Republican ledger, and Portsmouth price current — Portsmouth, N.H., 1803-05-31 00:00:00, page 2

I have read of the paupers of England
amounting to one seventh of her numbers, &
supported by her annual tax. of nearly four
teen millions of dollars, a sum far exceeding
the whole revenue of the United States ; of
the poverty of,he people of Scotland and Ire
land, of their wretched support, theirthatch d
roofs and cottages. I have read of the vassals
of Russia and Poland ; of the beggars of Por
tugal, and her, degraded peasantry, kneeling
to the contemptible Fidalgoe, and of the
Lazaroni of Naples, who dwell in the caverns
of the earth. I have read of the people of
France driven to madness by the pressure of
public burthens, and presenting an awful
lelfon to rulers, of husbands proftiuting
their wives, and fathers their daughters, to
procure the necessaries of life. And as I
read, the tear of pity stole from my eye. I
have frequently read of diffentions, rebellions
and civil wars which originated in opprefli
on, and the miseries of the people. May
IHeaven preserve us from such calamities!
But I never have read of a nation, who were
ruined by enjoying the fruits of their indultry.
I have never heard ofa people who rebelled
because they were not taxed. To the oppo
sition is due the credit of difeovering, that the
.government has juflly forfeited its claims to
the confidence of the people, by permitting to
them to apply their own monies to their own
use.
It commenced on the 6th day of Decem
ber, 1802. A quorum of the Senate did not
appear until the 14th, and on the 15th the
President's message was transmitted to the
two Houses. He informed Congress, of the
conditional repeal of the counervailing du
ties by the Briiifh Parliament, of the amica
ble settlement between the-United States and
Georgia refpeaing the Yazoo lands, of the
extension of our territory in the Indian coun
try by a cession of more than three millions
three hundred thousand acres of land, and an
improvement incur relations with^the na
tives, of the cession of Louisiana to France,
which he remarked, might " make a change
in the afpe& of our foreign relations," of the
prosperous conditional our finances and the
*payment of more than eight millions of dol
lars of the national debt : He called their at
tention to the necessity of procuring some
small vellels for the public service in the war
with Tripoli; to the pfopiety of eftablilh
ing a Dry Deck It the feat of government,
and to the necessity of making provision by
law for the return of our seamen from other
Countries. He recommended it to them to
prolife every ufeful economy, and not to
impose unnecessary burthens, to cultivate
peace, maintain commerce, fofter the fishe
ries, prote& the manufaaures, preserve
the public faith, to keep within the pale
of the constitution and cherilh the federal
union.
What part of this meflage exhibits evi
dence of a dilpofition to engage in the labors
of general deftruaion ? W>at part of it is
hostile to the federal union, to property,
peace, quiet, or national happiness?
Congress, lb far from proving the exig
ence bt a with to render the public eftablith
ments insecure or precarious, or to hazard
the property, peace, or prosperity, either of
individuals, or of the nation, is also intitled
to high confidence.•
It has often* been remarked by men of
learning, judgment and experience, that a
Sec. 5. And be it further enabled, That a
sum not exceeding fifty thousand dollars,
(ball be and is hereby appropriated, to be
applied under the direction of the President
of the United States, in such repairs or al
terations in the capitol and other public
buildings as may be neceffafy for*he accom
modation of Congress iotheir future sessions,
and also for Keeping in repair the highway
between the capitol and other public build
ings ; which sum (halt be paid out-of- any
money in.the treafury,of the United States
not otherwise appropriated.
NATHT. MACON/
Speaker of the House of Rebrefentatives.
STEPHEN k. BRADLEY,
Pref dent of the Senate, pro tempore.
March 3, 1803.
Approved,
TH : JEFFERSON.
Mifcellarty. :
A^INDICTION
OF THE
MEASURES
OF THE
PRESENT ADMINISTRATION.
By ALGERNON SIDNEY.
“ Where Liberty is—there is my Country."
[continued.]
Lastly, we were told the measures adopted
by tbe.firft session of the last Congress, were
but part of a system of general deltru&ion,
and that the federal fabric would be under
mined piece by piece until it tumbled into
ruins. To refute this calumny it is only
neceflary briefly to state the proceedings of
the last session.
