which that work abounds.

Book II. chap. iv. p. 133.

Book II. chap. v.

Book II. chap. iii.

There is a society established in New-York, called the St. Tammany Society, who personate the aboriginal savages very successfully in our opinion.

Among the sovereigns who were wheedled into the plans of the conspirators, were Joseph II. Emperor of Germany, Catherine II. Empress of Russia, Christiern VII. King of Denmark, Gustavus III. King of Sweden, and Poniatowski, King of Poland, together with princes and princesses too numerous in this place to mention.

Among the many astonishing instances of the wilful, or stupid blindness of the party, who arrogate to themselves the appellation of republicans, may be included their persevering eulogies of Bonaparte, long after the mask of republicanism was thrown off by that usurper. Notwithstanding well authenticated accounts were received in America, of the infernal means by which he was accomplishing the end of enslaving that country, still he remained the subject of democratic demi-adoration. But our limits will not allow us, in this place, to give a full length portrait of the republican Emperor of the Gauls. A few sentences from an English publication, the conductors of which, we know, will not give currency to a falsehood, shall suffice.

“Trace this man of blood, from his first entrance on his revolutionary career, to the present moment, (July, 1803.) Behold him, after contributing to the murder of that sovereign, to whose liberality he had been indebted for his education and support, acting a conspicuous part with his friend, the late minister of police, Fouché, as an agent of the National Convention at Toulon, where, after its evacuation by the English, he superintended the massacre of the loyalists; then follow him to Paris, see him placed by Barras, at the head of the conventional army, and murdering seven thousand of the citizens of the metropolis, for daring to exercise a constitutional right, by the election of their own representatives; next observe him, accepting as a reward for this sanguinary act, from the contemplation of which every honest mind revolts with horror, the hand of the mistress of Barras, with the command of a banditti, destined to overrun the fertile plains of Lombardy; view him in his destructive progress, dealing death and desolation around, and involving, in one mass of complicated ruin, the prince and the peasant, the young and the old, the woman and the child; mark his conduct during his progress at the village of Tenasco, where one of his soldiery, instigated by brutal lust, (in the unrestrained gratification of which his troops were, and still are, SYSTEMATICALLY indulged) entered the cottage of a peasant, and attempted to violate his daughter, scarcely arrived to years of maturity, the resentment of which by the father, produced a scuffle, which ended in the death of the military ruffian ..... see Bonaparte, whose head-quarters were near by, revenge this deed of justice, by ordering the whole village of Tenasco to be reduced to ashes, and its innocent, unprotected inhabitants, to be put to death without distinction of age or sex, an order, which was instantaneously and most mercilessly obeyed ..... pursue this monster in human shape to the shores of Egypt; there hear him publicly renounce his Redeemer, reject the proffered salvation of his God, order the wanton massacre of thousands of the helpless people of Alexandria, merely to strike terror into their countrymen ..... then trace him to Jaffa, to the cold-blooded murder of 3,800 captured Turks; follow him in his disgraceful retreat, when driven by British valour from the walls of Acre, and observe him calmly directing the poisoned bowl to be administered to five hundred and eighty of his sick soldiers,” &c.

Hence we see a short sketch of the character of the man, whom our democrats have ever idolized; and to similar scenes would unrestrained democracy lead, in this or any other country. It is in vain for the favourers of Frenchmen and French measures, in this country, to deny the existence of the facts here disclosed. They have been repeatedly published, both in England and America, and never contradicted by the friends and admirers of the genuine-republican, who is now king of the Gauls.

Since writing the above I have perused a tract entitled Bonaparte and the French people, written with considerable ability by a German, resident in France. This work contains many proofs of the despicable despotism to which the French nation is now reduced under the domineration of the Corsican usurper. Splendor without magnificence, luxury without taste, caprice, suspicion and cruelty beyond example, characterize the court of the mimic emperor. A contemporary writer, says the author has well observed: “Thus every thing has returned, after an unfortunate round-about way, to the very point from which it set out; yet with this difference, that in former times an opposition of the independent states and bodies, might be shewn to the royal pleasure.”

Mr. Pitt in early life was somewhat led astray, as young men most frequently are, by the illusory phantoms of democratic liberty and equality. Time and experience, however, corrected his error, and perhaps it was owing chiefly to his exertions, that the revolutionary phrenzy did not take effect in England, and lead to enormities, similar to those, which in France, surpassed every thing heretofore recorded in history.

Such is the slang of the faction from felon Burroughs to philosopher ------ The former of these democrats, who appears as highly to appreciate, and as fully to understand the true principles of freedom as the latter, speaking of the cruelty of establishing jails in a free country, says: “How is this, says I to myself, that a country, which has stood foremost in asserting the cause of liberty, that those who have tasted in some measure, the bitter cup of slavery, should, so soon after obtaining that blessing themselves, deprive others of it? p. 126. Again, speaking of another democratic gentleman, imprisoned for theft, he informs us that, “This man, by mistake having taken some cattle not his own, and appropriated them to his own use, some people were so impolite as to charge him with theft.” p. 130. Assisting another to break jail, he observes, “Truly, said I, this conduct has been guided by the principles of philosophy,” p. 131. When confined at the castle in Boston harbour, he resolved to rise on the garrison, and blow up the magazine, he remarks, “Such were the outlines of my plan; I determined to make one powerful effort to carry it into execution; either to lose my life in the cause of liberty, or else gain a glorious freedom.”

Here is genuine republicanism of the true Aurora stamp. Duane himself could go but little farther in the theory and practice of his wild-Irish sort of liberty.

The “lamentable comedy,” acting on the political theatre of Pennsylvania, although at present it seems replete with “marvellous pleasant mirth,” will, it is to be feared, terminate with a most tragical catastrophe. Were it otherwise, it would be not a little amusing to be a looker on the struggle between the Duanites and the Dallasites, alias the “genuine republicans,” and the tertium quids. These things would be comical enough, were it not that the foundations of society are thereby shaken to their centre, and were it not probable that this earthquake of faction will ingulph our blood-bought liberties, and inhume every thing which can render society of any value.

We do not wish to be satirical in our remarks on the once famous Salem witchcrafts. Hutchinson says that “The great noise, which the New-England witchcraft made throughout the English dominions proceeded more from the general panick, with which all sorts of persons were seized, and an expectation that the contagion would spread to all parts of the country, than from the number of persons who were executed; more having been put to death in a single county in England, in a short space of time, than have suffered in all New-England.”

But the allusion is opposite to our subject in a philosophical as well as poetical point of view. It shews how liable mankind are to be seized with mental epidemicks and to run mad in concert. The crusade mania, the witchcraft mania, but worst of all the Gallic-democratic-Tom-Pain mania have been terrible diseases, and the last mentioned in particular much more destructive in its consequences than the yellow fever or even the plague itself.

The conduct of the female Bacchantes, who demolished the Thracian band (see Ovid's Metamorphoses, Lib. xi. Fab. i.) has been far exceeded by the French Revolutionary female fiends at Paris. Mad with jacobinic fury, the beautiful, the tender sex with the most savage fury actually gnawed the amputated limbs of their wretched countrymen, whom the mob had butchered in the cause of liberty and equality. Such is the spirit of democracy. Even the fair sex without the restraints of religion and government, become more ferocious than tigers, and man the most savage animal in existence.

The reception which the arch democrat met with on his return from that expedition which brought “death into the world,” and his Metempsychosis on that occasion are thus described by the first of poets.

That these serpents were democrats is plain, first from the testimony of Butler, who says,

Secondly, we have the declaration of democrats vs. democrats, to be found in a semi-weekly electioneering handbill printed in New-York, entitled “The Corrector,” in which the Burrites, good democrats, have drawn the Clintonians, likewise good democrats, as large as life and hung them up in what they very properly called “The Pandemonian Gallery.” Some however, have very plausibly maintained that, although these paintings may be correct copies of the originals who appear to have sat for their pictures, yet in comparing them to the devils of Milton, they have caricatured the latter beyond all comparison.

The 4th of July 1805, was celebrated in a “genuine republican” stile by a number of the jolly sons of St. Patrick, collected for that purpose on the Battery in New-York. These brawny democrats undertook, by pugilistical demonstration to make it evident that fresh imported Irishmen were the only real American soldiers, and “genuine” patriots of seventy-six. Those who had the hardihood to dissent from this doctrine were sure to be knocked down in a very convincing manner. These Hibernian logicians, finding however that there were two sides to the question even as they argued it, were at length obliged to yield to the more impressive reasons of their opponents assisted by the ultima ratio of the city police. On this great occasion the Declaration of Independence was with singular propriety read by an Irishman who had been lately imported.

