University of Virginia Library

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.