Dunlap's Pennsylvania packet , The general advertiser — Philadelphia, Pa., 1774-04-25 00:00:00, page 2

From the St. JAMES's C HRONICLE,
of January 29.
Free thoughts ^Monarchy and Political
Supers tltl o n.
AC APACITY to govern falls to the
lot of so very few, that it is not furprizing
we meet with so many Kings who disgrace the im
perial mantle with which the bounty, 1 dare not
call it folly, of their febjefts hath clad them.
It is an idea by no means favourable to the
good sense ofour Ipecies, nay, it favours of ex
travagant weakness in mankinds to invest any in
dividual whatever, with so immense a power that
his blunders are the feurces of infelicity to milli
ons; his vices, and even his fooleries, entail per
haps misery on present and future generations !
To invest this or that individual with such a dan
gerous share of power, appears, I fay, at,firft
light, to the hll degree absurd and unnatural.
But Custom can reconcile us to ablurdities at
which nature would revolt ; and such is the frail
ty of humanity, that there is perhaps no proceed
ing, however irrational; no pradtife, however
incongrous to common sense, but what in time,
might be familiarized to the human mind.
Hence, if, instead of men, fef moving machines,
or (out of preference to animal nature) a stately
goose, had originally been invested with the trap
pings of royalty ; had been kept cooped up, to
make the greater raree-fhew when seen: had been
crammed at the public expence, and made to
propagate, to (apply the state with an hereditary
fucceflion of the breed; had this been done, there
would not have been wanting courtiers to bend the
supple knee, to extol the fdeling saddle, and
rend the air with applauding shouts in praise of
the harmonious quake; simpering and simple Lords,
scorning their reason, their manhood, and their
form, would revile dame nature for not having
made them geese, and each blooming charmer,
proposing Leda for an example, would struggle
for the honour of something like a swan-amour !
Nor would priests be wanting to preach up impli
cit reverence to the powers, in possession of—
ftalls, prebendaries, and commendams! whilst
the pusillanimous tribe, the sneaking timid group,
would be shocked as with the crush of falling
worlds, at every tremendous shake of the royal
feathers ! —Thus would custom reconcile, and ti
midity preserve amongst us am implicit veneration
for folly in the extreme.
However ludicrous, however absurd this repre
sentation may appear, yet has absurdity, to the
full as ridiculous, been fandifed with the appro
bation of the inhabitants of almost every king
dom. In matters of religious worship supersti
tion hath gone so far as to venerate a monkey, a
cow, a wild ass, and baboons of various kinds.
If therefore, in spirituals we are thus prone to
flray from reason ; if religious superstition has so
powerful an influence over our minds as to make
us violate the fundamental principles of common
sense ; why should not political fuperflition so far
debase our fpifits, warp our judgments, andse r
vilize (if I may be allowed the expression) our
fouls lo as to induce us to make a tender of our
rights, and crouch at the feet of some paltry ty
rant whom, by the sweat of our brows, we contri
bute to support?
There are thousands in the world who believe
that a bit of bread is God; there are millions who
think that to resist a King is to take up arms a
gainst the Deity ! Even in this land of liberty, in
this foil of boasted freedom, there are too many
who are the slaves of political fuperfiition, and
in obedience to its dictates, would revere a goose
if that goose was elevated on a throne.
It is a lading stigma upon the people of this
country, that they have been despoiled of their
property, and plundered of their privileges; that,
in short, they have been ruled for ages by a set of
Kings weaker than either of the feathered flock
that ever waddled in a country village. What
were the Stuarts, from James the frit, down to
Lord Mansfield's brother's pupil, now at Rome?
What were many of the Tudors? Yet by weak
fools, or profligate tyrants, have a set of island
ers, brave, spirited, and sensible, been enslaved,
not governed, for numberless ages !