The following account of a feté of the Boston democratic party, we extract from “Remarks on the Jacobiniad,” an extremely well written publication, which appeared in Boston at the time that Americans were running into some of the French revolutionary excesses.

“Though the adventures of the ox's head are well known in this metropolis, a short account of them may not prove unacceptable to such as have not the happiness of being our fellow citizens. We beg leave then to inform them, that on the retreat of the Duke of Brunswick, and the successes of our Gallic friends under Dumourier, a Civic Feast was given in honor of these illustrious events. The subscription was liberal; a handsome entertainment was provided for the lovers of equality, in Faneuil Hall, whilst their “Majesties the Mob,” were regaled with an ox roasted whole in the street. The supposition that more than 6000 persons of all ages, sexes and descriptions, would quietly set down and wait till they were helped, was benevolent in the extreme; but their majesties very uncivilly disappointed the expectations of their patrons; for, unrestrained by the ties of gratitude, for the money expended for their amusement, they destroyed the benches provided for their accomodation, tore the poor ox piece-meal, broke the plates, and scattered the mingled fragments of beef and earthern ware in every direction, to the destruction of the neighbouring windows, and to the great annoyance of dogs, women, children, selectmen, &c. who were inactive spectators of this very interesting scene. The head of the animal was then fixed, in grinning majesty, on the pole of Liberty, and consecrated to that goddess, amidst the thunder of a tremendous swivel. In this state it remained until the fate of the unfortunate Louis was announced, when it was seen in mourning for that melancholy event. This was conceived very dangerous to the French cause by some political fanatics, and the head was in consequence, ignominiously stripped of its “suit of solemn black.” In revenge for this insult, those who had furnished the mourning, levelled the sacred tree of Liberty to the ground, and with it fell the innocent cause of the contest. The pole was put up and down .... and up again .... to the no small amusement of all unconcerned; whilst the head, if we are rightly informed, being found, on examination of jacobinical strength and capaciousness, was converted into a punch-bowl, (the two horns serving admirably for handles) and is now used as the receptacle of grog and flip, by the Democratic Society, in this our enlightened metropolis.”

“Religion is well supported,” (to wit, in Pennsylvania and New-York) “of various kinds indeed, but all good enough.”

One among the many wonders which democracy has achieved in favour of the liberties of the people has been, to elevate to high and responsible situations, certain convicts, most generally foreigners. The part which Mr. Gallatin took in the Pittsburgh insurrection, which cost the United States a million of dollars, is well known, and it is probable that his present elevation, is a reward for his patriotic services on that occasion. But more of this gentleman hereafter.

It is impossible to imagine a greater burlesque on the idea of a representative republic than the farcical conduct of our democratic societies, who by virtue of no authority whatever, except that of their own good will and pleasure, seated themselves in the magisterial chair, assumed the appellation of “We the people,” and had the impudence to dictate and control the affairs of our national government.

And Eusden eke out Blackmoore's endless line.

We allude here to the practice of our good democratic managers of newspapers, who by virtue of what Cheetham calls, “the arts of able editors,” publish matter as original which they have stolen from some other paper. This trick has been exposed by the editor of the New-York Evening Post, whose exertions in bringing to light the scoundrelism of the faction, entitle him to the gratitude of every friend to the prosperity of his country.

The nature and operation of the causes, which led to the rebellion in Massachusetts, are explained in a lucid and masterly manner, in the history of George Richards Minot; the style of which might rank its author as the Sallust of America. According to that writer, the commonwealth of Massachusetts was in debt, upwards of 1,350,000l. private state debt, exclusive of the federal debt, which amounted to above one million and an half of the same money. And in addition to that, every town was embarrassed by advances they had made to comply with repeated requisitions for men and supplies to support the army, and which had been done upon their own particular credit. The people, he informs us, “had been laudably employed, during the nine years in which this debt had been accumulating, in the defence of their liberties; but though their contest had instructed them in the nobler science of the rights of mankind, yet it gave them no proportionable insight into the mazes of finance. Their honest prejudices were averse to duties of impost and excise, which were at that time supposed to be anti-republican, by many judicious and influential characters.

“The consequences of the public debt did not at first appear among the citizens at large. The bulk of mankind are too much engaged in private concerns, to anticipate the operation of national causes. The men of landed interest, soon began to speak plainly against trade, as the source of luxury, and the cause of losing the circulating medium,” &c.

“Commercial men, on the other hand, defended themselves by insisting that the fault was only in the regulations which the trade happened to be under,” &c.

The writer then proceeds to point out other causes which contributed to lead the people astray; and his history exhibits abundant proof, that the people at large are not always correct judges of what political measures may best subserve their own prosperity.

The jealousy of republicans against delegating power, has most generally been the cause of their destruction. No community can long subsist without authority to coerce and punish; but such authority ought to be marked by legal and well defined boundaries, and entrusted to such men only as have their characters established for integrity as well as abilities. The only method which can be devised to prevent the assumption, by unprincipled men, of that power, which is tyranny in effect, whatever may be its name or disguise, is to delegate legal power without too much jealousy or reserve, o men, who will be a “terror to evil doers.”

There is nothing in which our democratic politicians are more profoundly absurd, than in their estimates of national economy. The penny-saving maxims of Dr. Franklin, injudiciously applied to affairs of national magnitude, are of very mischievous tendency. Money paid for public purposes, which is expended among the inhabitants of a country, does not impoverish such inhabitants. It is paid by the people to the government, and by the government distributed among the people. If it be so distributed as to be a reward to merit, and give a proper tone to industry, there is little danger of being too lavish. The whole body politic becomes invigorated by its circulation; the farmer and the mechanic finding a ready sale for their commodities are stimulated to that industry which constitutes the real wealth of a nation.

We have it from good authority that Mr. Jefferson actually became initiated, while in Paris, into the mysteries of Illuminism, and his writings and conduct, since his embassy to France, display “internal evidence” of his being infected with the poison of illuminated principles. “Condorcet, likewise (a well known Illuminatus) was a particular friend of our American philosopher.” His advocates, who would maintain that he imbibed no new principles in France, which smack of Illuminism, must be under the necessity of affirming, that honesty never was the policy of a certain great man .... that he never did scruple about the means, provided the end could be obtained. His advice to Congress, respecting the transfer of the debt due to France, to a company of Hollanders, is a proof in point. In stating this, I shall have recourse to the pamphlet of Mr. Smith, referred to above.

Mr. Jefferson, says that writer, after mentioning an offer which had been made by a company of Hollanders, for the purchase of the debt, concludes with these extraordinary expressions:

“If there is a danger of the public payments not being punctual, I submit, whether it may not be better, that the discontents which would then arise, should be transferred from a court, of whose good will we have so much need, to the breasts of a private company.”

“This letter was the subject of a report from the Board of Treasury, in February, 1787. The board treated the idea of transfer, proposed, as both UNJUST and IMPOLITIC; unjust, because the nation would contract an engagement, which there was no well grounded prospect of fulfilling; impolitic, because a failure in the payment of interest on this debt transferred (which was inevitable) would justly blast all hopes of credit with the citizens of the United Netherlands, in future pressing exigencies of the union; and the Board gave it as their opinion, that it would be advisable for Congress, without delay, to instruct their minister at the court of France, to forbear giving his sanction to any such transfer.

“Congress, agreeing in the ideas of the Board caused an instruction to that effect to be sent to Mr. Jefferson. Here there was a solemn act of government, condemning the principle as unjust and impolitic.

“If the sentiment contained in the extract which has been recited, can be vindicated from political profligacy, then is it necessary to unlearn all the ancient notions of justice, and to substitute some new fashioned scheme of morality in their stead.

“Here is no complicated problem, which sophistry may entangle or obscure; here is a plain question of moral feeling. A government is encouraged on the express condition of not having a prospect of making a due provision for a debt which it owes; to concur in a transfer of that debt from a nation, well able to bear the inconveniences of a failure or delay, to the individuals, whose total ruin might have been the consequence of it; and that, upon the interested consideration of having need of the good will of the creditor nation, and with the dishonorable motive, as is cleary implied, of having more to apprehend from the discontents of that nation, than from those of disappointed and betrayed individuals? Let every honest and impartial mind, consulting its own spontaneous emotions, pronounce for itself upon the rectitude of such a suggestion.

“An effort, scarcely plausible, has been heretofore made by the partizans of Mr. Jefferson, to explain away the turpitude of this advice. It was represented, that “A company of adventuring speculators, had offered to purchase the debt at a discount, foreseeing the delay of payment, calculating the probable loss, and willing to encounter the hazard.” But the terms employed by Mr. Jefferson, refute this species of apology. His words are, “If there is a danger of the public payments not being punctual, I submit, whether it may not be better, that the discontents which would then arise, should be transferred from a court, of whose good will we have so much need, to the breasts of a private company.”

