The Republican ledger — Portsmouth, N.H., 1799-10-23 00:00:00, page 1

■ The clerical gentleman with whose senti
ments on funding armies I enrich this num
ber, is the refpe&ablc Peter Thacher. D. D.
Hethus goes on*" when the ambition of prin
h ces i nduces them to break overthe sac red bar
, riers,of social compact, and,to violate those
rights, which it is their duty to defend, they
will leave no method uneffayed to bring the
people to acquiesce in their unjuftifiable en
■ croachmenis."—
“ In this cause, the pens of venal authors
■ have, in every age been drawn ; with machi
/ avalian fubtility, they have laboured jo per-
I fuade mankind that their public happiness
I confided in being fubjed to uncontrouled
# power—that they were incapable of judging
B concerning the myderiesof government ; and
& that it Wastheir interest to deliver their estates,
, their liberties, and their lives, into the hands
I. of an absolute monarchy" " mitred hypo
■ ' crites, and cringing, base-soul printers have
■ impiously dared to enlist the oracles of God
I into the service of despotism—to assert that,
h by the command 6f the Supreme lawgiver,
we are bound to surrender our rights into the
■ hands of the firft bold tyrant who dares to
■ seize them, and that when they are so seized,
L it is rebellion against God, and treason a
■ gainft the prince, for us to attempt toTefume
■them."
[ ' Depraved as is the human underftaning, it
hath yet strength enough to discern the ridic
k... ulous fallacy of their assertions ; the votaries
[ of ignorance and fuperftitiou may indeed, be
limpofed upon by them—w^ we place un
1' limited confidence in our civilorfpirttualfathers,
we can swallow with ease, the mos improbable
' dogmas; but there are filings in tl^ humin
MR. PARKER,\
" Wefoall feel the flrongefl motives to fall on cur
knees, Izgratitude to Heaven for having been
graciotify pleajed to give us birth and Education
in America, and for having defined us to live un
der her laws—we have reason to exult if we
make aur comfrarijon with England, andthe Eng
lish Confutation." —ln America ° there is no
#STANDING army."
? I 'HESE are the sublime sentiments of the
President of the United States —senti-
ments \vhich ought to be wrote in letters of
gold, and placed in every public department
of the Federal and State government—senti
ments which do honor to the Supreme Exe
cutive of a free, sovereign and independent
Republic sentiments which should be
taught to our children, and become lemons
within our colleges, academies, public schools
and every seminary of Education. They are
so sublime, and devotional, that even our pul
pits'' Ihould resound with those patriotic
Drains, and every real American Ihould fall
down on their knees in gratitude to Heaven
for having been pleased to give us birth and
education in a country so ^jghly diflinguifh
ed as the object of his complacency, and be
nevolence, —After this exalted declaration,
where is the man who can advocate a
STANDING ARMY.—The President
tells us, we enjoy a boon, which claims our
adoration, and while he contemplates the fub
jefl^his gratitude rises to Heaven in the most
fervent praises to the Being under whose
finiles and patronage we partake of the blef
fing.—'' There is no Handing army in A
merica," fays the President, and adores God
for the mercy ; and wherethen is the man,
who is impious enough to affront Heaven
with a contrary doxology.
The fubjea of Handing armies being so
particularly noticed by the President in a re
ligious point of view, as exciting our grati
tude to Heaven, 1 (hall appropriate rhe pre
sent number to a few extracts from a clerical
gentleman's oration, whose patriotism in the
year 1776 breathed a sentiment similar with
that of our beloved President. —Principles
are permanant —time cannot make that
v rong, which was originally right-—if in
1776, the citizens of Boston applauded the
otator for his elegant and patriotic oration,
vpted their thanks for his performance and
rbquefted a copy for the press, furcly there
cannot be an alteration in 1799, so far, as to
render those principles obnoxious, which
were so highly approved at the period they
were delivered—if there are any who oppose
the doarine, I must reply to them in the
words of the immortal WARREN, " our
fathers look from their celestial feats with
foiling approbation on their sons, who bold
ly Hand forth in the cause of virtue ; but
sternly frown upon the inhuman mifereant,
who, to secure the loaves and fifties to himfelf,
would breed a serpent to destroy his chil
dren."
f&UM THE CONSTITUTIONAL TELEGRAPHE,
NUMBER 9.— VOL. I.]
