The New-Jersey gazette — Burlington [N.J.], 1779-03-24 00:00:00, page 1

Mr. Collins,
TN the firft number of the United States Magazine,
4 lately published at Philadelphia, appears a repre
sentation and remonstrance, addrefol to the people of
America by one Hard-money, and filled with low
angry railing against me by name. RefpeN for the
dread tribunal before which the charges are brought,
and not the fear of conferences from the disappointed
spite of this accuser, induces me to request that through
your means I may be produced in court to answer for
myfelf. Continental Currency.
To the P ÜBLI C.
The currency of tbe United States in answer to
The representation and remonstrance of Hard-money,
in all hnmble-wife vindicating, faith:
f r,HAT for any apprehensions of his character
fuffering from the envious and interested
attacks of his accuser, he fliould not have
& diverted the attention of his countrymen
from objects of higher moment by placing himfelf
before them. Veneration for established custom and
the course of the court where every application ought
to be heard, and no one should think himfelf ex
cused from answering, induces him to make his ap
pearance. He is moreover excited by observing that
the tories, as they are called, plume themselves not
a little upon the boldness and daring of the accuser,
who is one of their fraternity ; and knowing they
will pradife their wonted arts to turn this incident
to the advantage of their party, he prays to be in
dulged in the mention of a few fads and remarks.
In the beginning of the contest with Great-Britain,
this Hard-money was apparently a warm and decided
Whig. When I firft entered into public life I found
him flourifhing away in the patriotic style, cheridiing
and guiding the spirit of resistance, and uttering
high terms of defiance against the British Ministry.
He had peremptorily declared his disinclination from
being sent any longer to Great-Britain for goods, an
occupation he used to follow ; he had made a journey
to Boston, shortly after the port-ad took place,
where he spirited up the people against the British go
vernment and the Haft-India company; and when
the army was embodied at Cambridge, entered for
wardly into the service. From a natural attachment
to such as espoused the cause of my country, it was
not surprising he afterwards became of my acquaint
ance, and he often said to me, somewhat pertly I
thought, " let us pledge ourselves to stand or fall
with the fate of America." From the firft I had
shrewd misgivings that this blazing patriotism would
consume itfelf; that the thing had not bottom ; and
that it would soon slash itfelf out. So it happened.
As soon as the aspect of affairs became doubtful, and
the conflift began to involve decisive extremities, this
man of parade made his company scarce among us,
and in a little time wholly disappeared. Whether
he skulked among the difaffedted, or passed over to
the enemy, is not worth enquiry. In the estimation
of honest thinking men, the one case is as culpable
as the other. Even indifference and neutrality in such
a conjuncture is, if possible, more unjuftifiable than
difaffedioA. It has indeed been confidently asserted
that from the beginning he kept up a correspondence
and intercourse with the enemy, and like the bat in
the battle of the birds and beasts, hovered to find
the stronger fide. A line of conduct in which, to
the shame of feme I must fay it, if he did move he
did not move solitary. That he has been with
the enemy since, is unknown to no one. But now
our pretensions begin to prevail, and his fears are up
that he will be ranked with the failing party, like a
frozen snake fcaringly peeping forth in the spring to
get a little sunshine, he comes freaking out with a
half knavish and half foolifh look, and having no
other means of tiding himfelf into the acceptance
of the publick but by diminishing tbe merit of those
who stand in his way, he attempts to throw down
my character in order to help up his own. Adolo
rous tale is also told of hard restraints and dreary
durance in defies and dungeons, the current language
of every tory on his return from the enemy. Who
can doubt this is mere craft and pretence, and that
the reality is far otherwise.
How this fugitive has dared to come again among us
after having aCted a part so obnoxious, I am at a loss ;
for I give no credit to that idle surmise of his having
a pass from some of our officers, or his being covered
from the operation of the law by an order of C ,
as it was maliciously said Mrs. Y —'s goods were.
I rather believe that being at his desperate rifque he
is endeavouring to make the best of a bad predica
ment, and, if no better can be, to run the venture
of the mercy of his country, but too lenient to such
offenders. For this unprincipled renegado after
having traitorously deserted his country in the hour
NEW-JERSEY GAZETTE.