He plainly takes it for granted, the discontents would arise, from the want of an adequate provision, and proposes that they should be transferred to the breasts of individuals. This he could not have taken for granted, if, in his conception, the purchasers had calculated on delay and loss.

Here we have the full effulgence of Godwinism bursting upon us! It was an attempt to implicate the government of America, in a sale of bad securities, the venders knowing them to be such. The “transfer,” of “discontents,” which Mr, Jefferson foresaw would arise from the French court, to the poor Hollanders, to the probable ruin of the latter, is somewhat similar in kind, to the justice which the author of Hudibras attributes to the first settlers of New-England.

See a pamphlet, written by William Smith, Esq. of South Carolina, with the signature of Phocion.

See Jefferson's attempted vindication, in Dunlap's Daily Advertiser, of October, 1792.

Mr. Jefferson's pretensions to the station he holds, have been frequently scanned by men, whose talents and opportunities have given them peculiar advantages for the investigation. The result has appeared to be somewhat unfavourable, unless for the purposes of the party now predominant, he should be thought better than a better man. But the principal traits in his character, are so well exhibited in the pamphlet of Mr. Smith, that we are tempted again to quote, from his production, the following summary of the wonderful qualifications of our chief magistrate.

“We shall now take leave of Mr. Jefferson and his pretensions, as a philosopher and politician. The candid and uprejudiced, who have read with attention the foregoing comments on his philosophical and political works, and on his public conduct, must now be convinced, however they may hitherto have been deceived by a plausible appearance and specious talents, or misled by artful partizans, that the reputation he has acquired is not bottomed on solid merit .... that his abilities have been more directed to the acquirement of literary fame, than to the substantial good of his country .... that his philosophical opinions have been capricious and wavering, often warped by the most frivolous circumstances .... that in his political conduct he has been timid inconsistent, and unsteady, generally favouring measures of a factious and disorganizing tendency, always leaning to those which would establish his popularity, however destructive of our peace and tranquility .... that his political principles are sometimes whimsical and visionary, at others, subversive of all regular and stable government .... that his writings have betrayed a disrespect for religion, and his partiality for the impious Paine, an enmity to christianity .... that his advice respecting the Dutch company, and his open countenance of an incendiary printer, and of the views of a faction, manifest a want of due regard for national faith and public credit .... that his abhorrence of one foreign nation, and enthusiastic devotion to another, have extinguished in him every germ of real national character; and, in short, that his elevation to the presidency, must eventuate either in the debasement of the American name, by a whimsical, inconsistent and feeble administration, or in the prostration of the United States at the feet of France, the subversion of our excellent constitution, and the consequent destruction of our present prosperity.”

Such is the character, who now presides in America, as drawn by a gentleman, who has held some of the most important offices in our government, and such the predictions, which we fear are beginning to be fulfilled in this country. The prostration of the Judiciary, and the sacrifice of the greater part of our navy, are alarming forerunners of the fulfilment of the prophecy.

We commenced the manufacture of this our poetical production, with a determination, which we think all candid critics will pronounce not a little laudable, to deduce, so far as convenient, our poetical and rhetorical flourishes from Cis-Atlantic sources. And here we think that our reviewers will do us the justice to acknowledge, that no poet's “eye in a fine frenzy rolling” ever glanced at a prettier comparison than this of a nest of those irascible insects with a commonwealth infested by turbulent demagogues.

It is a truth, which we think even democrats themselves will not have the effrontery to deny, that the leaders of their party are men whose moral characters will not bear examination. Is it not then astonishing, that Americans should trust their all important political interests, upon which depends the enjoyment of their lives, liberty, and property, to men with whom they would have no dealings in their private capacity? It is not too much to say, that many men who have the management of our public concerns, or are patronized and pensioned editors of newspapers, are known to be alike destitute of honour and honesty. The infamous character of Pasquin the right hand Chronicle man, is almost proverbial in England. The political career of a certain honorable duellist, has been remarkable for ****, but as this gentleman is an excellent shot, and in constant practice it may not be prudent to offend him. We wish, however, that our readers would candidly and coolly compare the qualifications of the federalists, with those of the democrats, and not give the preference to the latter, merely because they style themselves republicans.

It is notorious that the family of wit have ever been federalists. Most of the “half formed witlings,” who have occasionally dashed in democratic newspapers, like your Cheethams and your Pasquins, are beings beneath notice in a literary point of view.

Hence these poor creatures have generally passively submitted to the Federal lash, and pretended to despise their opponants like a blustering bully, who brags though he is beaten.

You will find, gentle reader, by turning to “Terrible Tractoration,” p. 64, New-York edition, a notable instance of sensibility, expressed by a felon who had been executed for murder, who being somewhat “oppugnated” by a meddling philosopher, with his Galvanic stimulants, clenched his right hand, and exhibited other menacing symptoms of his being alive to the affront. But our democrats, though spitted with the arrows of satire, by the merciless wits of the age, and roasted before the slow fire of public indignation, appear to possess as little feeling as the “passive ox,” that graced the democratic fete in Boston, held in honor of the French revolution.

This petty piece of an apostrophe we hereby acknowledge to have taken verbatim et literatim from one of Moore's songs. We consider this Confession as a very proper proceeding on our part; for having in our last edition inadvertently hit on one of Butler's rhymes, a democratic scribbler in the Baltimore Evening Post the tertium quid paper of that place has raised a hue and cry against us, forsooth for plagiarism. As well might the booby affirm that we had stolen our poetry from Cicero's Orations, because we make use of the Roman alphabet. This would-be critic has an undoubted right in a free government, to be a fool, but if he has set up for a wit, his best way, as Swift has it, is to set down again.

The famous spitting affray, and the consequent cudgelling in Congress hall, where

are well known to every body. An appeal to the right of the strongest, became in that instance justifiable, if not unavoidable, in consequence of the obstinacy of the party whose political sentiments agreed with the gentleman, who in that rencounter had the honor to be the cudgellee. It is to be feared, however, that the most forcible arguments of this kind, will not always be sufficiently powerful to make a lasting impression on the headstrong demagogues of this faction. Some political partizans, have shown themselves to be so wilfully blind, obstinate, and ignorant, that the means which we have mentioned in “Terrible Tractoration.”

seem to be the only practicable mode by which they can be enlightened. But this method will not be adopted by the federalists. The more violent demagogues of the now ruling party, it is to be feared, will be the first to sacrifice their leaders, while the latter, like Fayette in France, and like M'Kean in America, strive in vain to hush the hurricane of their own exciting.

The falsehoods, which Callender and others have been paid for propagating, the torrents of abuse which have been poured upon Washington and other patriots, are now, happily for the public, pretty generally traced to their filthy sources. The characters of the men who have been vilified by the scoundrel-gang of Mr. J---n's hirelings, are found to be such as do honor to our country. But their calumniators .... who are they? Cheethams, Pasquins, Duanes .... men who (to talk like an Irishman) had they lived in their native country till this time would have been hung, years ago.

It is a truth which the political history of America makes abundantly manifest, that the principal disturbances which have convulsed the United States, have originated in the intrigues of “imported patriots.” This is a circumstance, which is by no means remarkable, when we consider the habits, attachments, and situations of such foreigners in their native country. Few men are disposed to migrate from the land of their nativity, who are not thereto induced by misconduct, or a turbulent and aspiring disposition. The principle which is denominated patriotism, modern philosophers notwithstanding, is implanted in man by the hand of nature, and he who has divested himself of that principle, either by philosophizing, or by any other still less justifiable means, must have rooted out those moral feelings which are the best security of society. Besides, foreigners who leave their native countries, with a determination to settle in America, are, generally, men who have been accustomed to be governed themselves, and to the amount of their powers, to govern others with a strong arm .... have either themselves been hard pressed by the heavy hand of government, or have been, as members of such government, active in imposing a heavy hand on others. They have, generally, no definite ideas of that temperate liberty, which is as remote from licentiousness as it is from despotism.

All nations, except the American, have found it necessary to lay aliens under certain restrictions, disadvantages and liabilities, which, though they may appear to operate as an hardship on the individuals subjected thereto, are imperiously demanded for the purpose of securing the best interests of the communities in which such aliens reside. If such regulations are necessary in other nations, they will be found pre-eminently requisite in that of America, where, such is the want of power in our rulers, and so delicate is the mechanism of the government, that a single Gallatin may impede, if not stop its wheels. But this subject has been ably discussed in Congress, in the debates respecting the repeal of the Alien Law.

Freedonia is a cant phrase, which certain small poets or prosaic scribblers, we forget which, would have us adopt as an appellative to designate the United States of America. At a time like this, when misrule and licentiousness are the order of the day, there can be but little propriety in coining new phrases to enrich the vocabulary of sedition.

