The New-Jersey gazette — Burlington [N.J.], 1784-05-03 00:00:00, page 1

On the LIBERTY of the PRESS;
/nd a certain nonfenfeat Advertisement against
Scipio.
PART V. and Last.
SCARCELY had I taken up my pen to begin
this paper, but I recollected the advice of
the wife man, answer not a fool according
to bis folly. Struck with the thought that
I had entered the lifts with orator Henley,
in contradiction to holy writ, I immediately returned
it into my inkhorn. I paused and pondered : But
soon recollecting that this fame wife man, and in the
very fame sentence, commands us to answer a fool
according to his folly; I weighed and compared. Is
not this a mystery? Is not this a contradiction ?—
Profane and deiftieal men may indeed give it that
turn: And that turn profane and deiftical men have
given it. But all the contradiction in it is merely
verbal. The maxim itfelf, according to its true import,
is like all the other apothegms of Solomon, founded
in wisdom, and tel'ted by experience. Anfiver not a
fool according to his folly, fays this divine philoso
pher, left thou also be like unto him. Answer a fool
according to his folly, he subjoins with equal propri
ety, left be be wife in his own conceit. Jhe scrip
ture, which contains an inexhaustible magazine of hu
man, as well as of divine knowledge, never really
contradicts itfelf, though in many instances it may, to
fuperficial readers or corrupt wranglers, appear felf
contradidory. The whole verse taken together, ac
cording to its true meaning, is replete with wisdom,
and contains an invaluable aphorism. Men of the best
sense may want proper directions how to deal with
fools. Solomon has given them those directions.—
There is a time to be silent, as well as a time to speak:
And a wife man ought at no time to answer a fool by
imitating his folly. If the latter boasts and swaggers,
and raves and threats, and prints nonsense and bom
bast, the former will not boast and swagger, and rave
and threaten, and print nonsense and bombast as he
does, because then he would be like unto him. In
other cases however, as when there is a probability
that he is not absolutely incorrigible, nor irrecovera
bly hardened in the fins of felf- conceit and impudence,
when there is a probability of either serving him or
the publick ; we have reason to think that we can
in this way bring him to justice, and make him ac
count to his country; and that without answering him,
he will triumph in our Silence, coil himfelf up in his
own felf-importance, and vainly boast that he is un
answerable—why, in that case, an 3 cer him accor
ding to bis folly, left be be wife in his own conceit.
Having promised in a former paper to be more co
pious in a future one, upon a very malevolent calum
ny of orator Henley, that I had treated the Assembly
with illiberality, 1 now proceed to fulfil the engage
ment.
It is probable enough, considering the natural pride
of mankind, that in every legislature upon the conti
nent there may be some Supercilious felf-iinportant tur
key-cock individual, who thinks it high treafen for
any plebeian even to surmise it pollible, that the main
body is capable of committing an error, while his in
fallible Honour is a member of it ; and that the very
supposition is highly derogatory from their dignity,
and consequently indecent and illiberal. But our Le
gislature has not so learned liberty. They never Stu
died the rights of mankind in pilgrimage with the
British army. They know their rights as Legisla
tors; and they know ours as their constituents. At
any rate, we know the latter, and are not afraid to
maintain them.
Like a free citizen of a free state (and free at the
expense of infinite blood and treasure) I difeuffed, in
a paper to which my antagonist alludes, the resolution
of our Council for bringing a late ircafurci to a legal
trial for a considerable Sum of money in dispute be
tween this state and the said treasurer. I gave it as
my opinion, that as the citizens of New-jersey are
intimately concerned in this contest, they had an un
doubted right to have it legally determined: That no
fatisfadion which this man could give to either of the
Honourable Houses (and with the pretence of which
NEW-JERSEY GAZETTE.
[Vol. VII.]
TRENTON: Printed by ISAAC COLLIN S, Printer to the State.
MONDA Y, MAY 3, 1784.
be would eternally pester both, if they could have the
patience so far to facrifice their time, and proper busi
ness, as to hear his endless garrulity) could never
amount to such determination. That their decision
was coniequently Short of what the people were en
titled to—a fair judicial adjudication, which must be
final and fatisfadory to both parties. Are not these
fair conclusions from undeniable premises ? And is
there any high treason in this logick? Is there in it
the least appearance of ill manners or want of rtfped
to the Assembly? Sure I am, I meant none. We
are under great obligations to our Allemblies, for un
dertaking the trouble of serving is ; ^d that for a
very Scanty allowance, and at a time when feme men
were making their compliments to General Howe.—
We aie under still greater obligations to them for
serving us with fidelity; and often to the great in
commodity and embarrassment of their own private af
fairs. For this trouble, for this fidelity, for this fa
crifice of th p ir time, and often of a considerable part of
their fortunes, we are, I fay, under great obligations
to them. We ought, moreover, from their refpe&a
ble Situation, and their dignity as the representatives
of a free people, the original source (mind my good
friend Demosthenes, whatever the British or Hessians
may have told you to the contrary, the original
source) of all dignity amongst us, to pay them all the
refpeft and reverence due to their elevation. This
obligation is still heightened, when they serve their
country with a fingie eye, and from the Sole motive
of serving it. When they are not ambitious of, nor
seeking for, publick honours ; but are themselves, on
account of their merit, fought for by the people in
their rural retirement, and their more beloved Shades
of private life; and not hawking and peddling, and
cringing and coaxing, and trimming and turning, and
parlianienteering for three years, before they can ob
tain a majority of voices; and finally obtaining it by
uttering falfe prophesies and endless orations, and pro
mising to work such miracles as they know they cannot
work, and which they ought not to work if they could.