{Vol. ll.]
WEDNESDAY, March 24, 1779.
of danger, after having served the enemy as far as
his cowardice would permit him, to wind himfelf
into this venerable court and talk of feelings and emo
tions and of his being the nerves of government, is
not only an unequalled stretch of impudence, but a
downright burlesque upon the use of words. Deli
cate truly must those feelings and emotions be, and
hopeful would have been the condition of our go
vernment had it depended for Itrength and bracing
upon thele nerves.
I cannot deny myfelf observing that in the abound
ings of his ridiculous rage, he is guilty of a bare
faced contempt of the court before which he comes
with his plaints and grievances. He derogates from
the judgment of the common people, as he is pleased
to style them, on whom he insinuates I have been
able without much difficulty to impose. This is a
new mode of appeal to the people, an effeft probably
of the polifliment of travelling. Before the court as
originally constituted, my country in the compre
hensive body of the people, I wish to stand, though
1 may thereby incur tltf censure of unpoliihed home
spun breeding. I cannot in a free government hear
with forbearance of difquaiifying the commonalty
for the judgment-feat on many accounts, one of
which is, I know not what uncommon thing would
be left behind, or in what hands the security of inno
cence, truth and justice would rest. Such a broke
of eloquence shews the company he has kept. The
form of address is retained in' Great-Britain from
ancient and virtuous times, but the meaning is de
plorably altered. The people are addressed, but the
common people are not to be comprehended in this
idea. They will do, means the oratour, for service
and burdens, but are they fit to decide on the conduct
of gentlemen ! Unluckily for him he is ignorant of
something which I hope he will soon be experiment
ally taught and widely mistakes the ground on which
he ftancis.
The apostate talks of my credit being slender and
unequal : another mark of the society he is connect
ed with.—Among the difaffeCted I am so happy as
not to be in credit: I never wish to be. As much as
I value the good-will of every one, generally speak
ing, I delire to be excused from theirs. Their friend
fhip in my estimation is hostility, their praise, dis
grace. Such, I know, as far as their interest coincides
with their inclinations, are delighted with any fcem
ing misfortune which may happen to me, nor is the
realon far to seek. Whether the mention of this
particular ought to operate in the favour of him who
makes it I cheerfully submit, and leave it without
further ftrifture, except totally denying that the
aflertion will hold with respect to any found and
principled whig. To a few shopkeepers, engi oflers
and sharpers, a kind of cattle he is fend of herding
with, it may indeed apply; a great matter to him,
scarce as he is of partisans, a trifle to one rich in the
public confidence.
This aukward braggadocio has the effrontery to
talk big of his birth, education, figure and breeding,
partly in direCt terms and partly under the colour of
difeuffing mine. I shall fay nothing of myfelf in these
icfpeds, both becaule I am averte from explaining
what I might call my own good qualities whether
natiiial or acquired, and becaule no one is ignorant
of any particular whatever concerning me. Among
my fellow-citizens have I openly led my life; I have
never concealed myfelf from public view, I have
never owl-like fhuuned the face of day-light, or left
my country to seek fafer and better times in the
interest and service of its enemies. What I with to
remark here is an instance of that unaccountable
though common foible, which induces 'the shallow
and weak-minded to value themselves most upon
that in which they have the least semblance of excel
lence. This Hard-money, amidst all his Draining at
high figure to cover real fad, and pretending to
derive his genealogy from the fun-beams is well
known to be defeended of as low, obfeure, mongrel
and motley a mixture as any to be met with. The
old man of the family is a mulatto, the mother an
Indian; one only of the race has any tolerable pre
tensions to whicenefs of complexion, and this must
be the effect of baftardifm or of some wild anoma
lous lulus nature, or whim of nature, as the philo
sophers call it, which however has no influence upon
his low manners ^nd native stupidity. As to estate
and occupation, it can be afcertaiiied that he came
over from the eastern continent to South-America
many years ago in straitened circumstances ; there
drudged at mining and fifning, and might have ac
quired a handsome competency had he npt sent all
he could scrape up to Europe for fineries, to which
the family have an unconquerable propentity, and
which as well become them as superb trappings would
