The Pennsylvania packet, or, The general advertiser — Lancaster, Pa.;Philadelphia, Pa., 1779-08-14 00:00:00, page 1

Philadelphia, August 2, 1779.
NOTICE is hereby given, That a Ge
neral Meeting of the Commissioners for the City
and County of Philadelphia will be held in their Cham
ber at the Court-hoafe, on Saturday the fourteenth in
stant, at Ten o'clock in the forenoon, in order to take
into consideration, and proceed against such Collectors
of the Public Taxes, as Shall then appear delinquents,
agreeable to the laws of this State.
By order of the Board,
GEORGE HONEY, Jun. Clerk.
Nenv-Jerfey, August 5, 1779.
At Chefnut Neck, on Tuesday the feventeentn inltant,
at Ten o'clock, will begin the sales of the following
Vessels and Cargoes, viz.
rriHE sloop Clinton, and her cargo of about thirty
Xhogsheads of molasses.
The Schooner True Blue, and her cargo confiding
of lumber and codfifh.
The privateer Schooner , Virginia built, with
her &uns, stores, &c. as (he came from sea.
The privateer schooner Yankey Witch, with her
arms, seres, &c.
The fdhooner Polly Sly, with her cargo of Tobacco.
Inventories of the vcffels may be seen at the time and
place of file.
By order of the Crart of Admiralty,
JOSEPH POTTS, Marshal.
_
Philadelphia, August 4.
Just imported from Ireland, and to be fold at the (tore
of Messrs. J. M. NESBITT and Co. in Front-
Street,
AL ARGE assortment of plain and printed linens,
fineft Hollands, lawns, cambricks, cotton and
linen checks, silk stockings, handkerchiefs, and Several
other articles.
WANTS EMPLOYMENT,
As an Affiftani in a store, or as a Private InftruCtor,
A PERSON capable of teaching the Greek and
Latin Languages, English Grammar, Geography,
Writing and Arithmetic, &c, Enquire of the Printer.
TWO HUNDRED POUNDS REWARD.
RAN A WAY from the fubferiber, living in Bal
^ timore-Town, a Servant man named ROBERT
BEARD, a Scotchman, about twenty-eight years of
age, about five feet fix or seven inches high, has Short
brown curly hair, and is well set: Had on and took
with him, a brown linen coat and waistcoat, two cearfe
white linen Shirts, and two pair of trowfer?, a new hnt,
2nd old Shoes. He Served his time in Annapolis with
Mr. Claude, Watch-maker. Also an apprentice named
JONATHAN ADAMS, about five feet ten or
eleven inches high, dark brown hair which he wears
tied, and is about nineteen years of age: Had on and
took with him, a country cloth coat and waistcoat, two
coarse white linen fnirts, a round hat, and two pair of
troffers. Whoever takes up the said apprentice and
iervant, and secures them in any gaol so that their mas-
Cer may get them again, ftiall have the above reward,
cr ONE HUNDRED POUNDS for each, paid by
July \ 9 . CALEB SHIELDS.
N. B. It is likely they may change their names and
cloaths, and pass for tailors. All matters of vessels are
forewarned carrying them off at their peril.
Weaving done and Spinners employed.
ftCT HOS zl industrious matrons, and others, who
have a quantity of yarn which they want wrought
ir<to cloth, are hereby informed, That the fubferiber
Iras now in his Service a number of good workmen, and
proposes to employ Several looms in town and country
work. They may depend on care and punctuality.
H< !has for file, a variety of Goods of his own manu
facture, such as coatings, fagathies, jeans, linens, &c.
at his hou4e in South street, between Fifth and S xth
rtrlets, and near Sugar alley.
5 SAMUEL WETHERILL, Jun.
The HIGHEST PRICE
IS GIVEN FOR
CLEAN LINEN RAGS,
BY
jO HN D U N L A P.
GERMAN ALMANACKS,
For the YEAR 1780,
TO BE SOLD BY
JOHNDU N L A P,
In Market-Street, Philadelphia.
#s^j^mC»^^^
GENERAL
S A TU R DA Y,
[ Price 2s. 6d. Single, # 2s. by the quantity. Published every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. ]
O R
To the GOOD PEOPLE of IRELAND.