There always is something “rotten in the state of Denmark,” if men of the first abilities are decried by demagogues, and pointed out as proper objects for the jealousy of the people. That the principal talents in America are now in disgrace because they are federalists, none but the most brazen faced partizans will deny. If by talents, however, we are to understand

we must allow the dominant party are far from being deficient. But wisdom and cunning are very distinct attributes, although by many absurdly blended. The former qualifies its possessors to aggrandize society, at the same time that it promotes the interests of all its individuals. The latter is of no consequence to any person but its possessor, and is by him usually employed to exalt himself at the expense of society, or of individuals. Wisdom was well exemplified in Washington, cunning in Jefferson.

Your half wits are, by nature, formed for Democracy. Leaden pated gentlemen, who vainly aspire to eminence in the learned professions, quack-doctors, illiterate clergymen, and blundering lawyers, are the Democracy of nature, and their opposites are, sometimes, styled the Aristrocracy of nature. Between these two sorts of candidates for eminence, there will always exist a covert or an open war. Those who belong to that class in society, which nature intended should move in a subordinate and limited sphere, are rarely contented with their condition, but by means of the little arts of little minds, elevate themselves to an artificial consequence, which terminates in their disgrace and the public detriment.

The impossibility of realizing all these anticipations, must create divisions and subdivisions among the now triumphant demagogues. Those who have been honestly led astray, it is to be hoped, will unite heart and hand with those who have constantly trod the path of Federal rectitude, and form a union of upright and intelligent men, who may yet preserve the nation from the “abhorred gulf” of Democratic tyranny.

Dean Swift, in some of his writings, informs us, that the word Patriot, originated from one Pat-Ryot, a turbulent Irishman who was hung for rebellion, and as we are particularly fond of etymological deduction we have here restored the word to its original orthography.

It is fresh in the recollection of every person, who is in the smallest degree acquainted with the political history of the United States, that Washington did not escape the abuse of the faction now in power. He was said to have been partial to British interests, and reviled in the most unqualified terms, by the Aurora patriots.

No measure of the federal administration, has called forth more abuse from their political opponents, than the raising of a standing army. But many who reprobate that step, and suppose that it led to that step in deep designs of domination, may, perhaps, be convinced that the motives from which it originated were pure, when they peruse the following letter from our beloved and immortal chief, by which he signified his acceptance of the command of this army, which, say the Democrats, was destined to destroy our liberties.

“DEAR SIR,

“I had the honor, on the evening of the 11th instant, to receive from the hand of the secretary of war, your favour of the 7th, announcing that you had, with the advice and consent of the Senate, appointed me “Lieutenant-General, and Commander in Chief of all the armies raised, or to be raised, for the service of the United States.”

“I cannot express how greatly affected I am at this new proof of public confidence, and the highly flattering manner in which you have been pleased to make the communication. At the same time, I must not conceal from you my earnest wish that the choice had fallen on a man, less declined in years, and better qualified to encounter the usual vicissitudes of war.

“You know, sir, what calculation I had made, relative to the probable course of events, on my retiring from office, and the determination I had consoled myself with, of closing the remnant of my days in my present peaceful abode; you will therefore be at no loss to conceive and appreciate the sensation I must have experienced, to bring myself to any conclusion that would pledge me, at so late a period of my life, to leave scenes I sincerely love, to enter upon the boundless field of action, incessant trouble, and high responsibility.

“It is not possible for me to remain ignorant of, or indifferent to recent transactions.

“The conduct of the directory of France towards our country; their insidious hostility to its government; their various practices to withdraw the affections of the people from it; the evident tendency of their acts, and those of their agents, to countenance and invigorate opposition; their disregard of solemn treaties and laws of nations; their war upon our defenceless commerce; their treatment of our ministers of peace; and their demands, amounting to tribute, could not fail to excite in me corresponding sentiments with those my countrymen have so generally expressed in their affectionate addresses to you. Believe me sir, no one can more cordially approve of the wise and prudent measures of your administration. They ought to inspire universal confidence; and will no doubt, combined with the state of things, call from Congress such laws, and means, as will enable you to meet the full extent of the crisis.

“Satisfied therefore that you have sincerely wished and endeavoured to avert war, and exhausted to the last drop, the cup of reconciliation, we can with pure hearts appeal to Heaven for the justice of our cause, and may confidently trust the final result to that kind Providence, who has heretofore, and so often, signally favoured the people of the United States.

“Thinking in this manner, and feeling how incumbent it is upon every person, of every description, to contribute at all times to his country's welfare, especially in a moment like the present, when every thing we hold dear and sacred, is so seriously threatened; I have finally determined to accept the commission of Commander in Chief of the armies of the United States, with this reserve only, that I shall not be called into the field until the army is in a situation to require my presence, or it becomes indispensible by the urgency of circumstances.

“In making this reservation, I beg it may be understood, that I do not mean to withhold any assistance to arrange and organize the army, which you think I can afford. I take the liberty also to mention, that I must decline having my acceptance considered as drawing after it any immediate charge upon the public, or that I can receive any emoluments annexed to the appointment, before entering into a situation to incur expense.

“The Secretary of War being anxious to return to the seat of government, I have detained him no longer than was necessary to a full communication upon the several points he had in charge.

The infamous Callender, a tool and hireling of Mr. Jefferson, thus expresses himself in “The Prospect Before Us:”

“This hoary-headed incendiary (Adams) bawls out, to arms!” “Alas, he is not an object of envy, but of compassion and .... of horror!” Again, “John Adams ... that scourge, that scorn, that outcast of America.”

“We have been governed by one of the most execrable of all SCOUNDRELS. He is, in private life, one of the most egregious fools on the continent.”

“He (the future historian) will inquire by what species of madness, America submitted to accept as her President, a person without abilities, and without virtue; being alike incapable of attaching either tenderness or esteem.” &c.

Democrats have so declared, but as the author of the Pursuits of Literature and some other writers of eminence are involved in a similar charge, we shall not attempt to refute the accusation, but plead the custom of authors in the Court of Criticism in our own justification.

Among other malicious manœuvres of the faction, who have supplanted the friends and followers of Washington, may be numbered the mean attempt to stigmatize Col. Pickering, by corrupting a clerk in one of the public offices. Anthony Campbell, the tool of the party on this occasion, was in 1800 a recording clerk in the office of the Auditor of the Treasury, all accounts having been previously audited and examined by the principal clerk, were registered in the books then entrusted to Campbell. The monies drawn by the Secretary of State were charged to him in those books, but the credits for the application not entered till vouchers were produced of the manner in which the sums were disbursed. Months and sometimes years necessarily expired before vouchers and receipts relative to the expenditures of money destined to the payment of our Ambassadors, and other public purposes in Europe, could be procured from the persons to whom they were transmitted.

Campbell informed some of the deep ones among the democrats, that the books of his department exhibited a large unexpended balance in the hands of Mr. Pickering. Campbell, together with one Gardner, was prevailed upon to become an instrument in the hands of the faction, and give Colonel Pickering's political opponents a view of the books. For this purpose under the pretext of personal accommodation he obtained leave to sleep in the office. A meeting of pure patriots was held at Israel Israel's, corner of Third and Chesnut streets, Philadelphia, among whom were Gallatin, Smilie, Duane, and some others amounting to eight or ten. The books of the Treasury were taken by night to Israel's, the accounts afterwards published in the Aurora transcribed by these scriveners, and the books returned before day light.

The remarks which appeared in the Washington Federalist of April 21, 1802, accompanying a developement of this dark transaction, are so pertinent to the subject that we cannot resist the temptation of transcribing them.

“Can it be supposed that Gallatin, and many others, when they examined these accounts did not know their unsettled state, and the imperfect view which they gave of the disbursement of the public money? And when Mr. Wolcott in his letter dated 23d day of June 1800, in answer to the charge in the Aurora, explained the nature of these accounts, could any one have doubted a moment that the statements so published were imperfect? And yet we find the Aurora with matchless impudence repeating, those charges. Towards Campbell we feel pity and contempt, that he should so far forget his duty as to violate the most sacred obligations of honor and perjure himself to become the tool of a party. But what emotions does the conduct of those excite who instigated him to such infamous practices, who could not only resort to means so base to obtain those documents, but likewise employ them in the manner they did, knowing them to be imperfect. If they were convinced that the charges were just, why did they not at once bring forward an impeachment against Mr. Pickering, or appoint a committee to examine into his accounts? Because they knew the result would be what every subsequent investigation has been, a fair and honorable acquittal. .... They knew what an effect a bold publication of it would have on the honest and unsuspecting yeomanry; men brought up in the simple manners of the country, unpractised in intrigue and unacquainted with the depravity of human nature.”