Suppose an uncivilized Indian should be told,
“ that there was a country containing many mil
lions of people; that the major part of these milli
ons could hardly earn enough to support their fa
milies ; that a great part of what they did earn
was paid to one man called a King; that he, by
the sweat of the people's brows, was supported
in costly magnificence; that in return for this he
kept a large body of forces, armed with destruc
tive weapons, in order to kill such of the people
as Ihould presume to question his authority, to le
vy taxes upon the benefits resulting from light,
earth, air, and water; and that if this his army
happened to kill twenty people assembled together
only out of curiosity, it was not deemed murder
in him, nor was he hanged for it, a number of the
principal inhabitants being always ready on such
occasions to thank him, for having taken the short
est method to disperse the people:" What I aft
would an uncivilized Indian think of the inhabi
tants of such a nation? Common sense would
suggest to him that they must be a set of the most
dastardly, the most mean and cowardly paltroons,
as well as the erranteft drivellers, that ever dif
honoured human nature. Yet the case in fad, is
quite otherwise; it is not owing to cowardice nor
want of proper spirit. but to the remains of po
litical foperftition not being quite effaced from a
mengft us ; we have shaken off the yoke of spiritual
tyranny, and have divested ourselves of every
nonsensical prejudice, of every priestly hocus-po
cus juggle. Hence in religious matters a rational
in opposition to a slavish prelatical mode of faith,
is adopted amongst us; our good sense is freed
from the shackles formerly imposed on it by
ghofliy jugglers, and we bid faireft for carrying the
human powers to a greater pitch of perfection
than any other civilized people under the canopy
of Heaven. We only want to be divested of poli
tical f uperfition, to regard Kings like Priests, no
longer than whilst the one do their duty as Magis
trates, the other a$ teachers of virtue, Drum Ec
clefaflic, as well as the Sword of State, are ne-
ceffary appendages of our most excellent govern
ment; but if the fwo^d, instead of keeping, should
infringe the peace; in stead of defending liberty,
should be drawn in support of slavery, in that
case it should be sheathed in the bosom of the man,
whether monarch or minifier, who dared to at
tempt the slavery of his fellow creatures.
It is enough that the majority in any Rate are
content to be pack-horse drudges; to be poor,
wretched, and forlorn of almost every Comfort
that renders life defireable; it is quite fufficicnt
that they submit to this, that their superiors may
keep carousals, and revel in all the luxurious
dainties bounteous nature affords: But let not
this patience, this tame aequiefeence, be too much
imposed upon, left the people should be roused,
and, disengaging their minds from the trammels
of political superstition, they should curb the in
solence of our civil, as our ancestors did that of
their ecclesiastic tyra'nts, and thus the govern
ment of the many may be established, as it ought,
in preference to regal or ariflocratic despotism.
Your's, &c.
LUCIUS.
From the Publlc Advertlser of Feb. 8.
To A. L EXANDERWEDDERBURNE, Esq;
SI R,
I A M now, Sir, come to that part of your
speech which contained the most unjust, the
most illiberal, the most indecent personal abuse
that ever disgraced the lips of a pleader, or dif
honoured the decency of a court. Some little
difference there is between your character and that
of the objeft of your rancorous revenge.
A long life of virtue has rendered him refpe&a
ble; a short one of baseness has made you the re
proach of your time. The great, but modest
merit of a true philosopher, has rendered him
amiable and illustrious in the estimation of Europe
and America. A ridiculous affectation of science
makes you the contempt of the little circles in
which you move, as a pragmatical pretender to
universal knowledge. He had a high and un
touched reputation to be wounded; you have
prostituted yours below the reach of resentment.
Your firft charge against him was founded on
his having transmitted to Boston, as agent to the
the House of Representatives, the flagitious letters
of Mr. Hutchinson and Mr. Oliver. These letters,
you affirmed, were transmitted " for purposes the
most malignant, and procured by means the most
infamous and corrupt." But on what evidence
did you found so opprobrious an accusation,
quibus indicus, quo tefte? nil horum. Mr. Wed
derburne's suspicion was the accuser; Mr. Wed
derburne's suspicion was the witness ; Mr. Wed
dcrburne's suspicion pronounced sentence. In
defiance of that rule of Engliih justice, which you
yourfelf had laid down for your clients, you pre
sumed guilt without a shadow of proof; for what
were your pretended proofs? impudent assertions,
a combination of chances, a conundrum, or some
thing more contemptible—your opinion; the opi
nion of a witling, a punster, and a prig:
Hear him in the infernal spirit of lago, and led
like him to diet his revenge:
know not If't be true;
" But I for mere suspicion in that fort
" Will do as if for surety."
