Dunlap's Pennsylvania packet , The general advertiser — Philadelphia, Pa., 1774-01-24 00:00:00, page 5

To the Printer ^^Pennsylvania Packet.
SIR,
Tour inferring the following answer to Mr. A. N.
. and the address to thepublic, will be agreeable to
numbers of your readers, and oblige, Tour's, &c.
MENTOR.
To Mr. A. N.
SIR,
^&}&/A Y Messrs. Bradfords News-carrier,
" ^> I was furnifhed with your's of the
^ B ^) loth instant, to which I shall en
<»% )^> deavour to reply in as concise a
< R>manner as your stile and matter
WWW*'*' will admitof.
You are pleased to attribute my performance
rather to ignorance, than a wilful endeavour to
deceive: How far your candour has carried you
in forming this judgment, you will perhaps know
by the sequel; and I shall chearfully submit to the
public whether I have attempted to deceive them.
—But not to be behind hand with you in judging
of motives, I would just hint that I fufpe& yours
to have arisen partly from both those causes; you
write as if you knew little of your fubjeft and
were desirous your readers should know less—So
much for imitation, if you do not like my manner
blame yourfelf for the example.
I do net think it unfair to address myfelf to the
publick upon any cause in which they are materi
ally interested, although it is before a Court of
Judicature, more especially, if I confine my as
sertions to matters of fa&, and my arguments
upon them to matter of law.—lt is the duty of
every person to warn his fellow-citizens of any
danger that may threaten them from a common
enemy, that they may be prepared to avert the
blow.—This was my motive, and I trust my per
formance in the eye of candour, will be considered,
at least, as well intended: and although you affe&
furpize at my ignorance in “ supposing the Officers
of the Customs to be such formidable beings;"
yet, should I with more justice be called ignorant
indeed, if I entertained a contrary supposition.
No person but an Officer of the Customs, or a
dependent on them, could be the author of such
a question as you put to me. I have read enough
of the a&s of trade, and know enough of the
practice in Courts of Admiralty, to fear the worst
from everyattempt made by the Officers of the
Customs; for though penalties are inflicted on
them for making unjust seizures wilfully, yet you,
Sir, must well know that a certificate of probable
cause signed by the Judge of the Admiralty, is a
fufficient defence in any a&ion brought against
them, however groundless, vexatious, and op
pressive the seizure might be: this circumstance
added to the suspicions which, without breach of
charity, may reasonably be entertained of the
conduct of a Judge whose salary is to be paid out
of a fund arising in the firft place from the sale of
goods condemned by HIMSELF, is fufficient,
not only to “ alarm," but to " convince" every
person who has property in trade, that it is no
longer his than the Officers of the Customs are
pleased to permit him to transport it unmolested.
You charge me with “ undertaking to fay what
the Officers of the Customs intend by this seizure :"
It is true, I mentioned what they pretended were
their intentions, and I will candidly own, that I
had no better authority for my assertion than the
mere gratis didim of the Collector of this port,
who has repeatedly declared them publickly.—
You, Sir, can perhaps tell whether this may be
depended on; but as I hinted in my letter to the
merchants, I am apt to fufpe^ they do not mean
tobe fatisfied with what they now fay, if the de
termination of this cause should put it in their power
to demand greater fees.
I do acknowledge I have drawn “ my conclusi
ons upon the" further " designs of the Officers
of the Customs from the form of the libel." And
I would inform you, Sir, as you seem very igno
rant in “ form and sense," that the Judge must
draw his conclusions in forming his decree from
the form of the fame libel; and that if the libel
should not be proved true, or if it does not assign
the breach of some statute, the penalty of which
is a forfeiture of the vessel, the Judge cannot con
demn her for “ matter of form" without a violation
of law and justice: It has indeed been surmised
that Judges are sometimes so deficient in law
knowledge, as not to be able to distinguish be
tween the “ form and the sense;" by which defi
ciency they are enabled to attribute decrees which
were found to be illegal to error of judgment,
when perhaps other motives assisted in forming
them: I trust, however, that no Judge can be so
stupidly ignorant as you are, or pretend to be both
of" form and sense;" as to fuppofethat a market
boat libelled for taking goods on board and departing
to some other Cohny, without having given bond,
or obtaining a marrar/t or fufferance for that purpose,
a^inf theform of a flatute, could be condemned
as forfeited for not having taken a general permit
for the goods on board her, which you fay is re
quired by an aft of Assembly of this province, by
which no penalty or forfeiture for non-compliance
is inflicted.