To this fubjea he invited the attention of
Congress, who at their lalt session, appointed
a committee of eminent merchants and oth
ers, to confider and report what, in their
opinion, could be done in furtherance of
treade and navigation. This committee re
ported in favor of veiling the Executive
with power to annul our diferiminating du
ties, whenever the diferminating duties of
Great Britain ihoyld be abolished.
By the persons immediately interested in
the carrying trade, different opinions were
entertained ; some thought the proposed
measure would be lilghly Dcnehciai ; others,
poffefled of equal skill, experience and in
teteft, believed it would have a tendency to
produce an injury. To furnifh evidence to
our merchants, of a disposition on the part
of government, as well to consult their
teelings, as to promote their intarefts, the
confide^tion of the report was deferred, and
probably will be until experience shall shew
that, in time of peace, the proposed measure
is essential to the carrying trade.
("To be continued.)
THOMAS PAINE,
To /be Citizens of the United States.
Letter tlje ^ebent^
RELIGION and War is the cry of the
Federaliffs ; —Morality and Peace, the voice|
of the Republicans. The union of morality
and peace is congenial : but that of religion
and waris a paradox, and the solution of it is
hypocrisy.
The leaders of the Federalists have no
judgment; their plans no consistency of
parts ; and want of consistency is the natural
consequence of want of principle. They
exhibit to the world the curious fpedacle of
an oppo/ition without a cause, and conduc
ed without system. Were they, as Doc
tors, to ptefcribe medicine, as they pradice
politics, they would poison their patients
with deftruaive compounds.
There are not two things mere opposed to
each other than war and religion ; and yet,
in the double game those leaders have to
play, the one is necessarily the theme of their
politics, and the other the text of their ser
mons. The week-day orator of Mars and
the 'Sunday preacher of Federal Grace, play,
like gamblers, into each other's hands, and
this they call religion.
Though hypocrisy can counterfeit every
virtue, and become the aflociate of every vice,
it requires a great dexterity of craft to give
it the power of deceiving. A painted fun
may glisten but it cannot warm. For hy
pocrisy to peifonate virtue fuccefsfully it
must know and feel what virtue is ; and as
it cannot long do this, it cannot long deceive.
When an orator, foaming for war, breathes
forth in another Sentence a plaintroe piety of
words, he may as well write hypocrite
on his front.
The late attempt of.the federal Leaders in
Congress (for they a&ed without the know
ledge pf their conflituents) to plunge the
country into war, merits not only reproach,
but indignation. It was madness conceived
nation has always mo + re to fear from govern
ing too much, than too little. Avast dif
ference exists between reformations which
are called for by the condition and feelings
of the people, and comport with the state of
the nation, and the subversion of those infti
tntions which furniSh personal security, abd
tend to increase our prosperity. For the firft
we look with cenfidence to a & ife legislature.
The latter is only to be dreaded, where the
legislative powers (hall be (if ever/iritrufted
to fools or madmen.
When the change took place in administ
ration, it was effected by the people, be
cause they felt themfete aggrieved by the
measures of government-- Men were chang
ed to produce a change |n measures. Con
gress in the Wimer of 181-2 repealed the
offenfive laws; and the adminiffoion of
government was duped to the wimes of the
people. , f CT ^f '
The reformations, which had long been
contemplated, were then effected, and noth
ing left for the late session, but the perform
ance ofahe common rorine of public business,
and an attention to.foqh things as might a
rifejlth£ progress of government. 1 o de
tail the proceedings ot Congress would be
tedious , and uninteresting ; though to the
public it mav be highly ufeful to state the
principal things which have received their
attention. With a Sincere desire to aid and
improve commerce and navigation, the Pref
iderit in his firft message represented the
evils to which they are exposed by the dif
efiminating duties of Great Britain ; which,
from the different modes of ,collecting jm
pofts adopted by tire two nations, operate
greatly to the injury of our carrying trade,
by drawing from ot.r citizens at leuft three
dollars to each one that we draw from the
fubjeCts of that nation : Whereby British
fubjeCts arc enabled to command, in a great
measure, the freights of the fix southern
dates to the exclusion of our own merchants,
and, particularly, to the injury of the East
ern states..
