The New-Jersey gazette — Burlington [N.J.], 1778-06-03 00:00:00, page 1

I HEARTILY congratulate you upon the
agreeable news we have received from France,
since I had the pleasure of meeting you last in
this plage. The treaties of alliance, and of
amity and commerce, between his Mpft Chris
tian Majesty and the United States of America,
by which our freedom, sovereignty and independence,
are fully recognized, ratified and guarantied^and
our trade left free and unembarrassed, are so advan
tageous on our part, and display such generosity and
magnanimity on that of otir illustrious ally, as can
not but excite in our breasts the most cordial refped
for that powerful Monarch, and the devoutest ac
knowledgment of that propitious Providence which
hath influenced the heart of a foreign Prince to in
terpose his assistance for delivering us from the bloody
prosecution of one so lately our own. As we were
at firft compelled into a declaration of independence,
it was the highest wisdom to Solicit a suitable alliance
for its security and support. To both these mcafures
we may appeal to the whole world, that we were
drived by a tyrannical King, a venal Parliament, and
a flagitious Ministry. Indeed the conduct of ourop
preffors has, thro' the whole course of the war, been
fe infatuate and remorfdefs, as if Hearer had de
prived them of common sense, as well as Hell iu
ipired them with all its malice. But their day of na
tional correction is fwiftly approaching. Their un
paralleled cruelties both in the eastern and western
world, have at las tenkindled the Divine vengeance ;
and the judgments of Grid are now overtaking a na
tion which has filled up the measure of its iniquity ;
and long been the most impious and irreligious of
any in Christendom. To chastise her inference, the
force of France and America is now united in art ih
dinolublc league, flow must haughty Britain be
confounded at the dreadful news ; andettrfe the fa
tal con sequences of her moon-struck policy ? Methinks
1 fee her power and grandeur crumbling into ruin,
and all her towering honours, levelled with the durt.
That decisive influence which she has long maintain
ed in the scale of Europe, is now rapidly verging to
sullen impotence ; and the mistress of the ocean Be
come the contempt of those very • potentates, who
lately revered her councils and trembled at her arms.
But how speedily soever she may be doomed t'm final
perdition;, it is opr duty to guard against the vindic
tive effects of her expiring struggles. "When all the
horrors of desperation seize her ; and utterly hope
less of conquest, (he determines to rife even above
herfelf, by some figral stupendous ad" of barbarity,
having, like the Devil in the apocalypse, grear<vratb,
because jfe h%uetb that she hath' but Jhort time ,• The
may attempt to desolate what ihe finds it impossible
to subdue. Against such ravage and deftruflion, to
which, we know by experience, it is not beneath
her dignity' to condefeend, it is our ihtereft to op
pole the most strenuous exertions. We want only
one spirited and general effort to expel her remnant
of h&nditti.from the Continent, and forever to eman
cipate ourselves into compleat and uninterrupted li
berty.: One campaign more will, in all probability,
decide the important contest :. And in whose favour
it is likely to terminate, is written by the hand of
Providence in characters too legible to be rtiifunder^
flood. '
The alacrity Of our men to enter into the service,
; and the great §ifpatch with.which our battalionrare
competing, must alfo'affc&every lover of his coun
try wkh Angular pleasure. .f- :
. 'The refolutibh of Congress of the 19th of March,
.refpefting the raising the quotas of rhefy and the pro
viding their accoutrements, is herewith laid before
i¥°u, together with that of the 17$, of April, pur
suant to which this State is only ttfegmpleat three
regiments of infantry in the manner' recommended
by the resolution of the 26th day of February ht.
Gentlemen,
As you rose at the last fitting of the Affcmb'^ with
out ratifying theArticles of Confederation and per
petuffl'Uniorr between theStartt, I. hope they will
engage-your early attention at the prelent.
The Congress, by their rcfohition of the leth qf
March, havingearneftly reduefted the Governors drd
Presidents ofthe refpeftive States to transmit to them
as loop as possible, attested copies of the acts paired
by their refpeXiye legislatures, in piirfuance of re
commendations of Congress, which they inav have
received since the firft day of November' last, and of
all aXs which they may hereafter pafsin cor/etyaence
Extra's from his Excellency Governor Livingston's
Meface to th General AffUmbh of the State of Neav*
NEW-JERSEY GAZETTE.
[Vol. I.]
GENTLEMEN,
WEDNESDAY, June 3 , 1778.