Gardner the accomplice of Campbell in this underhanded transaction, was rewarded by being appointed consul to Demarara. Campbell attempted to take advantage of his treachery, but Gallatin was too cunning for him, and he received nothing, till threatening a disclosure of the whole affair, an ensigncy at length stopped his mouth.

A committee of the House of Representatives was afterwards appointed for the purpose of examing the account of the late secretaries; consisting of Messrs. Nicholas, Nicholson, Stone, Otis, Griswold, Waln, and Craik, the three first of whom were democrats.

This committee, after a laborious scrutiny, by their report entirely exculpated Mr. Pickering; and Gallatin himself acknowledged that “the whole of the money received by Mr. Pickering, had been applied to public purposes. It likewise appeared that Mr. Pickering not only had not embezzled one single dollar of the public money, but that he had saved to the United States 14,588 dollars, by a purchase of bills of exchange on London, which, with the new school-conscience, he might very conveniently have appropriated to his own use.

Notwithstanding such was the purity of Pickering, the venal Aurora, whose unprincipled editor has done much, very much towards clamouring down every man of merit in the community, published a number or articles, with the title of “Public Plunder,” which contributed not a little to the election of Mr. Jefferson and the establishment of Duane's importance as an editor. In one of these, Duane asserted, that on The 18th of April 1800, Mr. Pickering had drawn upon the treasury for fifty thousand dollars; and that at the time when he drew for this sum he had in his hands three hundred thousand dollars unaccounted for. Duane, likewise declared that Mr. Pickering held in his hands nearly double the amount of both these sums, intimating that he then was delinquent in the enormous sum of seven hundred thousand dollars.

This is one instance, among the many which might be adduced, proving the base means to which certain men have resorted, for the purpose of tarnishing the reputation of those heroes and statesmen to whose exertions we are chiefly indebted for our national prosperity. The falsehoods by which democrats have achieved the purpose of elevating themselves, and disgracing the nation, are thrown aside as soon as by their instrumentality these precious objects are attained. Thus it was said that the war office buildings were purposely set on fire by Mr. Wolcott. Thus Hamilton and M'Henry, with a number of other federal patriots, have been accused of peculation and other crimes, by their political adversaries, but not a single proof of improper conduct in office, has ever been adduced. The effect of these falsehoods, however, has been to stigmatize their characters in the opinion of many of their fellow-citizens, and to put a period to their political existence. If such are to be the rewards of patriotism in America, it is to be feared, it will soon be a plant of rare growth.

The untimely fall of Gen. Hamilton excites emotions, which we shall not attempt in this place to express. Few writers are equal to the task of pourtraying in just colours, the character of that great man, and we cannot forbear entering our critical caveat against the style and manner of some of the eulogies which we have seen in commemoration of his untimely decease. In many of these productions we have observed a strained elevation, a redundancy of rhetorical flourishes, which appear rather to emanate from an ambition to display the talents of the orator, than from feelings of affection for the deceased, or a wish to commemorate his virtues. The expressions of grief are simply pathetic. The fancy never makes wild excursions, when the heart is wrung with anguish. The eulogies, however, of Messrs. Morris, Otis, and some few others, are pure and correct; the effusions of genius, chastened by judgment and taste. From the latter of these performances. I am happy to present the following extract, as it is happily illustrative of that magnanimity and greatness of soul, which distinguishes the real hero, from the bold and aspiring demagogue.

“The principles professed by the first leaders of that (the French) revolution, were so congenial to those of the American people; their pretences of aiming merely at the reformation of abuses were so plausible; the spectacle of a great people struggling to recover their “long-lost liberties” was so imposing and august; while that of a combination of tyrants to conquer and subjugate, was so revolting; the services received from one of the belligerent powers, and the injuries inflicted by the other, were so recent in our minds, that the sensibility of the nation was excited to the most exquisite pitch. To this disposition, so favourable to the wishes of France, every appeal was made, which intrigue, corruption, flattery, and threats could dictate. At this dangerous and dazzling crisis, there were but few men entirely exempt from the general delirium. Among the few was Hamilton. His penetrating eye discerned, and his prophetic voice foretold, the tendency and consequence of the first revolutionary movements. He was assured that every people which should espouse the cause of France would pass under her yoke, and that the people of France, like every nation which surrenders its reason to the mercy of demagogues, would be driven by the storms of anarchy upon the shores of despotism. All this he knew was conformable to the invariable law of nature and experience of mankind. From the reach of this desolation he was anxious to save his country, and in the pursuit of his purpose, he breasted the assaults of calumny and prejudice. “The torrent roared, and he did buffet it.” Appreciating the advantages of a neutral position, he co-operated with Washington, Adams, and the other patriots of that day, in the means best adapted to maintain it. The rights and duties of neutrality proclaimed by the president, were explained and enforced by Hamilton in the character of Pacificus. The attempts to corrupt and intimidate were resisted. The British treaty was justified and defended as an honorable compact with our natural friends, and pregnant with advantages, which have since been realized and acknowledged by its opponents.

“By this pacific and vigorous policy, in the whole course of which the genius and activity of Hamilton were conspicuous, time and information were afforded to the American nation, and correct views were acquired of our situation and interests. We beheld the republics of Europe, march in procession to the funeral of their own liberties by the lurid light of the revolutionary torch. The tumult of the passions subsided, the wisdom of the administration was perceived, and America now remains a solitary monument in the desolated plains of liberty.

“Having remained at the head of the treasury several years, and filled its coffers; having developed the sources of ample revenue, and tested the advantages of his own system by his own experience; and having expended his private fortune; he found it necessary to retire from public employment and to devote his attention to the claims of a large and dear family. What brighter instance of disinterested honor has ever been exhibited to an admiring world! That a man, upon whom devolved the task of originating a system of revenue for a nation; of devising the checks in his own department; to provide for the collections of sums, the amount of which was conjectural; that a man, who anticipated the effects of a funding system, yet a secret in his own bosom, and who was thus enabled to have secured a princely fortune, consistently with principles esteemed fair by the world; that such a man by no means addicted to an expensive or extravagant style of living, should have retired from an office destitute of means adequate to the wants of mediocrity, and have resorted to professional labour for the means of decent support, are facts which must instruct and astonish those, who, in countries habituated to corruption and venality are more attentive to the gains than to the duties of an official station. .... Yet Hamilton was that man. It was a fact always known to his friends, and it is now evident from his testament, made under a deep presentiment of his approaching fate. Blush then, ministers and warriors of imperial France, who have deluded your nation by pretensions to a disinterested regard for its liberties and rights! Disgorge the riches extorted from your fellow-citizens, and the spoils amassed from confiscation and blood! Restore to the impoverished nation the price paid by them for the privilege of slavery, and now appropriated to the refinement of luxury! Approach the tomb of Hamilton, and compare the insignificance of your gorgeous palaces with the awful majesty of this tenement of clay!

“We again accompany our friend in the walks of private life, and in the assiduous pursuit of his profession, until the aggressions of France compelled the nation to assume the attitude of defence. He was now invited by the great and enlightened statesman who had succeeded to the presidency, and at the express request of the Commander in Chief, to accept of the second rank in the army. Though no man had manifested a greater desire to avoid war, yet it is freely confessed that when war appeared to be inevitable, his heart exulted in “the tented field,” and he loved the life and occupation of a soldier. His early habits were formed amid the fascinations of the camp. And though the pacific policy of Adams once more rescued us from war, and shortened the existence of the army establishment, yet its duration was sufficient to ensure to him the love and confidence of officers and men, to enable him to display the talents and qualities of a great general, and to justify the most favourable prognostics of his prowess in the field.

“Once more this excellent man unloosed the helmet from his brow, and returned to the duties of the forum. From this time he persisted in a firm resolution to decline all civil honors and promotion, and to live a private citizen, unless again summoned to the defence of his country. He became more than ever assiduous in his practice at the bar, and intent upon his plans of domestic happiness, until a nice and mistaken estimate of the claims of honor, impelled him to the fatal act which terminated his life.”

Since quoting the above I have perused the oration of J. M. Mason, D. D. commemorative of the virtues and talents of this illustrious man. It is a splendid effort of genius which would have done credit to the pen of a Burke, and appears to have been inspired by a spirit akin to that of the hero it celebrates. We should think the style of the eulogy somewhat too highly encomiastic, were not the subject a Hamilton; but it is scarcely possible to employ too bold a pencil in giving characteristic scketches of such a man.

Some traits of General Hamilton, published in the Boston Repertory, and said to have been drawn up by the Hon. Fisher Ames, are eminently beautiful. The pencil of S. Cullen Carpenter, editor of the Charleston Courier, whose literary productions have acquired him a highly deserved celebrity, has pourtrayed, in letters of light, the principal features in this most distinguished character; indeed the portrait of Hamilton, as drawn by the hands of the writers we have mentioned, ought to be in the possession of every American of taste and sensibillty.