PO ST SCI R.I P T
TO THE
PENNSYLVANIA PACKET,
O R, THE
GENERAL ADVERTISER. No. 118.
You tell me that " this libel was drawn by a
lawyer of diftindion, who, you believe, had no
intention to include in it any thing particularly se
vere." Now, Sir, if you had not been too spa
ring of candour, (which perhaps the smallness of
your stock may make it necessary to be frugal of)
you would have told the reason of the libel's being
in its present form; you would have acknowledged
that the case was either misrepresented, or at least,
not fully represented to him: he understood that
the boat was a sea-vessel, or as you tell me, “ a
sloop of near forty tons burthen," bound to some
other Colony, and not a fhallop or boat—used only
in the river trade, going to New-Castle county, or
he would never have drawn such a libel; he must
know better, though you do not, —and what is
more, he had independence, and honor enough to
fay so.
I have now come to the only part of your per
formance, which has the least semblance of argu
ment; that is your inferences drawn from an aft
of assembly, which you have cited; but as you
do not seem to understand what you wrote, I shall
forbear remarking on that till I have done with
you, referring you for an answer, to my address to
the public which will accompany this to your
hands.
The next paragraph is filled with what you
would, I suppose, palm upon me for wit and found
logic. Ido not pretend to a critical knowledge
of either, but I will nevertheless examine it awhile;
perhaps I may improve myfelf by conning the
works of so great an adept :—Tho' unless I knew
whether you were serious in asking, “ is net Da
vid Vandyke a half a dozen?" I could not ascer
tain whether you want information, or intend it
for “ genuine wit." However obfeure your ex
predion is, by dint of study I have difeovered,
that it may, perhaps, be meant as an enquiry,
whether there are not half a dozen people inte
rested in the question; in this light I will venture
to take it, and inform you, that instead of fix per
sons, above fix thousand inhabitants of this city
confider themselves concerned in the matter, and
you may find, perhaps when it is too late, that
you have forfeited the esteem of the most valuable
part of the community by your attempt. By pur
suing the fame chain of ideas I am led to a pro
bable solution of the mystery contained in your
syllogism, that “ afhallop-man is a foallop-man :"
I suppose you meant by this to infer, that Mentor
is a fhallop-man ; if you did, you were mistaken:
Mentor has no connexion with any person in that
way—Mentor's pen is not taken up to exert bis
eloquence in favour of a fhallop-man : The cause
of the public firft induced him to write, and
whenever his small talent will serve them, they
may be assured it shall not be wrapped in a nap
kin, and hid in the earth. I would be very cau
tious in dabbling in a thing, of which I profefs
myfelf no critic, yet I cannot help sporting one
syllogism after your example ; for inftamce, a Cus
tom-House Officer is a Custom-House Officer: Tho',
Sir, there may not be as much wit or found logic
in it, as may be found by the learned in yours,
yet I will venture to fay, there is, at least, as
much justice in the inference to be drawn from
it. Ifthere is any truth in the rule, that a tree
may be known by its fruits—furely A. N. must
be a Custom-House Officer in some department
or other. Before I finifh this paragraph, permit
me to remind you of a mistake you have commit
ted in substituting David Candyke, for Officers of
the Cufloms. —You fay, I tell you he is an old of
fender : If telling the public (for I never wrote
to you) that his boat was unjustly seized fix years
ago, himfelf run to great expence, and, after a
full hearing in the Admiralty, that she was dis
charged : I fay, if this is calling him an old of
fender, then indeed I am guilty of bearing falfe
witness against him; but if you will revise your
letter and publish a second edition, you will not
be far wrong in faying that I stated fa&s, which
proved the Officers old offenders in reiterating their
illegal seizures.
You fay that, " in the case of the last seizure I
mentioned, the tobacco was difeharged upon the
Merchant, to whom it belonged, producing a
permit, from! the Custom-House, at New-Castle,
proving it had paid the duty." This assertion
convinces me of what I hinted to you, in the for
mer part of this letter, that you not only were
ignorant yourfelf, but desirous to mislead others.—
I stated that case from the report of a gentleman,
upon whom I could rely, and I have the fatisfac
tion to find from the certificate of the Judge, who
determined the cause, which is now before me,
that it is ftri&ly true in every part, material to
the present question, and that the permit you
mention never was offered in evidence, nor had
the least influence in forming the decree ; at the
fame time I will acknowledge, that in the Rate
of the case, I inserted one faft, which, tho' men
tioned in the argument of the counsel, is not made
a part of the record, because not of any conse
quence in the determination of thepoint.—Search
the record yourfelf, and if you can understand it,
you will find I have not, in the least tittle, per
verted thefafi of it, tho' perhaps I have not ftri&-
ly pursued theforn.