in ignorance and aded in wickedness. The
head and the heart went partners in the
crime...„
A negled of punctuality in the perform
ance of a treaty, is made a cause of war by
&eßarbary Powers, and of remonstrance and
explanation by foilized powers. The
Mahometans of Barbary negotiate by the
fword—ahey seize hrd andexpoftuiate after
wards ; and the federal leaders have been
' a °°°!'°^ '° barbarize the United States by
adopting the practice of the Barbary States,
and this they call honor. Let their honor
and their hypocrisy go weep together, for
both are defeated. The preftent adminis
tration is too moral for hypocrites and too
economical for Spendthrifts. A man the
lead acquainted with diplomatic affairs, mt>ft
know, that a neglea in punctuality is not
l one of the legal causes of war, unless that
I neglect be confirmed by a refufal to perform;
aid even then it depends upon circumdances
connected with it. The world would be in
continual q%rrelf and war, and commerce
be annihilated, if Algerine policy was ,he
law of nations. And were America, in
stead of becoming an example to the Old
world, of good and moral gavernment, and
Civil manners, or if they like it better, of.
gentlemanly conduct towards other'natjons
^to set up the character df a ruffian, that
of a word and a blow, and the blow firfl, and
thereby give the example of pulling down
the little that civilization has gained upbn
barbarism, her independence, indead of be
ing an honor and a bluffing, would become
a cuife upon the world and upon herfelf.•
Fhe conduct of the Barbary powers, though
unjust in principle, is suited to their preju
dices, Situation. and circumstances. The
crusades of the Church to exterminate them,
fixed in their minds the unobliterated belief
that every Christian power was their mor
tal enemy. T heir religious prejudices,
therefore lugged the policy,which their situa
tion and circumstances protect them in. As
a people tfiey are neither commercial nor
agricultural, they neither import nor export;
have no property floating on the seas, nor
ships and cargoas in the ports of foreign na
tions. No retaliation, therefore, can be aid
ed upon them, and they fin secure from pun
ifhmeni. But this is not the case with the
United Stales. If she fins as a barbary pow
er, she mutt answer for it a civilized one.
Her commerce is continually passing on the
seas exposed to capture, and her ships and
cargoes in foreign ports to detention and
reprisal. An aCt of war committed by her
in theMiffifippi,would produce a war against
th~ commvruo nf th. Atlantic Statoc, and
latter would have to curse the policy that
provoked the former. In every point, there
fore, in which the character and interest
of the United Statas be considered, it would
ill become her to set an example contrary to
the policy and custom of civilized powers,
,and practised only by the Barbary powers,
that ot itriking before she expostulates.
Butfan any man, calling himfclf a legisla
tor, and supposed by his constituents to know
fornething of his duty, be so ignorant as to
imagine that seizing on New-Orleans would
finith the affair, or even contribute towards it.
On the contrary, it would have made it worse.
Toe treaty right of deposit at New-Orleans,
& the right of the navigation of the Miffifip
pi into the gulph of Mexico are distant things.
New-Orleans is more than an hundred miles
in the country from the mouth of the river,
and as a place of deposit of no value, if the
mouth of the river be Ihut, which cither
France or Spain could do, & which our pos
session of New Orleans could neither prevent
or remove—New-Orleans in our polfeffion,
by an adt of hodility, would have become a
blockaded port,and consequently of no value
to the weltern people, as a place of deposit.
Since, therefore, an interruption had arisen
to the commerce of the weftern dates,& until
the matter could be brought to a fajr expla
nation, it was ot less injury to have the port
Shut and the river open, than to havethe river
Shut, and the port in our pofleflion.
That New-Orleans could be taken requi
red no stretch of policy to plan, nor spirit of
enterprize to effect. Ir was like marching
behind a man to knock him down ; and the
dastardly Ilyncfs ot such an attack would have'
Stained the tame of the United States. Where
there is no danger cowards are bold, and cap
tain Bobadiis are to be found in senates as
well as on the stage. Even Governeur on ;
such a march, dare have Shewn a leg,
The people of the weftern country to whom
the Miffißippi serves as an inland sea to their
commerce, must be fppofed to underhand the
circumitances of that commerce better than a
man who is a (hanger to it ; and as they have
(hewn no approbation of the war-hoop mea
sures of the federal senators, it becomes pre
fumfiveev klence they di fapprovethem. This
is a new mortification to those war-hoop
politicians ; for the case is, that finding them
ielves losing ground and withering away in
the Atlantic Rates, they laid hold of the affair
of New-Orleans in the vai# hope of rooting
and reinforcing themselves in the weftern
Rates ; and they did this without perceiving
that it was One of thofenll-judged hypocrit
ical expedients in politics that whether it
dances from the troubles and tumults of the
European world, became plunged into its
vortex and tainted with its crimes ? The an
fwei is easy. Those who were then at the
head of affairs were apostates from the prin
ciples of the revolution. Railed to an eleva
tion they had not a tight to expert, not
judgment to condu&, they became like fea
thers in the air, and blown about by every
puff of paflion or conceit.