But even this character, high wrought by Shake
fpear's powerful fancy, falls infinitely short of
yours. The fubjed of his suspicion was the
highest injury a man can receive. The fubjed
of yours was, if we may believe you, a favour, or
at worst an impotent attempt to injure futile in
theinftrument, favourable in theiffue. You affirm
the letters were not only innocent, but did honour
and credit to the persons by whom they were
written. Where then was the injury of detecting
them? Whence this complaint, this rage, this
rancour, this revenge? By what strange perver
sion of judgment could a man transmit, for pur
poses the most malignant against the authors, let
ters, the contents of which were laudable and me
ritorious?
But admitting the purpose had been malignant,
you cannot on your stating pretend to fay that
tho means were adequate, or the event answerable.
Why then such anger, why such a thirst of revenge?
Would the man who threw a straw at you excite
the fame degree of enmity with him who aimed a
Javelin at your heart, though the attention that
actuated them were equal? Are you so weak as
not to perceive, that all this passion is a powerful
proof, how much you and your clients feel the in
famy of those detested letters? It is my humanity
that makes this apology for you, left you should
appear too far to surpass the blackest character of
fidlion in diabolical revenge.
I cannot do your argument so much jnftice, as
by repeating it word for word:" My Lords, I
beg you will attend to this argument; it is close;
it is irrefragable to shew that the letters must have
been stolen. lam confident neither the late, nor
the present, Mr. Whately gave them; they must
therefore have been stolen, and Doctor Franklin
must have stolen them from him who stole them,
for he fays he obtained them."
This is the logic of a Solicitor General; this
the language of an Orator; this the clole, the
irrefragable argument, to which the attention
of your noble hearers was so emphatically called.
From whence your confidence in the retenfion of
your friends flows, I know not? but of this I am
certain, there are numbers of most confidential let
ters to the late Mr. Whately in the hands of those
for whom they were never intended.
Concerning the writers of those letters which
were sent to Boston, I cannot speak in words more
apt than those of Cicero: " Etenim cum homines
nefarii de patriae parricidio confiterientur, confci
orum indiciis, fua manti, voce pene literaruni co
a^i, fe urbem inflammare, cives trucidare vaftare
Italiam, delere rempublicam confenfiffe; quis eflet,
qui ad falutem communem defendendam, non exci
teretur?" The introduction of a military force,
the abridgment of their liberties, the deftru&ion
of their charter, which was the purpose of those
letters, threatened all the miferics which are here
described.
The tranfmiinon of Inch letters was therefore
an aft of duty, prompted by the most laudable of
all motives, a detestation of parricidal treachery,
and an carneft desire of healing those unhappy
divisions which have too long subsisted between
the Parent State and her colonies, by difeover*
ing to the colonists that the measures, which have
alienated their affections, originated not so much
in any oppressive views of this country, as from
the misrepresentations of some men high in trust
and confidence among themselves. The difeovery
of these letters operated this effeft; and had not
our ministers been more unwise than ignorance
made drunk, they would have embraced that op
portunity of.burying in oblivion for ever the bane
ful taufe of our late diffentions. The punish
ment of two men, who deserved to be punished,
the difeovery of whose treacherous and malignant
intentions had rendered them odious and infamous,
would have been a propitiation for what is past,
would have manifefted a spirit of justice and tem
per here which might happily have prepared the
way for a perfed reconciliation.
But it has pleased the wisdom and moderation
of our ministers to inflame the heat of that diftem
perature, which threatened the worst of all evils,
a civil war, and to attempt the extinguishing that
fire which already burnt too fierce, by throwing
oil upon the flames.
A BOSTONIAN.
From the GAZETTEER, of Feb. \6.
To Mr. WEDDERBURNE.
SIR,
IT cannct be fappofed that you were ignorant
of the views of your employers in the American
cause; and from your condud in the manage
ment of that cause; it must be supposed, that their
view was the very view which I suggested at the end
of my last letter, namely, to deter men from petiti
oning the throne for redress of grievances, by hold
ing out to them the terrors of a mock trial, and the
insolence of a licentious counsel. What else, Sir,
could lead you tobchave in foilliterate a manner to
aman dear to the republic of letters? whose name
will be refpeded by posterity, ages after your own
will have been long since forgotten ! Whose works
will be read with pleasure, when your pleadings and
the causes which gave birth to them, will be buried
in oblivion ? You averted, that the letters referred
to in the petition were procured by the most in
famous means. Did it become you as a gentle
man to hazard so rude an assertion, without addu
cing the most irrefragable proof of it ! Yet what
proof did you bring? Not one: Not the shadow
of a proof. These letters you fay were written
to Mr. Whately :—Be it so :—Though even of
that there was no proof:—And you assured the
Board, that Mr. Whately never communicated
them : What proof did you bring of this? Truly
an undeniable one :—You were very intimate with
Mr. Whately: Mr. Whately never communicated
them to you, and therefore he never communica
ted them to any body. You were very witty, Mr.