You have as grofly misrepresented the case of the
seizure last summer, which you fay, was for re
fufing to take a permit. I took your hint, and
enquired of persons acquainted with the matter,
and for your better information I will state the
case, as I am assured it really was : A young man
of small property, owned a fhallop of little value;
she lay at Meafe's wharf, and had taken in a tew
articles for his country customers, intending to
fail the next day for New-Port, in New-Castle
County. The evening preceding her destined de
parture, an Officer seized her, as she lay aground
at low water in the dock. The young fellow,
altogether ignorant of any offence he had commit
ted, alarmed at an attempt to deprive him of all
the property he had in the world, applied toa re
lation of his, who was Clerk in the Register's
office for advice; this gentleman, who, though a
sensible, judicious man, and very well acquainted
with the duty ofhis own office, never pretended
to be an “ eminent lawyer," advised the young
fellow, by no means to enter into a law suit which
might ruin him, that he was too young and inex
perienced to combat with so formidable a body as
the Officers of the Customs; that persons of more
fortune and weight should contend the point, and
that it was his best way, however unjust the sei
zure might be, to endeavour to fettle the matter
amicably with the Officer on the easiest terms he
could, without going to law : This was all the
advice he took, and he complied with it. Upon
the application of some of his friends to the Offi
cer, he agreed to give the matter up; but in order
to enhance thefavor, and to make it bear the ap
pearance of an eflabhfhed precedent, he made him
give bond to restore the fhallop, in case the Com
miffioriers at Botton should, after being wrote to
on his behalf, insist upon the prosecution being car
ried on -And now, Sir, give me leave to ask
you a few questions concerning this extraordinary
case, which, if you are as conversant in the laws
of trade, and the practice at the Custom-House,
as you pretend to be, you ought to know how to
answer—By what law was that fhallop seizable,
for refufing to take a permit? Since till she de
parted the port, no Officer could tell whether she
intended to take one or not. Was she not seized
for not having reported her cargo at the Custom-
House, and for taking goods on board without a
fufferance ?—lf this last was not the cause, speak
candidly for once, and inform me, what was. If
that was the real cause, (and I believe your inge
nuity will not serve you to invent another) tell me,
whether it was not an attempt to subject the river
trade to the fame regulations as the sea trade?
From your answers to thele questions, I shall be
able to judge by what authority you fpeak—
whether you are in the secret of rhe intentions of
the Officers of the Customs, or whether (which I
am rather apt to suspect) you are a mere tool in
their hands, no further acquainted with their de
signs, than is necessary for their immediate use of
you.
Jou pretend to fay, that nothing more is re
quired at the Custom-House than what has been
the constant practice, but left it should be impossi
ble to afeertain this constant pra&ice, you fay they
are only required to take a general permit. From
what you yourfelf fay, it is easily to be collected,
that there has been no regular practice in the Cus
tom-House refpefting fhallops, you are forced to
acknowledge, that there has been such a thing
pra&ifed as compounding by the year, though you
infiouate that this was only with the stage boats,
and that they were not excused from reporting and
taking permits.—ls you had taken proper pains in
enquiring, you would have been informed, that
this composition was in practice near forty years,
before any stage boat was used, —and that till
since the Board of Commifiioners was established
at Boston, no fhallop-man, who could be prevail
ed on to pay this yearly composition, was ever
called upon to report or take permits.—Why this
" mode of agreeing by the year has not lately been
" approved of at the Cuftom-Houfe,' ' may be more
naturally accounted for, than by supposing the
Officers have become more conscientiously scru
pulous of “ compounding matters of duty."