THE
a mill-horse. As to education I know he has had
the belt oppoi tunities and has travelled much, but
what do thele avail where they have nothing to work
upon but solid dullness. The utmost scope of his
learning is to repeat a few historical dates and Latin
names without dehgn, sentiment or coherence. Let
any judge whether I did not make greater progress in
knowledge, daffical as well as moral and political,
in the courle of one year, than he has made in all
the centuries of his life. As to travelling it is well
known I am not yet come to the proper time of
life for improving that advantage, nor were I, could
I think of leaving my Itruggling country till the con
test is over. lam not Hard-money who fculks away
traitorously, cowardly and lelfifhly when his service
is most wanted. When the season arrives, and I
hope it is not far off, I flatter myfelf I fliall travel
to much more advantage, both to my country
and to myfelf than he has done.—His figure for
footh is an object of much felf-complacence. In
this and similar cases the publick will determine
how tar such an extrinfick and accidental quality,
woe it even possessed in a high degree, ought to weigh
in the eftimatiiig of worth. I fhaL lonly fay that
having lately happened within ken of him on one of
his by-road excursions I had an opportunity of ob
serving, but Inch a rusty, old-falhioned, fquallid,
bizare, lousy objeCt never did I meet with in the
tiaverle of a Bedlam. An old worn-out weather
beaten, long-bearded miser who had not seen the
fun in a twelvemonth, but had been bending, peer
ing and brooding over his rusty bags, could not have
exhibited a more outlaudifh caricatura.—As to his
breeding I mean to be silent. There is no need of
Ipecch. A lelf-evident proposition can be rendered
doubtiul but in one way, and that is by setting about
to prove it. The uniform tenour of his conduct is
at " ar "^ a ' 'kind of breeding and politeness.
Diftrufring himfelf upon the ground of reasoning,
or what he would perhaps call so, though I believe
he never found the way to logick, he resorts to scrip
, which he appears to be but late-read, other
wise he would have known that this book, out of
which he quotes the land of Havilab, and Micah and
tie Dunites, calls him a calf, and applies to him
epithet of a ienfelefs blockhead; and so he
must be, or he would have been silent on this fubjeft,
'°! £t IS . evident enough from what he hints he has
a Incaking inclination to bring up again the exploded
fashion of graven images, and would be highly tickled
with homage and adoration. But thanks to the good
sense of modern days which has brought him down
to the office of a flioe-boy instead of splicing him up
into a god. ° "
, ^is lupplanter has impudently invented a story
I, m y! cttin ^ f° r m y picture in order to hide his own
baseness, and destroy the force and effeft of truth by
cloakiugit. I will lay the fads before the publick,
the connftuncy of which will prove the train of the
whole tianfact on. Ihe British Ministry in conjunc
tion with their General in America, were mean
enough to make use of the instrumentality of this mif
and some of his associates clandestinely to take
my likcnefs. They had frequent opportunities of
doing this when I was upon duty on the lines. By
this means they endeavoured to deceive the people
into a belief that I had attached myfelf to their party,
and engaged in their service. Unfortunately at the
time tacy undertook this piece of rudeness and vil
lainy my clothes being worn out in the labours of
campaigning, I had a suit made at York-Town in
Pennsylvania, which feeing not so well executed, they
found it level to their abilities. This I have laid by
and expeft shortly to appear in one which will be a
touch above their ingenuity.
llow often has this ikulker secretly traversed our
country in older to sow the feeds of bribery, cor
ruption and venality among us, a trade which he
leai ned to high perfection during his residence in
Great-Britain! Who does not remember that the
British Commissioners brought him with them as an
instrument fitting for their use, when they came to
Philadelphia ? Here he was a busy servant. And
who can have forgot that he was apprehended,
formally tried in Congress, condemned on the cleared
evidence not only for his own personal treachery, but
for endeavouring to circumvent and corrupt others,
and would no doubt have been hanged had henot
broke gaol and fled?
One thing further I wish to take notice of, that
throughout his whole remonstrance he has carefully
avoided making pretensions to whiggifm. Two rear
sons decide him in this case. Weak and unprinci
pled as he is, he does know it would operate against
him to fay in direct terms that black is white, and
white black. That one who is known to be apeftilent
[Numb. 68.]