Solicitor, on the logic of those who dwell on the
other fide of the Atlantic. From this specimen of
your fyllogiftical abilities, we fliould be tempted
to fufpea, that those who come from the other
fide of the Tweed, are not a whit better logicians.
But, Sir, you knew you were asserting the thing
which was not, when you declared Mr. Whately
never communicated these letters: The letters
themselves prove what I fay. Mr. Whately is
exprefly desired to communicate them to his hon
ourable friend. Now, Sir, will you undertake to
prove that this communication was made only viva
voce? That no copies were given? Nay, that the
originals themselves were not given? Will you
undertake to prove, Sir, that these papers might
not, after the death of Mr. Whately, and his
honourable friend, fall into the hand of some one
who gave them unconditionally to Dr. Franklin !
Yet all this, Sir, you must prove, before you have
any right to suppose any thing culpable in his man
ner of acquiring them. The letters, you fay,
were published for the most malignant purposes.
This ill-natured and ill-mannered reflection is just
as ill supported as the other.
They were sent in an anonymous cover, not to
the General Assembly, but to the friends of the
Governor and Lieutenant Governor. So I under
stood you ; and your heart, Sir, must be very ma
lignant, if you would choose to put an ill-natured
interpretation upon this mode of conveyance,
which is certainly capable of a very different one.
I, Sir, who have none of the. malicious keenefs,
none of the duplicity which distinguishes a certain
race of men accustomed to pour forth inventive,
deaf to candour's call, I should have seen this mode
of conveyance in a very different point of view.
Mr. Hutchinson had pretended in America to
disapprove the measures which alienated the Co
lonies from their mother country. In his letters
to England he approves them, urges the necessity
of forcing obedience to them, and his friend Oli
ver declares that nothing can be done till what
are " called English liberties are abridged."—
Dr. Franklin becomes pofTefTed of these letters ;
unwilling to make them public, fearful that the
resentment of a deluded and insulted people might
carry them to outrageous lengths ; but unwilling
too that the Americans should be the dupes of
these mens artifices, he fends the letters, not in his
public character, not to the General-Assembly,
for then they must have been published, but to
the friends of the Governor and Lieutenant-Go
vercor, to those whom their hypocrisy still milled,
to be made use of only so far as might be neces
sary for the purpose of supporting the public cause,
by undeceiving the deceived. And is this in your
eye, Sir, so very malignant ? Had he added any
thing to the letters, had he curtailed them, had
he mangled them, had he altered the sense by
breaking the connexion, had he ftifled alleviating
expressions, that had then been malignant; but
where is the malignancy of representing men as
they are, of letting them speak their own sentiments
in their own words ?
Let us for a moment change the state of the
case ; let us suppose that the Governor and Lieu
tenant-Governor had written as warmly against
t' ^ power and prerogative of the King, as they
did write against the liberties of the people? Let
us suppose that these letters had by any means
fallen into your hands, what would your system
of morality have led you to do then ? Would you
have concealed, or would you have denounced
them ?—You will talk perhaps of treason, and
mifprifon of treason—Sir, though the technical
learning of Westminster-Hall may not have taught
it to you, yet, know there is such a tbingas trea
son against the people; the rebel to his King is
not a greater culprit than he, who can advile a
Minister to deprive three millions of fubje&s of
their birth rights, and to abridge those liberties
which were purchased by our ancestors at the ex
pence of their best blood.
But you asserted, that these letters were not
written on public affairs, nor tended to produce
public measures. No man who heard them read
could believe you to be in earnest, when you said
so. If you must stand accused of want ofdifcern
ment, or of a disregard to truth, the world will
not long hesitate which to impute to you.