1 ou charge me with “ making a mystery of the
“ cause of this seizure with affecting ignorance, in
" order to raise curiosity." Turn your eyes to the
third paragraph of your letter, and you will find
you have imputed the contrary to me, you have
there charged me with taking upon me to know
too much. If you write to me again, please to
reconcile this contradiction, and tell me why you
are so inconliftent.—You fay, that I “ wish to turn
" the heat, railed by a late important tranfa&ion,
“ to a little purpose of my own." Here again you
are wrong; you have mistaken your man, Mentor
is not the person to whom your letter seems parti
cularly pointed, nor is he directly or indiredly in
terelled in the question more than every good
citizen should be in the general welfare. —How far
my fellow citizens will confider themselves insult
ed in their anderftandinf, is not for such a writer
as A. N. to determine; but if my attempt to in
terest them in the cause of a fhallop-man is to be
ffurned <witb a just indignation, surely the conduct
of the Custom-House Officers, who have espoused
openly the cause of the petit Officer, who made
this seizure, and who, you fay, is the only Officer
of the Customs <wbo mill be the least benefited by it,
ought to be equally resented by the people—for
it can be no more unreasonable that a person de
fending his property against a Custom-House Of
ficer, should be assisted by people interested in the
like question, than that the Officer who made the
seizure, should be aided by his brethren, who,
notwithstanding what you fay, are the firft movers
and directors of the measure, and if the point 4
carried, will be amply repaid for their trouble, by
the great increase of their fees.
I have not nor do I desire to have any know
ledge of your person, your performance fatisfies
me, that I should reap no benefit from your ac
quaintance. I would nevertheless give you some
advice which may be of service to you in future#
—A man who undertakes a bad cause, should not
only have a great knowledge of his fobjeft, but
great abilities, he should know in what instances
it will be fafe to misrepresent, without rifque of
detection, and should be careful not to advance
any thing which can be proved to be untrue.—You
fay you do not intend to trouble yourfelf any more
on the fubjed—This resolution is prudent, but
perhaps you may not adhere to it; if you should
not, remember that your knowledge of the fubjt&
is little, and your capacity to reason on it less ;
that you are not equal to the talk assigned you.—
Be careful therefore to confine yourfelf to fads
and to arguments within the Iphere of your un
derstanding. Yours, &c.
January^, 1774. MENTOR.
To the Merchants and other Inhabitants ts
the City of Philadelphia.
My Fellow Citizens,
AB OUT a fortnight ago I took the liberty to
address you upon a fubjed which I thought
nearly concerned you ; I viewed with great anxie
ty, an attempt made by the Officers of the Customs,
to clog the river trade with such expences and
delays, as would rifque a total loss of that part
of it, which is carried on to the Lower Counties^
I conceived that the attempt was unwarrantable,
unsupported by any law, and dire&ly contrary to
the constant usage of almost a century, and I en
deavoured to inform myfelf well of the state of
the case.—My searches and enquiries, confirmed
the opinion I at firft entertained, and I thought it
my duty to rouse your attention to the cause of
my uneasiness; more especially as no doubt remain
ed, but the importance of the occasion would jerf.
tify me in begging public assistance for a poor man,
through whom the trade, which is the life of our
city, was like to be mortally stabbed: At the fame
time, I thought it necessary to state so many of
the proofs and observations, as would enable you
to form a judgment of the justice of the cause;
for I had no expectation of interesting you in it,
unless you were convinced, not only that it was
of importance to the public, but also that it was
such, that honest men and good citizens might
engage in it without loss of reputation#
The proofs I laid before you were moflly of a
public nature, and the arguments drawn from them
were natural and such as would occur to every
man of common understanding, they required nei
ther the persuasive voice of eloquence, nor the
artful dress of shining abilities to gain credit with
the mind, and convince the judgment. To be
fatisfied that they were truly stated was fufficient,
for this reason, I was the more careful of avoid
ing every possibility of being mifinformed—and 1
am well persuaded there is not one fad mentioned
in the whole state which cannot be fully proved.
The public attention was in a small degree raised,
they were eager in their enquiries, and a probabi
lity appeared that some steps would be taken for
their fafety : The Officers of the Customs were
alarmed, they endeavoured, by the mouths oftheir
dependants, to quiet the minds of the people, widely
were every day more and more agitated; this me
thod proved inadequate ; a tool could not be found*
to enter into every circle where the matter was
talked of, and juftify the attempts of the Odicers:
it was thought necessary to publish something tend
ing to lull the suspicions of the people, and by
stating a part of the case ftript of its alarming and
dangerous circumstances, to persuade the inhabi
tants that nothing which could injure their trade
was intended.
For this purpose a letter is published io the
Journal of the izthinftant, direfled to me, urto'er
signature of A. N. replete with contradi&io; ,
absurdities and misrepresentations, and containing
but one article that had the fnadow of reasoning.
The whole tenor of this performance induces roe
to think that the Officers cf\he Curiums did n
take the necessary pains to inftruci the writer in
fads; and that to shew his zeal for them and en
title himfelf to their further notice, be vastly ex
ceeded his commihion. However this mioht be.