STANDING ARMY, No. 11.
The Republican Ledger.
"WHEN YOU SHALL THESE DEEDS RELATE, SPEAK OF THEM AS THEY ARE ; NOTHING EXTENUATE NOR SET DOWN OUGHT IN- MALICE."
Portsmouth, (NEW-HAMPSHIRE) printed and published by george jerry os borne, jun, mulberry lane, next door to rousselets museum.
he#t, which compel men to recognize their
own rights, to venerate the majority of the
people, and to despise the insult which is offer
ed to their underHandings, by these doatiug
abfurdities —had princes no other methods to
accomplish their purposes, could they not
establish their usurpation, without convin
cing mens judgements of their utility, they
Would be more harmless to mankind than
they have yet been —they might be surround
ed with the fafeinating gewgaws of regal
pomps ; a few parasites might bow the knee
before these idols of their own creating —the
weak and the wicked might obey their man
dates ; but the baneful influence which they
now have upon the interests of individuals,
and of society, would come to a period ; they
would not revel in the spoils of nations, nor
trample upon the ruins of public liberty."
Conscious of this, they have used argu
ments, and pursued measures, intirely differ
ent from them, to effect their designs—in
stead of convincing the under Handing, they
have addressed themselves to the passions of
men—the arts of bribery and corruptionhave
been tried with <a fatal success ; men, we
know, have fold ,heir children, their country,
and their God, for a small quantity ofpaint
ed dirt, which will perilh with the using."
Extensive as are the revenues of princes,
they are Hill inadequate to the purpose of
bribing large communities to submit to their
pleasure ; corrupting therefore a few, they
have overawed the reji—jromfmall beginnings,
and under fpeious pretences, they will raise a
sanding military force, the mofl fuccefsful en
gine ever yet yielded by the hand of lawless do
mination !!,
There is a kind of indigenous futility in
all that Noah Webster attempts to write
or fay upon political fubjeas. In his paper
of the 20th instant there is a kind of raving
effort at comparison between the ievolution>
of Assyria, Persia, &c. and the French Rev
olution. With as much propriety might he
compare his reveries, with the sublime writ
ings of Xenophon or Gibbon, or the hunt
ing exercises of the Choaaws and Outaga
^ies, to the discovery of America by Colum
bus, or of India by Vafco de Gama. The
:intelled must be most grossly besotted that
can pretend to perceive a ihade of similitude
between wars springing from the mad lust of
dominion, in a Cyrus, an Aftyages, or a
Philip, in barbarous times, with a revolu
tion riling up from the bosom of man, made
acquainted with God, and the dignity that
ft
"'With such a force, it is easy for an am
bitious Prince, possessed by nature of very
(lender abilities to subvert every principle of
liberty in the constitution of his government,
and to render the people the most abje&
slaves — if any individual feels the injury
done to his country, and wishes to restore it
to a state of happiness, with a bayonet at his
bread, a dragoon will compel him to silence:
If the people, awakened to fee their interest
and their duty, assemble for the fame pur
pose, a military force it had at hand to fob
due them, and by leaden arguments to con
vince them of their error." " Britons please
themselves with the thought of being free ;
their tyrant fuffers them to enjoy the sha
dow, while he himfelf grasps the substance
of power—impossible would it have been for
the kings of England to have acquired such
an exorbitant power, had they not afanding
army under their command—with the offi
cers of this army, they have bribed men to
facrifice the rights ofTheir country."
To do justice to this excellent oration,the
whole ought to be published ; but the fore
going extracts are sufficient to shew the ex
alted sentiments of the patriotic oration, on
the dangerous and deftru&ive tendency of
sanding armies. To regulate " this engine
of lawless domination," is natural for Ame
ricans, when the renowned patriots of our
country,have thus-expressed their abhorrence
of its establishment. Let us then, fellow
citizens, " fall on our knees," and devoutly
pray to Heaven, that in America, there ne
ver may be a funding army —even the su
preme magistrate of the people,and the min
iftcr of God (if confident with their avowed
principles) would loudly response to this de
vout and pious ejaculation. A few elegant
elegant extracts from the orations of Dodoi
Thomas Welih will enrich our next num
ber.—" And if perchance thy home salute
thee with a Father's honor'd name, go call
thy sons— inftrud them what debt they owe
their ancestors." e
fl Friend to the Prefdent.