'rHE misery and distress which your ill fated country
• • has been so frequently exposed to, and has so often
experienced, by such a combination of rapine, treachery,
and violence, as would have disgraced the name of govern
ment, in the most arbitrary country in the world, has most
Sincerely affeCted your friends in America, and has en
gaged the most serious attention of Congress ; the Mini
stry of Britain have seen the extreme meanness and folly of
the attempt to establish a supreme authority in Parliament,
as their venal Scribblers had endeavoured to define it, ex
empt from qUeflioN and controul, appeal or reftriCtion ;
but it it evident to all the world, that such doctrine is in
compatible with every idea of a civil cohflitution ; for all
compacts, bills of right, nay, the solemn obligation of their
King to govern according to the flatutes in Parliament a
greed on, and the laws and customs of the fame, would
have been all nugatory trumpery, were such a Supremacy
admitted ; for this supreme authority having no rule or
law to direct its operations, or limit its power, it must
necessarily become arbitrary and absolute; for ceasing to
be a government by force, and it will appear fully evident
that this unnatural war, in which we have been unavoid
ably engaged, has been begun and Supported for no other
purpose than to establish this supreme or arbitrary power,
for they are individually the fame; nor is it in the power
of sophistry to draw a line of reparation ; the flimfy and
contradictory speech of lord North, introductory to his
conciliatory motion, furnifties the fu'lef lconviction on this
point. He fays, “ before the war broke out he offered a
conciliatory proposition. The ground upon which he
made it was. That it was just the colonies fliould contri^
bute to the Support of government." And almost in the
fame breath he fays, " he thought it necessary to shew the
colonies we were not fighting for taxation, for he never
thought taxation would be beneficial to us " He farther
fays, " he never proposed any tax, his maxim was to fay
nothing about America, neither to propose or repeal laws,
neither to advance nor recede, but to remain in total si
lence." His lordship, I hope, will excuse me, if 1 pre
sume to look beyond the acknowledged indolence of his
disposition, to explain this flupor of a firft minifler, and
the case is very obvious ; for as soon as their five regiments
Should have completed the conqmeft of America, it Should
lie, with the lives and properties of its inhabitants, at the
mercy of the conqueror's sword. The very names of assem
blies, conventions, or charters, those odious appendages
of democratical power, Should be finished,and the tyrant's
fiat Should henceforth become the law of the land, and
hence Sprung the torpedo that benumbed the minister's fa
culties; •
His lordship fays, his proposition was misinterpreted or
misunderstood, and was rendered suspicious by a Supposi
tion of a variety of cases; the Congress treated it as un
reasonable and infidicus, and rejected it. War began,
and his intention was from the beginning, at the moment
of victory, to propose the fame proposition in terms obvi
ating all the hlifreprefentations and mifunderftamdings
concerning it. Here it is confeffed, that this wife and
virtuous administration, at every hazard, and at a certain
expence, has almost annihilated public credit, have been
looking for vidory which has never come, and itruft never
will come; and which, if it did, must have been accomplish
ed by the murder of fellow-citizens, sooner than clear their
own propositions of their ambiguity and suspicion.
And what deprives them of the colour of excuse for the
horrid barbarities of the war, the city of London, in the
m®ft refpedful language, petitioned the throne to declare
clearly and explicitly before the war commenced, what
they wifhedto have done on the part of America ; but all
to no purpose ; they would not, they dare not declare
their true object The solemn appeal was made, and, for
the honor of virtue, the comfort of human nature, and the
terror of oppression, it will be indelibly recorded in the hi
storic page, that a few virtuous citizens c@uld effectually
resist the most vigorous efforts of the most powerful tyran
ny, and thereby establish the freedom of the western world
for ever. To arrive at power, Gustavus like, by a bold
effort of courage, proves at least the exifience of one vir
tue, at the fame time that we detest the treachery ; but to
facrifice rhe public treasure, to devote every effort of ra
pacious taxation, and the fruits of an ever growing excise,
to this idol of madness and folly, to establish a fyfiem of
venality, by which the price of every man's integrity and
abilities was to be determined, to stipulate the precise con
dition for which he Shall treacherously betray the interest
of his country, and violate every obligation of private
friendship and public virtue, to beat down every fence to
honor and principle, to destroy the very bond and frame
of civil Society, to make the pillage of property tne means
to accomplish the plunder of liberty, and to drive the
people into all the miseries of a civil war, in pursuit of this
dream of power, are instances of such determined depra
vity as are not to be described even in the language of a
country where new villainy adds to the catalogue of crimes
almost every day. The perfect Similarity of the declarato
ry aft of supremacy, and that relating to your country,
viz. that Ireland Should be subordinate so and depend on
the imperfai crown of Great-Eritain, is very obvious § but
• ^^^^ ^,ra%
T H E
ADVERTISER #
this declaration ex parte can avail nothing, at the fame
time that it furnifhes the most inconteftible and decisive
P r °°' s that no such tubordination or dependence was ever
undetftbod before, or there would have been no necessity
for such an aft.