Tho' I think-it my dutytto Submit 'this resolution
to your furious consideration, because. it is recom
mended by Congress, I danAt think it my duty to
recommend it to your approbation, because it appears
to me,both unequal and impolitic. It may, consist
ently witlr the profoundeft rehetation for that august
Assembly, be presumed that they are less acquainted
with the particular circumflances and internal police
of some of the States than those who have had more
favourable opportunities far that purpose: These
seems, it is true, something so noble and magnani
mous in proclaiming an unmerited amnesty to a
number of difappeinted criminals fubmittiug them
felyes to the mercy of their country; and there is
in reality fomethirig so divine and chriftian in the for,
givenefs of injuries, that it. may appear rather irividk
of future recommendations. You will be pleated to
furnish me, for that purpose, with attested copies of
the afts firft described, with all convenient speed,
I embrace this opportunity farther to communicate
to you a resolution of Congress, of theist instant,
recommending it 'to the fevcral States to empower
the executive authority of such States, from time to
time, to grant exemption^ from, duty in the militia
to such perlons as may; from time to time,, be em
ployed in manufacturing military ft6res and other ar
ticles, for tlie use of the United States.
The present condition of our publick accounts
renders it indispensably necessary to appoint some
person in the character of Auditor, with a fufficient
salary to induce a gentleman of adequate ikill and a
bilities to accept of the appointment.
I hope, Gentlemen, it will engage your seasonable
consideration what measures ought to be adopted
refpetling those amphibious inmates, (ever-willing
citizens to all the purposes of deriving from the State
every legal benefit and protection, but to none of re
turning reciprocal duty and allegiance) who seem
rei'olved, to the very end of the quarrel, to maintain
a kind of Ihameful and most disingenuous neutrality ;
hoping, by not avowedly efpqufing either fide, but
occasionally and-judire&ly abetting both, to secure
to themselves a favourable reception with the pre
vailing party, let that .party eventually prove to be
the oppressive or oppressed. Such political hypocrites
ought, by a general test, to be dragged from their
lurking holes, ferretted out of their duplicity and re
fuge °f lies, and be taught by an a& for the purpose,
that however willing the legislature may be to imi
tate the example of the generous houlholder, who
made no difference in his payments between those
who went to labour in his vineyard at the firft or
eleventh hour ; they are determined not to set the
firft example in the world, of allowing Wages to those
who never would enter the vineyard at all, 'till the
grapes were fully ripe, by the cultivation of others ;
and caine then only with the viewof sneakingly fpung
ing upon, and regaling themselves with, the wine of
other people's expreffing.\
There are in this State many valuable and confci
entiqus citizens, who are fcrupuToas of taking an
oath in the present form, and with the English cere
mony of kiffiog the book ; which they confider as
superstitious, and a remnant of popery. Amidst that
liberality of sentiment, and utter abhorrence of in
fringing upon the rights of conference, which seems
to mark the present ^ra with peculiar luftre ; can it
be confident with found policy, or the generous spi
rit of our ponftitution, to debar an honest man for a
religious scruple from the privileges of society, which
the most profligate and abandoned are permitted to
enjoy in the fulleft latitude? I therefore flatter my
felf that our legislature will be so indulgent to this
scrupulosity, which is at least innocent, as to autho
rize the magistrate in the administration of an oath,
to dispense with such part of it as may embarrass the
conscience, and is beyond question altogether formal,
and in no refpett essential to its nature or solemnity.
1 have farther to lay before you, Gentlemen, a re
fblution of Congress, of the 23d of April, re.com
mending'it to the legiflaturcs of the several States to
pafs'kws, or to the executive authority of each State,
if inverted with fufficient power, to issue proclama
tions offering pardon, with such exceptions and un
der such limitations and reftri<ftions as they shall
think expedient, to such of their inhabitants or. fub
je&s as have levied war against any of the States, or
adhered to, aided or abetted the enemy, and ihall
surrender themselves to any civil or military officer of
any of these States, and shall return to the State to
which they may belong, before thu tenth day,of June
next, and recommending it to the good arid faithful
citizens of those Statesto receive fiich returning pe
nitents with corripaflibn and mercy, and to forgive
and bury in oblivionjch^ir pall failings and transgres
sions.