The incessant torrents of calumny, which have been poured on that truly great man, since the fatal rencontre which terminated his existence, exhibits a lamentable proof of democratic depravity. The conduct of a Chronicle scribbler in Boston in particular (said to be the late candidate for governor, Mr. Sullivan) has often called to our recollection the following lines from Churchill:

We would refer our readers to “A Collection of Facts and Documents relative to the death of Gen. Hamilton,” by the editor of the Evening Post.

We have here adorned our poetry with a very judicious rhetorical flourish, quoted from the declarations of the dashing nabobs of the south, who first signalized themselves by their opposition to that instrument. The virulent, and unqualified abuse, which has been heaped upon General Washington. Mr. Jay, and the whole federal party for having given origin to a treaty, which in all probability prevented our participating in the crimes and horrors of the French revolution is scarcely to be paralleled in the annals of political contests. Nothing short of the prudence of a Washington could have stemmed the tide of democratic depravity on this occasion. None, however, of the evils anticipated from this deprecated treaty have taken place, and it is abundantly manifest on investigating the causes of Virginian virulence that self interest was the real motive of the leaders in exciting this alarm.

It appears that the claims of British creditors against Virginia, only as exhibited by their commissioners, appointed under the 6th article of Mr. Jay's treaty, amounted to 8,500,000 dollars, but those against the whole of the New-England states were but a little rising of 100,000 dollars. These claims, although not positive evidences of debts due to their whole amount, yet furnish a clue for a proportional estimate of the debts due from Virginia, and from the New-England states.

No doubt the easiest way for Virginia to pay this debt was, to use the expressions of some of their leaders to “kick the treaty to h---ll.” This they might do, in the course of their proceedings without going out of their way.

It ought not, however, to be forgotten that this obnoxious treaty, and the hostilities committed by England on our commerce in the year 1793, were the consequence of Virginia delinquency and aggression. The legislature of Virginia, in October 1783, passed an act to absolve British debtors from the payment of money, even after their debts had been ascertained by judgments in courts of law. On the other hand the British refused to relinquish the possession of the northern posts. In December 1787, in consequence of an earnest requisition of congress the assembly of Virginia passed an act apparently to repeal all such acts of that state as had prevented, or might prevent the recovery of debts due to British subjects, according to the true intent of the treaty. But took care in a proviso to this act to suspend the repeal, and thereby render it entirely null, under the pretence of infractions on the part of the British, thus arrogating to themselves power, which of right belonged to the general government, and making a mere farce of their own proceedings.

The English, however, not being disposed to relish this kind of treatment, appealed to their ultiam ratio, commenced a war on our commerce, and thus collected their demands by virtue of the authority of their cannon. The immense losses which of consequence fell upon the merchants of the eastern and middle states in the year 1793, by British captures, will not soon be forgotten.

But this was not all. Mr. King in pursuance of instructions of the federal administration, negociated for the payment, at the treasury of the United States, of 600,000l. sterling, nearly three millions of dollars, for losses sustained by British subjects, by legal impediments to prevent the collection of their demands chiefly against these Virginia debtors.

Thus Virginian delinquency cost the United States nearly 3,000,000 dollars, subjected us to those depredations on our commerce in 1793, by which the country sustained immense losses, and laid the foundation for Mr. Jay's treaty, which has [illeg.] so much clamour among our precious patriots against the federal administration.

The standing army, the funding system, and the land tax have each furnished most fruitful topics of democratic declamation, and the party in power by artfully attaching to the federalists the odium, which the mere mention of these bug-bear measures, has never failed to excite, have succeeded in accomplishing their political destruction. We have already shown on what occasion the army was raised. The funding system, the theme of never ceasing clamour, from those who have uniformly opposed every public measure, which had a tendency to promote the honor and happiness of our country, met the unequivocal approbation of one of the greatest giants of the dominant faction. Gallatin in his treatise on the finances of the United States, after finding all the fault he decently could with the measures of the federal administration, has the following remarks.

“Let it not be supposed that any of those reflections are intended to convey any censure on that part of the funding system, which provided for the payment of the interest of the proper debt of the United States. They are designed merely to show that the propriety of that measure must depend solely on its justice. Whether the debt had been funded on the plan of discrimination in favour of the original holders, or those who had performed the services, or, as has been the case in favour of the purchasers of certificates, the general effects would have been nearly the same; and unless the American government had chosen to forfeit every claim to common honesty it must necessarily provide for discharging the principal, or paying the interest to one or the other of two descriptions of persons.”

It is likewise a fact that the land tax “was a measure to which the federalists had been urged for years by their political opponents because they foresaw in it the ruin of their power.” See Bayard's speech on the Judiciary Bill.

Here is displayed a little of this gentleman's sort of cunning. In the name of common sense how was it possible for the government to establish a fund in favour of some individuals, who might hold these securities to the prejudice of other individuals, who might hold the same sort of securities. Shall a promissory note payable to A. or bearer, and purchased by B. not be collected by the latter, because he paid less than its nominal value, and run the risk of the failure of the drawer?

It cannot be forgotten that such was the cry of the demagogue papers from one end of the United States to the other. A committee, however, being appointed to enquire into the causes of the fires, these gentlemen were honorably exculpated, and democrats were under the necessity of inventing new falsehoods to answer the purposes of the party. It happened very providentially, that all the papers which were necessary to show the perfect integrity, not only of Mr. Wolcott, but of the whole Federal administration in fiscal concerns, were saved.

The lie about Robbins the British pirate, so often affirmed by democrats to have been an American citizen, and born in Danbury in Connecticut, has been repeated times without number by the democratic newspapers.

This tale was propagated with an intention to throw odium on Mr. Adams for having directed the criminal to be surrendered to justice. It appears that his letter to Judge Bee, and which has been the ground of all the clamour of Robbins' sympathizing friends, merely directed him to be delivered up if proved to be a British subject and a pirate and a murderer. The man previous to his execution acknowledged himself to be a British subject, and owned that the sentence by which he suffered was just. But Mr. Carleton would not agree to this. This tender hearted gentleman, editor of the Salem Register, and his brethren in iniquity, declared that Robbins was a good man, and an American citizen, and Adams a tyrant, who had been instrumental in his destruction. Indeed it is not very marvellous that a good democrat should feel an interest in the sufferings of one whose life and conversation declared him to be a member of their fraternity.

Carleton has been indicted, found guilty, and punished with fine and imprisonment for publishing a false and malicious libel on Mr. Pickering.

I do not mean to assert that Mr. Jefferson hung, burnt, or guillotined his opponents. But perhaps the means by which the federalists have been “oppugnated,” have been but little less destructive to the sufferers, and but little more honorable on the part of those who have adopted such means. Starving a man and his family, is doubtless, an effectual method of dispatching him.

Most of the federalists, who held offices under the Washington and Adams administrations, had devoted much time and expense to qualify themselves for such offices, and in many instances had relinquished lucrative professions and branches of business, that they might the better perform the duties of those offices. These have been displaced for young and ignorant persons, and in many instances foreigners, whose sole recommendation has been their Jeffersonian politics, while the war-worn veteran who had fought the battles of our Independence, and grown, not only old, but poor, in active services for his country, is prohibited from tasting the fruits of his labours, by the faction which is now dominant, and seems willing “to owe their greatness to their country's ruin.”

To give a catalogue of all the worthies, who have adorned Mr. Jefferson's Proscription list, would be to name almost every honest man who held any office under government, at the time Mr. Jefferson was elected.

The following is a list of a few, who were removed from office, for no other reason than their being obnoxious on account of their political opinions:

John Wilkes Kittera, Attorney for the Eastern District, Pennsylvania; John Hall, Marshal of the same District; Samuel Hogdon, Superintendant of Public Stores at Philadelphia; John Harris, Store Keeper at the same place; Henry Miller, Supervisor of the Revenue of the District of Pennsylvania; J. M. Lingan, Attorney for the District of Columbia; Thomas Iwan, Attorney; John Pierce, Commissioner of Loans for the State of Newhampshire; Thomas Martin, Collector of the District of Portsmouth, in the same state; Jacob Sheaffe, Navy Agent at Portsmouth; Richard Harrison, Attorney for the District of New-York; Aquila Giles, Marshal of the same District; James Watson, Navy Agent for New-York; Joshua Sands, Collector of the Port of New-York; Nicholas Fish, Supervisor of the District of New-York; William Smith, Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Portugal; William Vans Murray, Minister Resident to the Batavian Republic; David Humphreys, Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Madrid; Elizur Goodrich, Collector of New-Haven, John Chester, Supervisor of the District of Connecticut; Ray Greene, Judge of Rhode-Island District; Winthrop Sargeant, Governor of the Missisippi Territory; David Hopkins, Marshal of the District of Maryland; Andrew Bell, Collector of the Port of Amboy; Aaron Dunham, Supervisor of the District of New-Jersey; James Dole, Marshal of the District of Albany; Robert Hamilton, Marshal of the District of Delaware; Harrison G. Otis, Attorney for the District of Massachusetts; Chauncey Whittlesey, Collector of Middletown, Connecticut; Amos Marsh, Attorney for the District of Vermont; Jabez Fitch, Marshal for the same District; Samuel Bradford, Marshal of the District of Massachusetts; Thomas Perkins, Commissioner of Loans for the State of Massachusetts; cum multis aliis, all good men and true; and we believe that their successors in office have been men, whose talents, reputation, or pretensions to public patronage, could in no way entitle them to take the precedence of the gentlemen who were displaced, had not the spirit of party turned the “world upside down.”