The navigation aft, which had been framed for the foie
purpose or Securing to the BritiSh fubjefts all the advantag
es to be derived from the commerce ot their own Settlements,
has by Subsequent a&s been framed into the most odious
, CT°k"' ^onop^y that could be devised ; creating
local difbh&ions and commercial schisms, giving privilege
to one set of fubjeds to the injury of others, and operat
ing on all the indited Provinces as an opprefhve tax, com
prehending all the taxes of Britain, however variously foo
tmed or compounded And we wish to have it forever
fixed on your minds, that by a monopoly of trade every
pretence to internal taxation is given up ; for were you e~
ven without a constitution of your own, and as dependant
as usurpation has endeavored to make you, the monopoly
of your trade is 0 ore than a full and equitable compensa
tion for all other tax,, and it will not appear paradoxical
to futurity, that the rife and fall of the British empire have
been owing to this aft, and the engine by which the wife
politician, who framed it, designed to wind up and con
nect the Eritilh interest all over the world, we have seen
employed as the wheel on which British liberty and gran
deur have difgfacefully expired. °
The anticipation ot public revenue has fixed the crifisof
Britain, tue labour of their people for all Succeeding ge
nerations being engaged to pay the interests of their public
debts. I cannot suppose it an unfair deduction to fay they
are all born in a Rate of Slavery, for an obligation to wdik
for any other purpefe than one's own advantage, is truly
the condition of a Slave, and every new tax adds a link to
the chain. Ehteven in this gloomy pidure there is a dawn
of hope, all bodies are capable of refraction to a certain
degree, beyond which it is impossible to expand them ever
so little without absolute deftrudion. It is evident to all
the world, that the nerves of public credit in England are
on the rack of extension, and the dreadful explosion must
fo'low of cotirfe; and can it be supposed that the fyOern
of weakness and folly, that has so long ufij r ped the namd
of Conftithtion, can Survive the Shock ; and their people
may yet hope to fee a vigorous young one grow out of the
ruins of the old.
I have it in my commission to repeat to you, my good
friends, the cordial concern that Congress takes in every
thing that relates to the happiness of Ireland ; the, are
sensibly affected by the load ofoppreffive pensions on vour
establishment, the arbitrary and illegal exactions of public
money by King's letters ; the profufe dissipation, by sine
cure appointments with large Salaries, and the very arbi
trary and impolitic reftriaions on your trade and manu
fadures, which are beyond example in the hiflory of the
world, and can only be equalled by that illiberal Spirit
which directs it, and which has Shewn itfelf so abundantly
in petitions from all parts of their islands, and in the de
bates in their House of Commons, when you had been
lately amused with the vain hope of an extension of your
trade, and which were conduced with such temper and
language as might be supposed to Suit their copper colour
ed allies in America, but must fix a flam on the character
of a civilized nation for ever;
When I had the plealure of residing in your capital
some years ago, it gave me pain to observe such a debility
and morbid langour in every department of your govern
ment, as would have disgraced anarchy itfelf; the laws
are too weak to execute themselves, and vice and violence
often reign with impunity ; and even the military with
you feera to claim an exemption from all civil restraint or
jurisdiction,and individuals are forced to trust to themselves
for that Security and protection which the government of
the country can no longer afford them. We congratulate
you however on the bright profped which the western he
misphere has afforded to you, and the oppressed of every
nation, and we trust that the liberation of your country
has been effected in America, and that you never will be
called on for those painful, though meceffary exertions,
which the sacred love of liberiy inspires, and which have
enabled us to establish our freedom for ever.
We hope the political Qpixottes of Great-Britain will
no longer be able to disturb the peace and happiness of
mankind, and which Providence has permitted perhaps to
Shew the monftfous abuse of power; yet ioft to all public
virtue as they are, we wish they may turn from their
wickedness and live; and we doubt not the noble efforts
of America will meet the full approbation of every virtu
ous Briton, when they Shall be able to diftinguifli between
the mad pursuits of government and the true interest of
their people. But as for you, our dear and good friends
of Ireland, we must cordially recommend to you to con
tinue peaceable and quiet in every possible Situation of your
affairs, and endeavour, by mutual good will, to Supply
the defers of administration. But if the government,
whom you at this time acknowledge, does not, in con
formity to her own true interest, take off and remove every
restraint on yovr trade, commerce and manufactures, [
am charged to assure you, that means will be found to
establish your freedom in this refpeft, in the fuller and
AUGUST %
Tag