FROM A PHILADELPHIA PAPER.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1799.
signal redress of grievances to be compared
with the unprovoked massacres of a Xerxes
or the wars of conquest and corruption of the
Macedonian tyrants r The passions of the
populace! Who are the populace ? The
sickened feelings revolt at such insolence and
assumption, in a being whose very living is
a tax on popular indulgence !—The popu
lace !—are not the populace the people.
But it is said this populace proposed ex
tending their conquests over a great portion
of the globe. Where is the evidence of thisr
When this populace conquered Holland the
firft Hep was to restore her to- her indepen
dence ; while Britain, who was the friend
of Holland, robbed her of Ceylon and the
Cape, and broke up negociations of peace,
because the conqueror, ally of Holland, would
not fuffer those possessions to be treacherouHy
retained by this friend that had instigated her,
whom Hie had robbed into the war.
When this populace conquered Italy, Hie
did not retain the rich provinces of Italy as
Rome had done, and the Assyrian, Persian,
and Macedonian tyrants —she gave them lib
erty and made nations of freemen of those
whom she had conquered when Haves—she
founded the Cifalpine and revived the Ro
man Republics.
When this populace had conquered the
whole of Suabia, and carried the banners of
viaory within a few leagues of Vienna, did
they then in didating the conditions of peace
retain their conquests ? no ; they .confined
themselves to a natural boundary, the Rhine
and the Alps, which this writer approves of.
But it will be said, they then retained a
part of the Auflrian dominion. As well
might it be affefted, that Austria retained a
large portion of the empire of Charlemagne,
which extended from the Oder to the Bal
tic, from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean,
and at once embraced all Germany, France,
and three-fourths of Italy as far as the Au
fidius and Vulturnus ; the provinces of Cat
alonia, in Spain, and with the Beltaric isles
and Corsica. If France, that populace, were
solicitous for pretences, they might have
found them#' But France did not commence
her revolution for conquest, but for the es
tablishment of freedom ; n& did she become
a conqueror until she was forced to carry the
war from her own into the country other
enemies.
Universal dominion never entered into the
imagination of any but some mad-men like
Alexander or Charles XII. or some weak
enthusiast or narrow-noddled ninny-like An
archarfis Clootz, or the writer who has ex
cited these animadversions.
If the tenure of remote or temporary pofc
session were to establish the rule of right to
possession ! France might have found pre
texts in either whereupon to cred a claim to
dominion ; and there are few governments
in Europe which would not be fubjea to
expulsion ; the antiquated claim of the Brit
iih tyrant so oftentacioufly retained in his ti
tle of king of France, would have furnifhed
them with a much more plausible pretext
for war than any which has hitherto been set
up by the coalesced despots for assailing
France ; the fame arguments that would
support the British claim to France would
give obliterated Poland the sovereignty oyer
Prussia ; and woulddivide Russia an empire
of only 77 years Handing, among hordes of
Barbarians ; would unite Denmark and
Hungary under the Swedish crown ; ejed the
Turks from Europe, whose tenure is of lit
tle more than 350 years standing ; by the
fame aaguments the petty kings of Naples
jand Sardinia would without the criminal
treachery and breach of treaty be divested of
pretexts and the passions of the populace or
that it was commenced with a view to con
quest over a great part of the globe. Was
it a pretext, to annihilate all the afflidive
grievances of an idle, pampered; and profli
gate npbility, and a stupendous hierarchyj
Was '7OO years of progreflive tyranny under
three races of kings a pretext ? Was a load
of taxes and a profligate court a pretext ?
Was it a pretext in Artois whose monthly
expehfe, wafted in debauchery, was greater
than the whole annual revenue of Pennsyl
vania ? Was it the paffon of the populace
that annihilated these grievances ? Was this
God has planted in his foul. The head must
be deranged or the judgement depraved, that
can compare, a nation risen and proclaiming
all meh equal in rights, and a tyrant carrying
hordes of Haves from one nation to enslave
another, who had not offended him.
