The Connecticut courant, and the weekly intelligencer — Hartford [Conn.], 1783-01-07 00:00:00, page 1

A GREAT variety of low
priced, mixed Coat
ings.
Blue and red do.
Blue, red, brown and white
narrow Frizes.
Scarlet, green and brown
Ratteen.
Blue Kerfey.
Superfine, middling and low
priced Broadcloths, of a
great variety of colours.
Blankets,
Embaffed Serge.
Scarlet and clouded Caffi
imer.
Black prunella, and Floren
-1 tine.
Rich black Sattin.
Black, blue and white Mode.
White and purple silk Serge.
Black Calimancoe.
Black and Scarlet worsted
Breeches pieces.
Mensfilk, worsted andthread
Hose.
An assortment of handfeme
Calicoes and Chintzes.
Seven-eight and yard wide
linen.
Brittania's.
Dowlas.
Black and white Lace#
Black and white Gauze.
PROPOSALS,
For printing in a neat Pocket Volume, handsomely bound
and gilt with gold on the back,
REGULATIONS,
For the Order and Discipline of theT roops
of the United States.
CONDITIONS.
This book will be printed with a new Type, on good Pa
per, of the fixe of a Crown Duodecimo, and will contain
about 160 pages, adorned with eigh: elegant Copper Plates.
The Price to fubferibers will be only Six Shillings each.
The, who fubferibe for fix shall have a seventh Gratis,
and they who fubferibe for one hundred shall have twenty
five Gratis.
It will be put to Press as soon as 300 are fubferibed for,
and finished in about fix weeks from said time.
Subscriptions are taken in by Mess. Thomas and Samuel
Green, Printers in New-Haven ; Mr. John Trumbull, Prin
ter, Norwich; Mess. Babcock and Hafwell,Printers, Spring
field; Mess. Bilentihe and Webber, Printers, Alkan, ;
Mess. Willis and Wight, Mr. Robert Hedge, Mr. Nathaniel
Cover!,, Printers, Bolton ; Mr. William Green, Mr. Ben
jamin Larkin, Book-Binders, Bolton ; Mr. Bavil Webber,
Printer, and the fubferiber, Hartford ; and by a number of
gentlemen in leveral of the United States.
NATHANIEL PATTEN.
Hartford, Dec. 22, 1782,
WE the Subferibers being appointed Commissioners by
the Hon. Court of Probate, far the diftrid of East-
Windsor, to receive and examine the claims of the credi
tors to the estate of Cape. Phineas Grover, late of Glaften
bury, deceas'd, represented insolvent ; do hereby give no
tice. that we will attend on said business at the house of
Josiah Hale, on the firit second and third Mondays of Fe
bruary next, from two o'clock afternoon until fix.
HOWEL WOODBRIDGE,) ,
JOSIAH HALE, ) Commit rs.
G^ftenbury, Dec. 23, 1782.
Jeremiah & Ebenezer Platt,
Have just come to hand an assortment of French
and Dutch GOODS, imported in the
last vessels from France and Holland; which
are to be Sold at their Store in Hartford,
on the most reasonable terms, for Cash, Bills
of Exchange, Loan-Office Certificates, Mas
sachusetts State Notes, the Hon. Robert
Morris's Notes, Bank Notes, Flour, Pork,
Beef and Grain, of all forts, viz.—
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ITrw?T7T7" TV TXTqrinT j W/M TXTf 17 T>
WBJoK.LX 1M JI. Hr LLl(ztiAChlx.•
HARTFORD: Printed by HUDSON and G OODWIN, near the Great Bridge
Black and white gauze hand
kerchiefs.
Printed linen handkerchiefs.
Plain, striped and fprig'd
Muslin.
Striped Gingham,
Striped Sattin for Gowns.
Cambrick and Lawn.
Cotton Romalls.
Coarse and fine thread.
Sewing Silks of all colours.
Broad & narrow, plain and
twill'd Tapes.
Mens leather Gloves.
Womens coloured worsted
Mitts.
Do. white cotton Glaves.
De. white silk Gloves an
Mitts.
Do. Black silk Mitts.
Do. leather Gloves.
Black and coloured Gymp.
Womens Stays.
Muffs and Tippets.
Quality Binding.
Buckram.
Writing Paper.
Looking Glasses.
An assortment of Ironmon
ce^ , . 1
Nantz Brandy, in anchors.
Philadelphia Snuff, in blad
ders, &c. &c.
T U E SD A Y, January 7, 1783.
For the CONNECTICUT COURANT.
THE encouragement of works of Literature
and Genius, has in all great and civilized
nations been esteemed an object worthy the pub
lic attention. The works of the Scholar, the
Historian, the Philosopher, Orator, Poet and
Divine, are the principal means of diffufing life
ful knowledge and inftru&ion, regulating the
manners of mankind, and providing a rational
entertainment to the mind, by which it may be
at once delighted and improved. And foreign
nations form their opinions of the character of
a people in a great measure from the merit of
their literary productions, and ever brand those
countries as Rupid and illiterate, in which the
works of genius are not cultivated and encou
raged.