But after all their rank and dignity, they aie in one
sense, and in a very important sense, the servants of
the people. By undertaking the trust, they become
responsible for the due execution ofit. If they wil
fully betray it, their constituents will call them to ac
count. If they commit involuntary errors, their con
stituents have at least a right to point them out, in or
der to caution both them and others against the like
mistakes in future. As they represent the whole com
munity, they represent every individual elector in it,
as a component part of the totality of their represen
tation. Every individual therefore has a right to
submit his fentiroents receding their conduct to his
fellow-electors, his brother-citizens, in order to bring
it under general consideration ; and by that means, if
really prejudicial to the society, to final amendment.
The wifett men may err; and no publick bodies are
infallible, even when such a cardinal Alberoni or Pope
Boniface makes one of the conclave. Cur Assembly
would not be the only good men, nor the only wile
men, that have been deceived by confident affections,
and infinite tergiverfations. In the present instance
there certainly was an error fomeuhere. When tire
Council and Assembly differ in fer.timent, one of the
two branches must as certainly be right, and the other
as certainly wrong in point of opinion, as that two
opinions, diredly repugnant to each other, cannot
both be right. Is it high-treason, is it a misdemean
or, is it illiberal, for a free citizen of this state to fay
which of the two has, in his opinion, mistaken the
point? Where has our orator imbibed this idea of
American liberty? I fear in the fame anti-republican
School of political heresy, the Britfb lines.
But as to the cardmal point between us, the money
in quefion, he calls for my vouchers. I tell him I
will not give them. This matter I presume is not to
be fettled betwixt him and me by a paper war. Had
I no other objection to this ; and could the people be
Supposed willing to receive, as I am sure he would be
very ready to tender, such payment, the length itfelf
of the dilpute would be an unlurmountable one. But
does he really think me such a blockhead, as to dis
close to him, in this stage of the controversy, the evi
dence which I have reason to think will be produced
The
against him upon his trial ? He does not think it.—
But it is just like the man, to believe that by thus
calling for vouchers, which he knows no person liv
ing, who wants to have him faiily tried, will ever
communicate in print, he can amuse the credulous,
make an ofteutation of innocence, and avert the day
of reckoning. I will not do it.
but ma)K what we have already loft by hitherto
delaying his prosecution, and leaving him Su much lei-
Sure lofeek out inventions. Why he has at least dis-
Coveied that this fame money was no money. It was
only intended money. It was not yet in efe or en
i/ien^, bur only in potentiality or pofbility. It was
a kind of embryo, or Sort of foetus, conceived indeed
io his womb, but not yet brought forth ; a conception,
but no real birth; and with which, as he now plainly
intimates, he intends to p^ us off, as with a falfe
conception. Why what a witch of Endor, to be all
this while in such a fright at the real body of Samuel,
when he knew it was only a falfe apparition. If no
money was ever in Iris custody, certainly no money
could ever go cut of it. And why then so terrified
about a trial? Why not plead what some Sheriffs
often honestly return on a Scire Facias, and others as
dishonestly in other cases, in the words of his and
their falfe latin Nicbil? But by this intended mo
ney, friend Henley ! there hangs such a tale, that woe
will betide thee, whenever it Shall be told. Such a
tale, that whenever it is told, will make thine ears to
tingle Still more than the patriotick dodor from the
hotfe-block pulpit at Ringoe's. Such a tale—-but pru
dent men do not adduce their evidence before the
cause is at inue. Till then, therefore, good night to
you, with a Short and friendly word of advice. Think
more. Talk less. Write not at all. Account pro
perly: And never forget the Spanish proverb, that he
whose boufe is made of glass, foould not throw
foxes. And so your most humble servant, Sir,
S C I P I O.
Foreign Intelligence.
L ONDO N, January 28.
F IHE rmprefs of Russia has offered the King
I of Spain the sum of a million and an half
sterling for the island of Minorca, and five
thousand tons of hemp per annum for ten
years, for the Spanish navy: The Ministry of Madrid
are all for accepting the offer, but the King is against
it ; however, he has not given a positive negative. The
french Ambaflador was highly alarmed at the offer.
Jan. 3c. She following requisition, already Signed
by 7° members of P^rlumpnt has been preferred by
Mr. G r osvenor, in consequence of his proposal in the
House of Commons for an union among the leaders
of the present contending parties:
" We, whose names are hereunto Signed, Members
of the House of Commons, being fully persuaded that
the united efforts of those, in whose integrity, abilities,
and constitutional principles, we have reason to con
fide, can alone refeue the country from its present
diftraded state, do join in most earnestly intreating with
them to communicate with each other on the arduous
Situation of publick affairs ; truftir,g that, by a liberal
and unreServed interccurfe between them, every impe
diment may be removed to a cordial co-operation of
great nd refpedable characters, anting on the fame
publick principles, and entitled to the Support of in
dependent and disinterest men.
And we do depute to present this re
presentation and requisition to his Grace the Duke of
Portland, the Right Honourable Lord John Caven
dilh, the Right Honourable William Pitt, and the
Right Honourable C. J. Fox, in our names."
Feb. 2. In consequence of the great quantities of
dollars lately brought from Spain and America, there
has been a great reduction in the price of silver. For
some days past, dollars in bags of a thousand ounces
each, have been fold at the bank at ss. and 3d. farthing
per ounce.
It is rumoured that their High Mightinesses intend,
by the medium of their Ambassadors at Paris, to re
quire of the British Ministry a further explanation of
the Preliminary Articles, left the Treaty of Pcac:
[Numb. 312.]