T H E
bus to Offer any thing in bbftru&ion of the intended
clemency. But .as to the benevolent religion to
which we arc under the higfieft obligations to con
form our conduct, though it forbids at all times, and
a all cases, the indulgence of personal hatred and
malevolence, it prohibits apt any treatment of na
tional enemies or municipal offenders, necessary .to
felf- preservation, and, the general weal of society.
And as to humanity, I could never persuade myfelf
that it confined in such lenity towards our adver
lari'es either British or domestic, As was evidently
produaivc of tenfold barbarity on their part; when
such barbarity Would probably have been prevent
ed by our retaliating upon them the firft perpe
tration ; and confcquently our apparent inhumanity,
in particular instances, have certainly been humane
in the final result. Alas! how many lives had been
saved, and what a feene of iriexpreffible misery pre
vented, had we, fromthe beginning, treated bur bo
f^m-tr^itors with proper severity, and inflicted the law
of retaliaton upon an enemy too savage to be huma
nized by any other argument ! , As both political par
don and punishment ought to be regulated by politi
cal ednfideratiohs, and must derive their expedience
or impropriety from their salutary or pernicious in
fluence upon the community, I cannot conceive what
advantages are proposed by inviting to the embraces
of their country a set of beings, from which Any
country, I should imagine, would esteem it a capital
part of its felicity to remain for-ever at the re
motest distance. It is not probable that those who
deserted us to aid the most matchiefs connoisseurs in
the refinements of cruelty, (who have exhausted hu
man ingenuity in their engines of torture) in intro
ducing arbitrary power and all the horrors of slave
ry, and will oily return from disappointment not
from rcmorfe, will ever make good fubje&s to a
state founded in liberty, and inflexibly determined
against every inroad of lawless dominion. The
thirty-one criminals lately convicted of the most
flagrant treafon,'and who, by the gracious interposi
tion of government, were, upon very hopeful figris of
penitence, generously pardoned, apd then, with hy
pocritical cheerfulnefs, inlifted in our service, have
all, to a man, defertef lto the enemy, and are again ire
arms against their native country, with the accumu
lated guilt of its being now not only the country that
firft gave them life, but which hath, after they had
most notoripiifly forfeited it, mercifully refeued them
from death. Whence it is probable tnat a real Tory
is by any human means absolutely inconvertiblc b
having so entirely extinguished all the primitive vir
tue and patriotism natural to man, as not to leave 3
single spark to rekindle the original flame.—lt is in
deed against all probability that men, arrived at the
highest poflible pitch of degeneracy, the preferring of
tyranny to a free government, should, except by a
miracle of Omnipotence, be ever capable of one
single virtuous impreffidn. They have, by a kind of
gigantic effort of villariy, astonished the whole world,
even that of tfanfeend'ing, in the enormities of def
lation and blood-shed, ' a race of murderers before
unequalled, and without competitor. .Were it not
for these mifereants, we should have thought that for
cool, deliberate cruelty, and unavailing, yndecifive
havoc, the sons of Britain wer^ without parallel.
But considering the education of the latter, which
has familiarized them to the fliedding of innocent;
blood, from the meet thirst of lucre, they have beere
excelled in their own peculiar and diftin^uifliing ex
cellence, by this monstrous birth and eff-fcouring of
America," who, in defiance of nature rind oftiurture,
bate hot only by a reverft ambition chosen bondage
before freedom, but waged an infernal war against;
their deafest connexions, for not making the,ike ab
horred and abominable election, By them have num
bers of our most ufeful and meritorious citizens been
ambuihed, hunted down, pillaged, unhoufed, stolen or
butchered. By theiti has the present contest, cm the
part of Britain, been encouraged, aided and protract
ed. They are, thereferre, responsible for all the ad
ditional blood that has been fpilf by the addition of
their weight in the scale of the enemy• -Multitudes;
of them have fuperadded perjury to treason. At the
commencement of ouroppofition they Appeared , more >
sanguine than others, and, like the crackling of thorns
under a pat, exceeded in blaze and noise, the calm
and durable flame ofihe rteady and persevering.
They have aflociated, subscribed and sworn to assist
in repelling the holtile.attempts of our bowellefs op
pressors. They have,, with awful solemnity, plighted,
their faith arid honour to Aland, with their lives and
fortunes, by the Congress and their General, in sup
port of that very liberty which, upon the firft oppor
tunity, they perfidioufly arm'd to oppose, and have
since facriiegioufly fhorn utterly to exterminate.
[Numb. 27.]