America is known and celebrated throughout
Europe for her martial spirit, her military geni
us, and that ardour of liberty, which has so long
and so fuccefsfully enabled us to oppose the pow
er, the pride and the usurpations of Britain :
while those who have read the political addresses
of our statesmen, and the productions of our ce
lebrated writers have acknowledged, that in ge
nius we are no way inferior to the writers of
foreign nations. Perhaps there is no one of the
united Rates, in which knowledge, and a good
taste are more generally diffufed, or polite lite
rature has been more fuccefsfully pursued, or
better encouraged by the public favor, than the
State,of Connecticut; and nothing would be
more conducive to its honor, than to give the
firft example to the rest of America, by encou
raging productions of genius by public a&s of
the legislature.
As we have in this country no g° : >.men of
fortune fufficient to maintain them in the sole
purfyit of literary studies, it is certainly neces
sary for the encouragement of Genius, to secure
to every author the profits that may arise from
theTale of his writings. A work of Genius is
a work of time. Virgil employed eleven years
in composing his Eneid, and dying at that pe
riod, ordered the work to be burned, because he
considered it as by no means finished and cor
rected. Milton spent nine years in close appli
cation to his great work of Paradise Loft, which
he had been fletching out in various forms at
different periods for more than twenty years be
fore. Nor was any production of singular me
rit ever offered to the world which was not
the effeCt of long labor, study, and application.
I could name two gentlemen of acknowledg
ed genius, who have spent years in preparing for
the press, Poems which I doubt not will be boast
ed of by every American, as an honor to his
country, which do not yet fee the light, but wait
only for public patronage and encouragement.
It is certainty a principle of natural justice,
that the writer, who has spent a great part of his
life in Rudy, and wafted his time, his fortune
and perhaps his health in improving his know
ledge and correcting his taste, when he rifques
both his money and reputation in the publication
of works, which cost him much labor in the pro
duction, should be entitled to the profits arising
from their sale, as a just compensation for his
trouble. Nor can any thing be a greater dis
couragement to a writer of genius, than on the
firft publication of a work, to fee some mean
and ungenerous Printer, who so far from hav
ing any just right to the sale of his pieces, per
haps has not fufficient taste or learning to under-
Rand them, immediately seizing his, work cut
I of his hands, reprinting it in so mangled and in
i elegant a manner, that the author must be afha
j med of the edition, and defrauding him of the
; whole profits of his labors.
I Such is the situation of an author in this court
;try. When by long labor and close application,
he hath compleated an elaborate performance,
, he can find no Printer, during the present state
tof copy-rights, who will run the rifque of the
,publication, and allow the author so much as the
common day wages of a laborer, for the time he
has spent in its competition. He must there
;fore take on himfelf the whole rifque of its fuc
fcefs. It is impoflible he should lie concealed.
I He is known and stands forth the butt at which
I all the arrows of criticism and censure are aim
jed. If his performance chance not to please he
I loses all hope of profits by the sale, the edition
;lies on his hands, his expences in the impreffibn
iare loft, and he stands on record, as a dull wri
;ter the obje& of ridicule for a mistake ofhis abi
[lities. If he succeed, the world immediately di-
I vide into parties, and while one part purchase,
I admire and applaud, the other will be equally
I virulent in opposing him by censure and mifre-
I prefentation. It is impoflible to plcafe all man-
I kind. Those whose sentiments, or practices he
has opposed, are at once his enemies, and em
ploy their whole endeavors to blast his reputati
on. Even his friends and acquaintance, are
fond on every occasion of mortifying that pride
and vanity, which is too often the concomitant
of genius. States more distant and foreign na
tions, who know him not, may admire and praise
him, and some part of that honor will redound
to the Rate and country in which he is born for
having produced a writer of such literary en
dowments and original merit. But at home,
and where he is known, every pleasing instance
of applause, will be more than counterballanced
by the censures of ignorance,, and the aspersions
;of envy. If he attempt humour and ridicule, he
is at once dreaded and hated as a satirist, and
every yritty passage in his writings shall be wfeft
!ed and d^torted to found a charge of irreligion
and profligacy. Nor can the most unblemished
moral character, nor the most well known re
-Igard for the doctrines of chriftianity, be any
fnield of defence, against wilful slander and ma
levolent misrepresentation. And shall not the
author, after all his expence of time, labor and
I health, after all these rifques of fortune, friend
fnip and of reputation, have some hopes at least
ofa pecuniary compensation from the profits of
his labor ? No. The moment his work has
gained the public attention, he finds it reprinted
by another, and all efforts, of ilander, advertise
ment, fhbfeription, and every other ungenerous
method taken to .prevent the sale of his edition.
Even his own fubferibers forget their obligati
: on, and fuffer many hundred copies printed per
haps only to fatisfy their fubferiptions, to lie on
ihand as waste paper, while they wholly neglect
;their engagements and perhaps purchase the
I meaner and therefore cheaper edition of the
;mercenary invader of his property. While amid
! the calumnies with which his enemies are over
whelming his reputation, he has this sole conso
lation that bis whole labours have been employ
'ed only to enrich the man, who had used every
art to injure and defraud him.
1 Surely there is no kind of property, in the na
ture of things, so much our own, as the writings
which we originate meerly from our own crea
ture imaginations. Whoever wishes to fee this
(No. 937.]