Dr. Franklin nobly awowed in the public pa
pers, that he had transmitted the letters to America:
his friends accused him of indiscretion, and you
have made him severely pay for it. But you are
the only man, I hope, in England, who could
construe a desire of preventing farther mifehief,
into a vindictive pleasure at having seen so much.
No man but you, I hope, could so far misname
the gloomy triumph of a Zanga, as to call itapa
thy.
In the heat of your argument, you had pro
mised us the most convincing proof, that the let
ters were procured by undue means. Mr. Dun
ning called on you for that proof. Had you but
attended to the general look of ineffable con
tempt; had you felt the chill which ran through
every vein, when you were forced to own, that
all this boasted proof depended on making a man
of Dr. Franklin's firmnefs, answer against law
to your interrogatories, you would never, I think,
have appeared at the bar again.
I do not exped, Sir, to tinge your pale cheek,
by proving that you have facrificed truth and
candour to serve your employers : Truth and can
dour, and freedom, all may perish, so you main
tain the cause which they, alack ! avow, and
would maintain too, but they know not how.—
Yet there is one thing which perhaps may call up
a blush, even in your cheek. Were you not
aware, Sir, that you but ill-consulted the honour
of the King in this mock trial? The petition
was addrefled to him as the supreme executive
power. Did you not feel, Sir, that it would
better have become his dignity to have granted
or rejected the petition as from himfelf, and not
have received the right of exercising his power,
as a conquest, gained for him by a noisy, loqua
cious advocate ? Did you not feel, Sir, that
you were making the King and his Council enter
the lifts with a private individual. Did you not
forefee, that you were expofog the King and his
Council to the new mortification of having votes
passed against their proceeding in the General-As
sembly of Massachusetts-Bay ? Yet, that this will
be the event, it requires, I think, no prophetic
genius to foretell.
AUDITOR.
From the Public Advertiser, for Feb. 16, 1774.
TH E admirers of Dr. Franklin in England
are much shocked at Mr. Wedderburne's
calling him a thief; but perhaps they will be less
surprised at this circumstance when they are in
formed, that his great admirers on the continent
agree in entertaining the fame idea of him. As
an evidence of this, I fend you a copy of a poeti
cal stanza, which is engraved under his portrait
prefixed to the late French translation of his work,
in two volumes, quarto.
I shall also fend you an attempt of a translation
of them, that the English reader may be able to
judge of the similarity between the idea of Mr.
Wedderburne and that of the French Philosopher,
with whom all the Philosophers in Europe intirely
concur. It will even be seen that foreigners re
present him as much more impudent and audacious
in his thefts than the English orator (though he was
under no restraint from a regard to truth) has ven
tured to insinuate. I am, S I R,
Your humble Servant,
Homo Trium Literarum.
IL a rari le feu des cieux,
II fait fleurir les arts en des climats fauvages.
L'Amerique le place a la tete des sages,
La Grece l'auroit mis au nombre de fes Dieux.
In ENGLISH.
To fleal from heaven itsfacred fire he taught,
The arts to thrive in savage climes he brought :
In the New World the frft of men efleem'd;
Among the Greeks—a God he had been deem'd,
*+*+s •!-s+,+s-, g *+s+§
LOND O N, Feb. 26.
AMOTION was made by Sir Edward
Aftley, for making perpetual Mr. Gren
ville's aft refpe&ing trying of controverted electi
ons by committee. Great debates arose upon ir,
and continued till 12 o'clock, .when the House
divided ; for makingthe bill perpetual 250, against
it 122; so that Lord North, who opposed the
bill, was left in a minority of near two to one.
Sir William Meredith acquainted the House,
that on Monday fe'ennight he should bring the
affairs of the Clergy and the 39 articles before them
again.
'lhis morningthe Right Hon. the Lord Mavor
received a letter from John Roberts, Esq; inti
mating that he should give his Lordship no fur
ther trouble with refpecE fto the late election for a
member for the city of London.
Mr. Alderman Harley, presented a petition from
the booksellers of London, &c. setting forth that
many of them shall be ruined by the late decision
io the House of Lords, unless some relief was
given them.
Mr. Sawbridge seconded the motion, faying,
by a decision in the year 1769, in favour of copy
right, many of the booksellers had laid out their
whole fortunes in that article, which right h
been taken from them by the determination of<