The New-Jersey gazette — Burlington [N.J.], 1780-09-13 00:00:00, page 1

B OSTO N.
By the return of a Cartel from England, we have
obtained a set of a new paper, intitled, " The
Scourge," to No. X, which we propose to pub
lish in rotation weekly, 'til we have gone through
with them.
The SCOURGE. [No. I.]
Saturday, January 20, 1780.
NOTwithftandipg too many of our countrymen
are degenerated into all the vilenels of abjeft
sycophancy and a ll&vilh submission to lawless pow
er; yet we are determined, however hazardous it
may be, not to remain unconcernced fpe&ators of
the ruin of our country. We have lived to lee our
rights and liberties, and the sacred constitution of
the empire, most daringly invaded, but we will not
live to fee them destroyed; the wounds by which
they fall shall firll reach our hearts, and the crimson
torrents of our blood be shed as a libation on the
pile of expiring freedom. He who can tamely fee
a corrupt ungrateful tyrant and his minions wanton
ly destroy the natural rights of mankind, the pro
perty and the blood of thousands of his friends and
fellow-fubjeds, only to survive their miserable fate
and be the next victim to his cruelty and lust, mull
be a wretch indeed ! he can have no claim to the
protection of heaven, nor to the rewards of good
men. The AUTHORS.
NINE-tenths of the Euglifli nation will, we are
persuaded, agree with us that there never was
a set of men at the head of affairs in any kingdom
upon earth, who deserved not only to be scourged,
but to be punilhed (without even the form of a tri
al) so much as the present most abandoned ministers,
with which the King, in his great wisdom, has been
pleased to curse this nation; and with persevering
obstinacy peculiar to himfelf, is determined to con
tinue in power, notwithstanding they have destroyed
more than one half the empire, shed oceans of blood,
and wafted millions of treasure; and he has done it
in dired opposition to the prayer and advice of more
than two-thirds of the people. It must be confef
fed there is something great and magnanimous in it,
it is acting the imperial tyrant with a witness, and
at once bidding defiance to reason and common sense,
to justice and humanity, and to all laws divine and
human ; but what have they todo with the will of a
King in this country, when he and his minions can
traiteroufly bribe the representatives of the people
with the public money, and turn them like a nose of
wax to their own purposes?
If these are fads, and we dare, we defy the most
barefaced, impudent ministerial hireling to deny the
truth of them, what man who calls himfelf an
Englishman, but what must detest and abhor such a
united band of traitors to their country, and join
with us in holding them up to public contempt, and
to the just resentment of an insulted, plundered and
almost ruined nation. This is no time for fulfome
Compliments and adulation, the spirit of the people
mutt be roused, they must be made acquainted with
their own strength, their own power, and with the
dignity of human nature; and these must be exert
ed with resolution and firmnefs againit the despotic
and bloody designs of that corrupt, base and wicked
confederacy, supported and encouraged by the King
at Buckingham-house, against the laws, liberties and
properties of the people, to the absolute deftruCti.m
of the state and kingdom.
It is not only the duty of the people, but it is
ftriCtly lawful and just to oppose and defeat the pre
sent system of government, which evidently tends to
the utter subversion of their rights and liberties, and
the very small remains of property they have left,
frem the all-grasping hand of thole merciless plun
derers, those state leeches, who would drain from
them their last fnilling to answer their diabolical pur
poses. By the law of God and of nature, every
man has a right to defend himfelf against the abuse
of any power, and by the happy conllitution of this
country, when kings and ministers break thro' the
bounds preferibed by the laws, the right of the peo-
NEW-JERSEY GAZETTE,
[Vol. lII.]
WEDNESDAY, September 13, 1780.
ple to refill is unquestionable. For as rhe end of all
civil government is the lafety and happiness of the
whole body, any power not naturally conducive to
this end is certainly unjutt, and the people have an
undoubted right to oppoie and refill it. The King
and the people enter into a foleinn compact oragree
ment with each other ; the King to govern well and
according to the fundamental principles of the con
stitution; and the people, while the cootrad is leli
gioufly adhered to, and faithfully performed on his
part, ought to honour and relpect him; but if he re
gards his own interelf, and that of a few worthless
minions, in preference to the happiness and welfare
of the people, he forfeits, of courle, every claim to
their affection and eiteem, and merits their utmoll
contempt and indignation for his bafenels and in
gratitude.
Let every disinterested, unprejudiced, and unpen
fioned man survey, with candour and impartiality,
the present black and gloomy lituation of our affairs,
and regulate his conduct accordingly. Trade rapid
ly declining ; the middling and lower clals of peo
ple groaning under the opprellive burthen of partial
and unjuit taxes, levied for the vilell and molt wick
ed purposes; the whole commerce of America de
ftroved, and that land which used to be esteemed a
paradise made a stage of cruelty and lust; our mer
chants ruined, our prisons filled with llarving insol
vent debtors; our navy unable to face the combined
fleets of France and Spain; our armies defeated ;
a number of valuable islands loft ; the whole landed
property of England scarce fufficient to pay the in
terell of our enormous national debt, and daily in
creating, which must in the end overwhelm us in one
general ruin; the common rights of mankind, and
the personal liberties of the people most daringly at
tacked and openly violated by the King and a cor
rupt legillature, and thousands of our fellow-fubje&s,
with laige families, dragged like criminals from their
dearest connections, by alett of abandoned delperate
ruffians, legally authorized; merit and virtue ne
glected and despised, and those only advanced, at
this time, who are willing to become inltrumenis in
the horrid work of daughter and delpotilm.
