The Pennsylvania packet, or, The general advertiser — Lancaster, Pa.;Philadelphia, Pa., 1779-09-18 00:00:00, page 1

arising among those of his own nation referred to him ;
and he ought likewise to support the dignity of his office,
and not fuffer it to be fuliied by a practice of any mean
ness, or a derogating from such a behaviour as may justly
be expeded from one who has the honor to serve his Ma
jesty; it is also his duty to secure the esteem of the go
verning people where he lives if possible, as by this means
he may often influence and obtain favours for his fellow
fubjeds in their commerciel concerns.
“ A Consul's income varies according to the place of his
residence, as those of Tripoli and Algiers have salaries
from the Crown, those in Turkey a certain duty on the
goods loaded and unloaded, and all others in Europe a
stipend from the ships only. Their patent given by the
King must be approved of by the State they are sent to,
before they are allowed to exercise their functions.
“ A Consul is no public Minister, as he has no affairs
of Bate to manage and, consequently, has no pretence to
' a protedion from the law of nations but from that which
the subsisting treaties of peace and commerce give him ;
however, as a servant of the State that employs him, he
may expert that countenance and support as a good master
would (for his own fake) afford his domestic or dependant,
and this has been demonstrated on many occasions.
" The Governor of Cadiz having once affronted and
confined the Dutch Consul, the States General complained
thereof to the Court of Madrid as of a violence done to
the law of nations, instead of urging the non-execution of
those treaties, from which alone they ought to have ex
pefted fafety for their pretended Minifler, and not else
where. Some years since they attempted to make their
Consul (wh® resided at Genoa) pass for a public Minifler ;
but the Senate wrote them, that it did not acknowledge
him as such, and that all which it could grant, or they
expea for him, was the peaceable fruition of those rights
and privileges which custom had bestowed on this kind of
employment. The generality of Consuls are only mer
chants, who notwithstanding their office of Judge in the
controversies that may arise among those of their own na
tion, carry on at the fame time a traffick, and are liable to
the laws of the place where they reside, as well in civil as
in criminal matters, which,s altogether inconsistent with
the quality of a public Minister though were it is other
wise, and a Consul does not trade, I think a proportiona
table regard and refped ought to be paid as due to his
sharader?'
<r CONSULS were originally chosen by the Prince
from among the merchants residing at the place of
their appointments, and were generally proposed by these
letter to the Ministry as competent judges of the fitteft per
sons to preside over mercantile affairs, and their recom
mendation has commonly been attended to and regard
ed.
Father Abraham's A LMANACKS,
AND
GERMAN ALMA^eACKS,
For the YEAR,,Bo,
TO BE Sq, D BY
JOHN D U%N L AP.
TothePRiNTER of the PENNSYLVANIA PACKET.
SIR,
EXCLUDED as we have been by Great-Britain
from a commerce and intercourse with other nations,
it is no wonder ignorance should sometimes occasion mis
takes and errors. The privileges of performs residing in a
,üb ; ic character among us may by this means be uninten
tionally viol ited, md difrefpea shewn which better know
ledge would prevents I have therefore sent you an extract
from Beawes's Lex Mercatoria, a book of credit, in which
the privileges and duty of a Consul are described, by which
it will appear that, though not ftriftly public Ministers,
they are e titled to a share of refpeft and attention much
beyond that of common merchants or fubjeds of a foreign
nation; and which you are requeued to publish for general
information.
A.
"The office is not a very modern in dilution, and has been
found so necessary a one as to be adopted by every European
nation, who mutually fend Consuls to reside at almost every
considerable port of trade ; and though at firft they were
merchants, and this and their consular office not deemed
inconsistent, yet in process of time there was found an in
convenience in the joint difeharge of them, and at Lisbon,
Cadiz, and other places of great trade, the commercial
fun&ion has for many years past been fwal'owed up by
the aonfular ; though he continues to trade as other mer
chants do, in places of less note and income.
' A Consul to be properly qualified for his post ought to
be master of the language where he resides, and to have
thorough knowledge of the genius and tradeof the natives,
as well as a capacity to judge of, and decide the differences
OR THE
GENERAL ^^^fe ADVERTISER
SATURDAY,
[ Price 2s. 6d. single, 2S. by the quantity. Published every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. ]
The following Memorial, prepared by the Special Com
mittee, appointed at the last Town Meeting, for flop
ping the emissions, was on Monday last presented to
Congress, being signed by the President and Council, in
their private characters, the Speaker and several Mem
bers of Assembly, by the General Committee of the Ci
ty and Liberties, and a very large and refpeftable num
ber of the Citizens.