Well might Mr. Bayard observe of such management by the party in power “It is in this path we see the real victims of stern, uncharitable, unrelenting power. It is here, we see THE SOLDIER WHO FOUGHT THE BATTLES OF THE REVOLUTION; who spilt his blood, and wasted his strength to establish the Independence of his country; deprived of the reward of his services, and left to pine in penury and wretchedness. It is along this path that you may see helpless children crying for bread, and gray hairs sinking in sorrow to the grave! It is here that no innocence, no merit, no truth, no services can save the unhappy sectary, who does not believe in the creed of those in power.”

In order to please, if possible, those of our readers who are fond of the “mazes of metaphorical confusion” we have here jumbled together narrative and metaphor in a delightful manner. The Cacus to whom we allude was a sturdy democrat who stole some cattle and hid them in a cave, (very like Mr. Jefferson's.) He was found out however and destroyed by Hercules, and

Mr. Harrison was displaced from the office of District Attorney for having, like Washington, Adams and other Antijacobins, been guilty of the heinous crime of federalism, and Ned Livingstone appointed by virtue of his mighty merits as a democrat. Mr. Harrison, the obnoxious federalist discharged the duties of his office, as his political opponents acknowledge, with ability and fidelity, and was never even suspected of having applied to his own use the people's money. But Mr. Ned took the liberty to appropriate to his own private purposes the trifling sum of one hundred thousand dollars as appears by a judgment obtained against him in the District Court of the United States, and is now living on the people's money, in a stile of genuine extravagance at New-Orleans. If one feels a disposition to be a rogue, what a fine affair it is to be a good democrat!

It is very remarkable that with all the clamour against Messrs. Pickering and Wolcott for pretended defalcations, misappropriations and other malconduct in office, that our good democratic committees, &c. should be so careful to forget to mention the deficiency of Mr. patriot Randolph, former Secretary of State.

Mr. Senator Bidwell the subject of the present eulogium, exhibited the germ of those talents, which have since budded, and blossomed and bloomed in the rankest luxuriance of democracy, in a juvenile production of most astonishing ingenuity, “intitled and called THE MERCENARY MATCH.” From some specimens of that performance with which we have been favoured by the Editor of the Boston Repertory, we are led to suppose that the good goddess of dullness could never boast of a more hopeful pupil. A small calf may make a large bullock, and a stupid and conceited boy is often matured to a very knowing demagogue.

We ought, perhaps, to apologise to our readers for troubling them with remarks on such an insipid thing as the harangue in question. But as this production of Mr. Bidwell may serve as a specimen of the general tenor of the democratic Fourth of July speeches which have fallen within our notice, we hope that our remarks may be of service to such of our young gentlemen of the New School as may be called hereafter to exhibit oratorical talents on any similar occasion.

“By the Declaration of Independence, which has just been read, a Nation was politically born in a day.”

The story of our Nation's being born on the Fourth of July, 1776, has been told us in prose and in poetry, times without number. Mr. Bidwell has added an important appendage of circumstances; and we have taken the liberty to enlarge further on the phenomena attending this birth. In the first place, we learn by Mr. B. that our nation was born very suddenly. Secondly, that in this wonderful birth, the Declaration of Independence acted as accoucheur. Thirdly, that this was a political birth. Fourthly, that all this was done in a day. Fifthly, that this important instrument, or agent, or accoucheur, had just been read. Sixthly, we have taken the liberty to add, that in such a busy season of the year, genuine republican economy should have directed all these operations to have been performed in the night, which, besides a saving of time, would have superadded the advantages of all the silence and solemnity of a Virginian caucus.

“The revolutionary war,” quoth Mr. Bidwell, “occupied a little more than seven years and a half, from the battle of Lexington, on the 19th of April 1775, to the signing provincial articles of peace on the 30th of November, 1782. Highly IMPORTANT!

“The British troops commenced actual hostilities in April, 1775. An army was raised for defence, and George Washington of Virginia was appointed commander in chief.” Surprising intelligence!

The following extract of a letter from General Washington to Charles Carrol of Maryland, dated Mount Vernon, August 2, 1798, several months after passing all those laws, which seem so obnoxious to the party now in power, will show what right they have to claim any advantage from the popularity of his name.

“Although,” says Gen. Washington “I highly approve of the measures taken by government, to place this country in a posture of defence, and even wish they had been more energetic, and shall be ready to obey its call under the reservations I have made, whenever it is made: yet I am not without hope, mad and intoxicated as the French are, that they will pause, before they take the last step. That they have been deceived in their calculations on the division of the people and the powerful support they expect from their party is reduced to a certainty, though it is somewhat equivocal still, whether THAT PARTY who have been THE CURSE OF THIS COUNTRY, and the SOURCE OF THE EXPENCES WE HAVE TO ENCOUNTER, may not be able to continue THEIR DELUSION. What pity it is the expence could not be taxed upon them.”

“With halters about their necks, the signers of the Declaration of Independence set their names to an instrument, which in case of failure, they knew must be their death warrant. Yes, my friend, had the revolution been crushed, they would have been distinguished from common rebels, and signally executed, or exiled.” Very true Mr. Bidwell, but we shall see presently where your party will land with this kind of reasoning.

I would not be understood as intending to satirize the tories as such. There were, undoubtedly, many tories, who were honest men and true friends to their country, but who supposed that opposition to Great Britain was, wrong in principle, and impossible in practice. But since our democrats are stigmatizing the federalists, with this among other unpopular epithets, it becomes necessary to repel the charge as often as it is made or insinuated. I believe it will be found difficult to find any among the native Americans, who took an active part during the revolutionary war against their country, who have not since been induced, by the same kind of time-serving policy, and want of principle to become democrats, and who, like Talleyrand, or the Vicar of Bray are not willing to become any thing and every thing, which interest dictates. See note 19, p. 12.

Mr. Bidwell affirms that the amendment of the constitution, which declared a state not suable by a private citizen, and that which made it necessary to designate by electoral votes the distinct candidates for President and Vice President were republican. If Mr. Bidwell will give the same meaning to the term republican that Buonaparte has ever done, we shall not dispute with him. The republicanism of the latter is but despotism in disguise, and that of the former with a proper analysis will be found to be substantially the same.

The legislature of the state of Georgia, under shelter of its inviolability has been guilty of a flagrant breach of contract—has burnt its records and shaken the pillars of society by striking at the right of property. Similar cases may again happen, and according to Mr. Bidwell's republican amendment, there can no responsibility attach to the violation of a principle, which forms the basis of civilized society. The other republican amendment opens a wide door for intrigue and corruption, takes away a powerful check which the smaller states possessed over the larger, and flies directly in the face of the constitution as it originally stood.

The reasoning of Mr. Tracy respecting this amendment, (falsely so called) one would suppose was irresistible; and indeed we do not pretend to so much charity as not to be induced to impeach the motives of those State cobblers, who by this and other similar proceedings, have frittered away our Constitution, and broken down those barriers which, by the wisdom of its framers, were designed to give stability to society.

The following extract, quoted from Mr. Tracy's speech in the Senate of the United States upon this subject, contains arguments and facts, which ought to have been conclusive against this mischievous innovation.

“The constitution, is nicely balanced with the Federative and the popular principles; the Senate are the guardians of the former, and any pretence to destroy this balance, under whatever specious names or pretences they may be mentioned should be watched with a jealous eye. Perhaps a fair definition of the constitutional power of amending is that you may, upon experiment, so modify the constitution, in its practice and operation as to give it in its own principles a more complete effect. But this is an attack upon a fundamental principle, established after long deliberation, and by material concession: a principle of essential importance to the instrument itself, and an attempt to wrest from the small states a vested right; and by it to increase the power and influence of the large States.”