The means of redress for these enoimous evils are
in the hands of the people, and they must be molt
fhamefully degenerated if they are wanting in spirit;
it is a duty they owe to God, themselves, their
country, and to posterity. Out brave and virtuous
forefathers, who left the most valuable inheritance
of any in the whole world, a free government, in
their last prayers befeeched the Almighty, that their
posterity might enjoy the bleflings of freedom no
longer than they had lenle to value, virtue to deserve,
and spirit to defend them.
Liberty is to the collective body, what health is
to every individual ; without health, no plealure can
be tasted by man ; without liberty, no happiness can
be enjoyed by society ; therefore, the obligation to
maintain and defend the constitution will appear most
sacred to every rational thinking mind. Men who
are sensible of themselves, and of their own dignity
and rights, will never flirink from the lervice of their
country, nor promote its interelf with coolness and
indifference, but on every occasion be ready to rille
every thing in its defence. 1 hey will behold, with
the utmott unconcern, the ridicule and cenlure of
those tools of power, who would drown the voice of
freedom in the clamour of a court faction, buch
fl. t ves ought to be treated with the molt sovereign
contempt, because they are the known enemies to
freedom, from that antipathy which private interest
and the lust of power, for leltilh ends, will ever bear
to true patriotism and public virtue.
Let them please themselves ,with making a King
absolute. who think a whole nation may be Sacrificed
for the interests and plealuies of one man and his
adherents. Let others rejoice in their subtlety, who
by betraying their trull, have advanced themselves;
perhaps they may loon find that they have, with
much pains, purchased their own ruin, that rhe King's
power is their shame, his plenty the people's milery,
and that the gaining of an office, for the lake of en
riching themselves, is but a poor reward for deftly-
THE
ing a nation, and that they will fnortly fall a just fa
critice to the revenge of a greatly injured people.
What man will dare to deny, or even doubt, that
when a nation is fallen from the greatest height of
glory, by the obstinacy of a King, and the mal-ad
mimllration of his m'nifters, into the most despicable
and ruinous condition, that the people have no right
to relcue their country out of such hands. Every
man ought to know, that by the principles of the
last revolution he is bound to refill any King, who
may endeavour to ruin the kingdom and enslave the
people, and that he may pulh this refinance even to
the dethronement and exclusion of his race. The
laws and constitution are the general property of the
fubjeCt; not to defend is to rclinquifh ; and who is
there lo stupid and senseless as to renounce his Share
in a common benefit, unless he hopes to profit by a
new division in the spoil. Ihe highest station, and
the greatest glory any man can aspire to, is to be
the lupport of good, the controul of bad government,
the protector of virtue, the patron of industry, and
the guardian of public liberty. When our rights
are invaded, our feelings ought to tell us how long
Ihe should Submit, and at what moment it would be
treachery not to refill. Ihe present lituation of this
kingdom is alarming enough to rouse the attention,
and to demand the assistance of every man who pre
tends to the leall concern for the public welfare.—
Bad as it is, there is no extremity of distress which
of itfelf ought to reduce a brave people to despair.
A lukewarm conduct is always odious, in times of
national danger highly criminal. We owe it to our
ancestors, to preserve pure and untainted, those rights
and that constitution which they have handed down
to us at the expence of their blood; and we cer
tainly owe it to our innocent posterity, not to fufl'er
their dearest inheritance to be destroyed. By one
glorious struggle against the despotic and ruinous de
signs of an infamous ministry, and the all-grasping
power of the crown, this country may yet be saved
from perdition. But if all hopes to eltablifh once
more the spirit and the virtue of our ancestors, who
fuccefsfully refitted kingly tyranny, are vain, then
all expedition of the constitution's remaining entire,
and our continuing to be a free people, must also be
vain, and we may expeft to fee the fame violence,
villainy, and madnels pradifed over again with re
doubled vigour. Refinance is therefore become ab
solutely necessary, and cannot be prosecuted by the
people with too much ardour and resolution, if they
mean to save themselves and their country from de
struction.
FEW occurrences appear more alarming and dan
gerous to the security of Great-Biitain, than
the accessions of the European powers to those neu
tral confederacies which are hostilities in disguise.
1 he Court of Portugal has now intimated to France
a resolution to embrace the system that was propos
ed by Rullia.
The Court of Madrid has prepared an answer to
the declaration of Russia, and observed, that " the
King received with pleasure the overtures made to
him on the part of the Empress relating to the mea
sures that Princels purposes following, as well with
regard to the Courts actually at war, as the neutral
ones; that these principles are actually the fame
which guided the King, and which he did all in his
power to make Great-Britain also like; that from
the beginning of the troubles, his Catholic Majeify
did not depart from the system of equity and mode
ration that he (hewed to all the powers of Europe,
and that it was. only the arbitrary proceedings of
England that obliged him to use more vigorous mea
sures; that as the English, so far from refpeCting
neutral flags, had even attacked vessels whole car
goes were authorised by treaty, it was necessary for
Spain to watch her own interest ; that the King, be
sides the frequent proofs of his equity that he has
already given, further declares, that he is determin
ed to pay all possible deference to those neutral pow
ers who determine to protest their flag, and that he
will faithfully observe that engagement till England
[See the lull page ]
LONDO N, May 20.
[Numb. 142.]