Candor would find some apology for their
condud if want of judgment was their only
<lefe&. But error and crime, though often
alike in their features, are diftind in their
characters, and in their origin. The one
has its source in a weakness of the head, the
other in the badness of the heart, and the co
alition of the two describes the former ad
ministration.
Had no injurious con feqnences arisen
from the conduct of that administration, it
might have palled for error or imbecility,
and been permitted to dieand be forgotten.
The grave is kind to innocent offence. But
even innocence when it is a cause of injury
ought to undergo an enquiry.
* The country, during the time of our for
mer administration, was kept in continual
agitation and alarm, and that no investiga
tion might be made into its conduct it in
trenched itfelf within a magic circle of
terror, and called it a Jedrtion law. Violent
and myiterious in its measures and arrogant
in its manners, it affected to difoain infor
mation and infilled the principles that railed
it from qbfcuritv.—John Adams and Tim
othy Pickering were men whom nothing
but the accidents of the times rendered via
ble on the political horizon. Elevation turn
ed their heads, and public indignation has
call them to the ground.—But an enquiry
into the conduct and measures of that admin
istration is nevertheless neceffar,.
The country was put to great cxpence.
Loans, taxes, and Landing armies became
the order of the day. The militia, said
secretary Pickering, are not to be depended
upon, and fifty thousand men must be railed.
For what r No cause to juftify such mea
sures has yet appeared.—No difeotery of
such a cause has yet been made. The
pretended (edition law shut up the Sources
of investigation and the precipitate flight of
John Adams closed the scene. But the mat
ter ought not to deep here.
It is not to gratify resentment or encour
age it in others, that I enter upon this fub
jedt. It is not in the power of man to ac
cuse me of a perfecting spirit. But some
explanation ought to be had. The motives
and obje&s refpeaing the extraordinary and
expensive measures of the former adminis
tration ought to be known. The (edition
law, that Ihield of the moment, prevented
it then, and justice demands it now. If the^
public have been imposed upon it is proper,
they fliould know it, for where judgment
is to a&, or a choice to be made, knowledge
is firft necessary. The conciliation of par
ties, if it does not grow out or explanation^
partakes of the character of collusion or in
difference.
There lias been guilt some where and it it
better to fix it where it belongs, and sepa
rate the deceiver from the deceived, than
that suspicion, the bane .of society, should
range at large, and four the puplic mind.
In the pleafingcontemplatton of this state
of things, the grind by comparison, carries
itfclf back to thfefe days of uproar and extra
vagance that marked the carter of the form
er administration, and decides, by the un
studied impulse of its own feelings, that
fornething muff then have been wrong.-
Why was it, that America, formed for hap
piness, and remote by Situation and circum-
facceeded or failed the event Would be tte
fame. Had their motion fuccepj&l it would
have endangered the commerce of the atlaiw
tic states and ruined their reputation tl;&e~
and x>n the other hand, ihq attempt to make'
.a tool ft, the western people was so badly
concealed as to extinguish all credit with
them.l
But hypocrif, is a vice of a Sanguine con^
ftitution. It flatters and promises itfelf ev
ery thing ; and it has yet to learn, with ref
ped t to moral and political reputaiknlt is
less dangerous to offend than to deceive.
To.the measures. of. administration sup
ported by the firmnefs and integrity of the
majority in congress, ih§ United glares owe,
as far as human means are concerned, the
preservation of peace and of national honor.
The confidence which the weftern people
reposed in the government, and in their rep
; reientatiyes is rewarded with fuctefs. They 1
are reinstated in their rights with the least
possible loss of time ; and theit harmony
^ijh the people of New Orlcat^s fp neceffa- 4
iy to the prosperity of the United States,
which would have been broken, and the
feeds of difeord sown in its place, had he ftil-.
ties been preferred to accommodation, re
mains unimpaired. Have the federal min
isters of the church meditated on these mat
ters ? and laying aside as they ought to do,
their electioneering and vindictive prayers
and Sermons, leturned thanks that peace is
preferred and commerce without the Stain of
blood. . T