To the Honorable C 0 NGRESS of GUNITED States
of NORTH-AM£RICA.
The ADDRESS and MEMORIAL of fandr. Inha
bitants of the Cit, and Liberties of Philadelphia.
Humbly fteiuetb,
THAT whereas at the commencement of the present
war, the country being then destitute of the proper
forms and powers of Government, there appeared no other
method, fufficiently expeditious and praAicable, for rail
ing the current supplies, than by striking money by this
Hon. House, in such portions and at such periods as to
them should seem meet and proper. The necessity gave
countenance to the proceeding, and, convinced thereof,
the whole country unanimously acquiesced
But it is with concern, most honorable Sirs, that we have
seen the fame measure parfued beyond the time which we
conceive rendered it either necessary or expedient ; the
consequences of which have been, the impossibility of keep
ing up the credit of the currency to any fixed standard, the
great and almost unsurmountable embarrassments in ascer
taining the value of property, or carrying on trade with
any fufficient certainty Those who fell and those who buy
are left without rule whereon to form a judgment of their
profit or their loss, and every species of commerce or ex
change, whether foreign or domestic, has been exposed to
numberless and encreafing difficulties. The conttant ap
prehension of further emissions has at all times anticipated
the depreciation, and contrasts in trade haye, in order to
preserve a balance with the emissions, been necessarily con
ftruded to suit what the depreciation would probably be,
rather than what it really then was. To all which we
ought, in justice t® our fellow-citizens whoare engaged in
the military service of their country, to add, that on them
has the depreciation fallen with peculiar and multiplied in
conveniences. Neither does it form a small part of our
concern that, in the course of more than four years, your
constituents have never been made acquainted with the
expenditures, or the utes to which they have been applied ;
all which, we apprehend, arises from the continuance of a
practice at firft jurtified by the necessity before mentioned,
but now fuperceded by the establishment of constitutional
and legal Governments in the several States, we mean that
of striking money at diferetion, in preference to the calling
on your constituents for the current supplies, and laying
before them an estimate of the yearly expences. Neither
can we help expressing our apprehensions, that the ease
with which money was thus procured has introduced a re
missness of enquiries into the reality of its application ; all
which we hope will in future be remedied by a systemati
cal plan of economy, and a regular information of ex
pences.
Altho', as a matter of right, we fllould be juftified in
conveying our inftrudions in a legal manner to our parti
cular Reprefehtatives in this Hon. House, to forbid, on their
part, the farther encreafe of emiffioms, yet, as evils of such
an intricate nature cannot be remedied in an inflant, and
as we are not moved to this address by any interested par
tiality to ourselves, or locally to the State we live in, but
as friends and fellow-citizens with the whole community of
the United States, we have therefore judged it most consis
tent with and most conducive to ths general good to make
our application to this honorable House at large, ’requeft
ing in the most earnest, but st the fame time most rrfped
ful terms, that Congress would be pleased, in the most de
cisive and explicit manner, to determine what the extent
and quantity of the emissions shall be, and when and where
they shall flop. Your constituents, feeling the justness of
their cause, and fatisfied that it is the will of Heaven that
America shall be free, are net and will not be wanting in
their portions towards toe necessary supplies, and it is
with the utmost pleasure we inform this honorable House
that a laudable spirit is extending itfelf, for raising a reve
nue by fubfeription, in order to enable Congress to put a
period to, the inconvenien es so extensively felt and so loud
ly complained of, by limiting and fixing the quantity of
the emissions, and the time when they sh a ll finally cease."
Extras of a letter from General Sullivan, dated Tioga,
Auguji 20, 1779.
I^I AV E the pleasure to inclofe your Excellency a copy
of a letter from General Clinton, by which you will
find that' the much desired jundion will be formed to
morrow. I inclofe you a copy of my orders to General
Poor, who, in company with Gen. Hand and 1000 chosen
troops, have joined General Clinton. I hope, on Mon
day the 23d inst. to begin a rapid movement into the In
dian country.
I suppose the Indians must be collecting their force
about French Catharine's or Conofadago; but I am con
PHILADELPHIA.
TH E
SEPTEMBER.^, to!
Cop, of a letter from Gen. Sullivan to Gen, Washing
ton, Ne^utomsn, August 3 0, 1779.