“Nothing can be more obvious than the intention of the plan, adopted by our constitution for choosing a President. The Electors are to nominate two persons, of whom they cannot know which will be the President, This circumstance not only induces them to select both from the best men; but gives a direct advantage into the hands of the small states, even in the Electoral choice; for they can always elect from the two candidates, set up by the Electors of large states, by throwing their votes upon their favorite; and of course giving him a majority, or if the Electors of the large states should prevent this effect they can scatter their votes for one candidate, then the Electors of the small states would have it in their power to elect a Vice President. So that in any event the small states will have a considerable agency in the election. But if the discriminating or designating principle is carried, as contained in this resolution, the whole agency of the small states, in the Electoral choice of Chief Magistrate is destroyed, and their chance of obtaining a federative choice, by states, if not destroyed is very much diminished.”

Among the sophisms and misrepresentations with which this harrangue is teeming, those respecting our federal judges are not the least mischievous. Mr. Bidwell informs us that “the office of an English judge is and always has been repeatable by an act of the Legislature.” To this we shall oppose the conclusive reasoning of General Hamilton, taken from his “Examination of the President's Message at the opening of Congress December 7, 1801, than which a more able political tract never fell from the pen of a statesman.

“One more defence of this formidable claim” (to wit, of abolishing the offices of the Federal Judges) “is attempted to be drawn from the example of the Judiciary establishment of Great Britain. It is observed, that this establishment, the theme of copious eulogy on account of the Independence of the Judges, places these officers on a footing far less firm than will be that of the Judges of the United States, even admitting the right of Congress to abolish their offices, by abolishing the Courts of which they are members: and as one proof of the assertion, it is mentioned that the English Judges are removable by the King, on the address of the two houses of Parliament.

“All this might be very true, and yet would prove nothing as to what is, or ought to be the construction of our Constitution on this point. It is plain from the provision respecting compensation that the framers of that Constitution intended to prop the independence of the Judges beyond the precautions which have been adopted in England in respect to the Judges of that country; and the intention apparent in this particular, is an argument, that the same spirit may have governed other provisions. Cogent reasons have been assigned, applicable to our system, and not applicable to the British system, for securing the independence of our Judges against the Legislature, as well as against the Executive power.

“It is alleged that the statute of Great Britain of the 13 of William III. was the model from which the framers of our constitution copied the provisions for the independence of the Judiciary. It is certainly true, that the idea of the tenure of office during good behaviour, found in several of our constitutions, is borrowed from that source. But it is evident that the framers of our federal system did not mean to confine themselves to that model.—Hence the restraint of the legislative discretion, as to compensation; hence the omission of the provision for the removal of the judges by the executive, on the application of the two branches of the legislature; a provision, which has been imitated in some of the state governments.” See No. 17 of a series of essays with the signature of Lucius Crassus, originally published in the Evening Post, and afterwards printed in a pamphlet.

Again, says the learned orator Bidwell, “The very act creating the circuit courts expressly abolished pre-existing courts. Yet it was afterwards contended that the courts created by that act could not be constitutionally abolished.”

The truth, however, is, that that act did not abolish pre-existing courts in such a way as to affect the dignity or emoluments of the judges who held offices under the first establishment. The number of the judges of the supreme court was to have been reduced from six to five, and the acreduction was deferred to the happening of a vacancy. But an extract from Mr. Morris' speech will exhibit the fallacy of Mr. Bidwell's reasoning in a point of view which cannot but be conclusive against him.

“It is said, that by this law, the district judges in Tennessee and Kentucky are removed from office, by making them circuit judges. And again, that you have by law appointed two new offices, those of the circuit judges, and filled them by law, instead of pursuing the modes of appointment prescribed by the constitution. It does indeed put down the district courts, but is so far from destroying the offices of district judges, that it declares the persons filling those offices shall perform the duty of holding circuit courts; and so far is it form appointing circuit judges, that it declares the circuit courts shall be held by the district judges.”

Mr. Bidwell in the next place is pleased to inform us, that judges are annually elected in Connecticut. But he does not say that such annual election is brought about by violating the constitution; neither does he say that an independent judiciary would not be a desideratum in that state.

Mr. Bidwell rails at the federalists for levying direct taxes, complains of the permanent offices (contingent he should say) thereby created; and among others, the land tax is an object of his particular animadversion. The act, however, which imposed this terrible tax, was not altogether of federal origin; and if there is any odium to be attached to that measure, (which I deny) our democrats ought, in due degree, to suffer. This will appear from the following statement, every word of which can be abundantly proved from public documents:

“A committee of ways and means, consisting of one member of each state, were appointed for the purpose of devising the best method of raising a tax. The democratic gentlemen, with Mr. Maddison at their head, proposed, and (this having become the opinion of the majority) reported in favour of a land tax, and in consequence Mr. Wolcott was directed to frame a report for that purpose, and present it at the next session of congress, when a report was accepted in favour of the land tax. Mr. Maddison, whose measure it was considered to be, was the man who particularly appeared on the floor as its defender and supporter. It is likewise a fact, that Mr. Gallatin, in his book of finances, has expressly recommended a land tax to the administration.” New-York Evening Post, July 15, 1803.

Nothing can prove more effectually the influence of names, abstracted from the things which they represent, than the circumstance of the federal stamp act having been obnoxious to the middling, and lower classes of the American people. Farmers and mechanics, who perhaps would not be liable to pay a cent a year, were prevailed upon by demagogues to be very much alarmed at the idea of this tax being something dreadful in its nature and tendency,—something like the old British stamp act, in which, not the tax itself, but the right to impose it was the object of dispute. Too many well meaning men were prodigiously frighted at the idea of the stamp act being the harbinger of Federal Monarchy, or some other sort of incomprehensible tyranny. They therefore opposed this terrible measure, and were indulged with taxes on brown sugar, salt and bohea tea, in its stead, by which a revenue is derived altogether from the middling and lower classes. This looks as if it might be possible for the people to be “their own worst enemies.”

We shall not fatigue our readers, with a repetition of those queries. They are in substance merely inquiries whether the people of the United States would be pleased with the re-adoption of the same measures which formerly characterised the federal administration? Whether a land tax, excise law, a standing army, &c. &c. would be again submitted to by the citizens of the United States?

To this we might answer in a word: Similar circumstances might render similar measures not only advisable, but indispensable to preserve our independence as a nation. If a Gallatin should organize an insurrection; if a Gallo-American faction should form a league with Buonaparte, or a French ambassador, aided by wrong-headed and treacherous Americans, should attempt to prostrate our country at the foot of France; if Great-Britain or France should find leisure from their own disputes to commit depredations on our commerce, we shall be under the necessity of again recurring to federal men, and federal measures, or resign our honour, our respectability, and probably, our independence as a nation.

One of the proprietors, and the principal writer in the Boston Chronicle, assumes the signature of Honestus.

This loan which has occasioned so much clamour among our demagogues, was rendered necessary by the dangers which threatened us from France, and from the expences of Gallatin's insurrection. A committee of congress, who were, no doubt, nearly as competent to judge of this business as Mr. Honestus, with the concurrence of Mr. Nicholson, and other democrats, unanimously reported that they saw “no reason to doubt that these loans were negociated on the best terms which could be procured, and with a laudable view to the public interest.”

In proof of this assertion, we would refer to General Washington's letter to Mr. Carrol. See page 163.

Pre-eminently hard is the fate of federalism, and sad is the destiny of the followers of Washington, in being stigmatized with the crimes of their opponents, and criminated for the misfortunes and expenses which were the necessary result of the conduct of their political adversaries. Virginian delinquency caused great depredations on our commerce, and this was imputed to federalism. Democrats organized a whiskey insurrection, which caused great national expenses, these too were said to be the consequence of federalism. The domineering views of France, aided by the French faction in this country, in the opinion of Washington, Adams, and the other sages and patriots who at that time directed our councils, rendered a provisional army necessary. This too was the sin of federalism. But

It is well known that the faction, which has built itself up on the ruins of the Washington and Adams' administrations, have been clamorous in their complaints against the federalists, for their pretended predilection to monarchy. Treatises written expressly in favour of the American government, and of the republican constitutions of the several states have been tortured into meanings quite foreign from the ideas of their authors, in order to suit the nefarious purposes of unprincipled partizans. Private conversation, uttered in moments of conviviality, has been reported and misrepresented, with all the artifice of the most malicious ingenuity. Still we are not informed of any thing more having escaped the lips of any of the leading federal characters than general expressions of apprehension, lest this government should degenerate through anarchy to despotism; and the hon. Fisher Ames, who stands among the most prominent of these pretended monarchy-loving men, has declared in substance, that if monarchy should ever be established in this country, it will be the work of the jacobins.

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.