Equally outrageous to reason and truth are
the indecent and hypocritical insinuations
that the efforts of France were founded on
[I DDL. 50 CTS. PER ANNUM.
their kingdoms, founded within this century.
This railing against France and difguifd
of the real cause of the aggression and ag
greHors, can proceed from no other source
than absolute ignorance or baseness. Since
the year 1600. Europe has been the theatre
of forty-two wars in every one of which
Great Britain has had a share. Surely these
wars were hot produced by republicanifra#
With the fame spirit of absurdity he ob
serves that when France pushed her arms in
to Italy, Germany, Egypt, and Syria, there
was no difficulty in pronouncing on their
future defeat and disaster ; a very weak un^
derftanding may affed to confider itfelf in
spired by a prophetic spirit, and blunder up^
on an incident that may in the chance of
vents fall out as prediHejd. Noah predicted
that the Yellow rever would r^ afflia New-
York this year ; behold it is more virulent
than ever ; and yet his egotism is not cured.
Italy is the only place, however, in which
this poftfaNo prophecy is at all realized.
The French arms carried their banners to
the gates of Vienna in 1797, they are in qui
et poffeflion of Egypt, and it is yet a question
whether they have not annihilated their com
bined enemies in Syria. In the forbidding
walks of physic, where the human mind
must place so much reliance on conje&ure
and where conjeaure combined with fads
mav be ufeful ; where the spirit of a factious
servility or courtier like adulation, cannot
pervert the judgement nor corrupt the heart,
Noah may (peculate with utility and with
hcnor=when he adventures into politics or
hiftory, the light is too strong for him, his poor
head is too weak —as Robert Slender fays, and
he lays himfelf open to the lash of those who
would refpea him in his proper sphere.
MR. MARTIN,
WE have beheld for these two months
past, France labouring under the
great disadvantage of remissness in her
movements, a prey to treachery and under
mining machinaticbs ; and that in the per
sons of those who ought to have given springs
and life to the different parts of the whole
committed to their care ; subsides suspended,
their treasuries fucked by many breeches in
power, and by the fever of discord being
lightened up within ; the state hasbeen struck
as it were with a paralytic flroke, and for a
while left a defencelefs prey to her enemies
without. As these evils are known, they
can't help being removed ; already is the axe
laid to the root, and their traitors to their
country have ere now, met with the just pun
ishment their baseness deserved. Had the
different armies been supplied with those ne
cessaries, the most viaorious armies ever
Hands in need of ; would they have receded
from the ground, they had purchased at such
a price ?\
Their goodness again, was what was
turned upon themselves, and the liberty they
had given to so many tribes, was what prov
ed their greatest blame, evincing, the truth
of those words of the political Rousseau,"
that it is neaffary to render worthy of liberty
and capable ojfupporting in the people, before it
is befowed upon them.'.' They were till" now,
ignorant of their own danger, they dreaded
not their interior enemy, faction and divi
sion were become prevalent, but their at
tempts, however, have failed.
When the interests of Hate are viewed in
one light, by the minds of every individual,
upon the means which the constitution pre
sents to each to render him happy, when the
interests of mankind, are Co-incident (as I
may fay) with the interest of the body we
belong to, and that all these three concen
trated in the fame point, there result from
this happy accordance, the greatest moral
force that can be given to citizens, and their
efforts are rendered irrefiftable. The want
of this compleat harmony of the interests of
which he is a member, and the Hate of'
which he is a citizen, is what has retarded
the struggles of this republic, and what
seemed to threaten the foundation of what
(he proposed to herfelf. France is convinc
ed of this now, and the moment is come
when every citizen fays to himfelf, whether
is it better to die free, than to survive in
slavery! Liberty over monarchy, equality
over aaiftocracy, the tight of consulting hap
piness over abjection ; these are the ap
proaches ^we have made over despotism ;
there are the victories we have gained, and
(hall they be entrenched from our children ?
After the fore occalioned by the invenom
ed caustic of treachery is healed, the wheels
will again move on, and thepatient b , JC ~
From the BALTIMORE AMERICAN.