IHAVE the pleasure to inform your Excellency,
that having formed the junftion with General Clinton with
out loss, we marched from Tioga the 26th in the afternoon ;
therains bad swelled the Cayuga so as to render our march
to Chemung very difficult, as we had to ford the river
twice in our rout. We arrived there in the morning of
the 28th, and marched for the place early in the e
vening of the 29th ; about 11 o'clock a messenger from
Major Par (who commanded the rifle corps, an ad
vance of the light troops of the army under Gen. Hand)
informed me, the enemy had (about a mile in front of the
town) a very extensive breast-work ereded on a rising
ground, which commanded the road in which we were to
pass with our artillery, and which wottid enable them to
fire upon our flank and front at the fame time. This
breast-work they had endeavoured to masque in a very
artful manner, and had concealed themselves behind it in
l? r ^e numbers. I had before been apprized of the enemy's
having a very large encampment at that place. I found
that the work was in a bend of the river, which, by turn
ing northward, formed a semicircle. There was a deep
brook in front of this work, over which the road passed
and then turned off to the right, parallel to the course of the
rising ground upon which their works were conftru&ed
which would enable them to flank the line of march of
one column of our troops, had it advanced, without dis
covering the work. They had also posted on a hill about
one hundred and fifty rods in their rear, and considerably
on their left, a strong party, in order, as I suppose, to fall
on our right flank, when we were engaged with the works
in front, and to cover the retreat of the troops which oc~
cupied the works, in case they should be carried, and to
take advantage of any disorder which might appear among
our troops in the pursuit. This hill was very advantage
ously formed for their purpose, as it terminated in a bluff
point about a mile in the rear of their works, and about
two hundred yards from the river, leaving a hallow way
between the hill and the river, of about 150 yards,
and ending on the north in a very narrow defile. This
hollow way was clear of trees and bushes, and was
occupied by them as a place of encampment for part of
their army. General Hand formed the light corps of the
army in the wood within four hundred yards of their works.
The rifle men in his front kept fkirm'ifhing with the tie',
my, who frequently (allied out and suddenly retired, ap
parently with a view of drawing our men into the works
which they supposed had not been difeovered, for the growth
upon the hill being pine, interspersed with very law ffirub
oaks, and they having cut off oak Ihrubs and fluck them
in the ground in front of their works, they had some occa
sion to suppose that we should not be able to diftinguilh
them from these growing on the eminence. General Hand
remained at his post until I arrived with the main army.
General Poor's brigade, which formed the right wing of
the main army, displayed in the rear of General Hand's.
General Maxwell's brigade, which formed the left wing*
came a breast with General Poor, and remained in column
ready to aft as occasion might require.
It was observed that there was another chain of hills
terminating in a p@int rather in rear ©f ourright, and
about one mile distant from the right of our line
It was conjectured that the enemy had taken post upon one
or both of the hills, in order to fall on our right and rear
when we attempted to attack their works. General Poor
was therefore detached to gain the hill firft described and
fall into the enemy's rear. Small reconnoitring parties' were
likewise detached to make difeoveries at the other hill, and
to giveoetice of any appearance of the enemy there •' and
still to guard more effe&ually against any attempt' from
that quarter, General Clinton's brigade, which forms the
second line of the army, was ordered to turn off and fol
low in the rear of General Poor, to sustain him, in case of
necessity, or to form a line to oppose any force which might
might fall in his rear, or attempt to gain the flank or rear
of the army. When a fufficient (pace of time was given
t@ General Poor to gain the hill in their rear, our ar
tillery was to announce our attack in front, which
was to be made by General Hand's corps, support
ed by General Maxwell's brigade, if necessary
General Maxwell's brigade was therefore held ina
closed column in order to give the necessary support to the
attacking party, or to form a line to oppose any force
which might attempt to attack us in our front or rear-
Col. Dubois, with the right flanking division of the army
consisting of two hundred and fifty men. was advanced oa
the right of General Poor; and Col. Ogden, with the left
flanking divifiom of the army confiding of two hundred and
fifty more, was posted near the river, with directions as
vinced, that no force they have can now injure us. Ge
neral Clinton burnt a small number of towns as he came
down the river, which seemed to have been forfaken some
time. Brandt was wounded in the foot at Minifink, and
had arrived at Chemung before we burnt it ; we took the
mare he rode home, but he escaped, leaving her load,
ed with beans and corn : He is said to be rendered unfit
for service for this campaign.