The national intelligencer and Washington advertiser. (Washington City [D.C.]), 1809-09-29 00:00:00

National Intelligencer.
WASHINGTON ADVERTISER
WASHINGTON CITY, PRINTED BY SAMUEL HARRISON SMITH, PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE.
NO. 1408
FIVE DOLLARS PER ANNUM,
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1809.
PAID IN ADVANCE.
NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER.
Some time since Mr. Gregoire, of France, addressed a letter to Mr. Barlow, containing critical observations on the Columbiad , which he caused to be published in that country. To this letter Mr. Barlow has made a reply, which has just been emitted from the press at this place in a pamphlet form. We offer both these letters to our readers.
CRITICAL OBSERVATIONS
ON THE
POEM OF MR. JOEL BARLOW,
THE COLUMBIAD.
By M. GREGOIRE,
Formerly Bishop of Blois, Senator, Member of the National Institute, &c.
My Dear Friend,
I have received with gratitude, and read with interest, your magnificent work The Columbiad . This monument of genius and typography will immortalize the author and give fame to the American press; this alone would be sufficient to destroy the assertion of Pauw and other writers, that there is a want of talents in America, if your country did not already offer a list of great men, who will go down with éclat to posterity.
When a book is published, it enters the domains of criticism; you yourself solicit it in the letter which accompanies your present; you solicit it with the frankness which is natural to you. Thus I exercise a right as well as perform a duty, not in addressing literary observations to you, but in repelling an insult to christianity, an insult on which I should be silent, if Barlow was a common writer, or his poem an inferior work, because the book and its author would soon sink together into the stream of oblivion.
Amicus usque ad aras , says an ancient. It is at the foot of the altar, that I blame certain lines in your book, and an engraving which has the following inscription, Final destruction of prejudices . Prejudices!—Perhaps no one desires their destruction more than myself. But what do you call by this equivocal name? And what do I perceive in the midst of the heaps in this picture, which serve for emblems? The attributes of the catholic ministry, and above all, the standard of christianity, the cross of Jesus Christ! Are these what you call prejudices ? If even the excellent works, which have rendered evident the truth of the gospel; if even the principles and the history of eighteenth centuries did not formally contradict you, it would be easy to show that this picture is an attack against all christian societies, that it is an act of intemperance, of persecution, which offends God and man.
The unlimited freedom of religion in the United States confers on no sect a character of domination, nor any of those exclusive privileges, that are possessed in different countries of Europe by the churches of the Catholics, Greeks, Lutherans, Calvinists, &c. &c. Let us leave to the partisans of the English church the endless dispute on the prerogatives of the established church, on the utility of those civil establishments which, already shaken, will crumble, perhaps, on all sides, at no very distant epoch. Though I am by conviction, by sentiment, a Catholic, and honored with the episcopal character, after a deliberate examination, I think that if we owe to the state a guarantee of obedience when it requires it, that nevertheless these civil establishments, which may be in favor of others as well as of truth, are often unjust, impolitic, dangerous in more than one respect, though Providence may draw good from them, as it does from many other evils which it tolerates.
Let every thing relating to conscience, as well as every thing that belongs to social organization be freely discussed; truth demands examination, which despotism can only fear; this alone finds it necessary to invoke ignorance, to surround itself with darkness, to repel the light which breaks out from the researches that are directed by good faith and sagacity.
But what will be the result, if, instead of reasoning with calmness and respect on religion, the most important object for man in the course of his fugitive existence, calumny should point its sarcasm, and spread its black colours over historical facts which it misrepresents; if, instead of speaking to the understanding to enlighten it, we address
ourselves to the passions to seduce? This has been the conduct which our infidel Frenchmen have followed pluming themselves with the title of philosophers. It is important to recollect and to recollect often, that of those who have combated christianity, the greater part have vomited the most infamous things against decency and morality; Lamettrie, Voltaire, J. J. Rousseau, Diderot, Mirabeau, of the constituent assembly, P., &c. Others have said before me, that incredulity almost always has its source in the heart, and that the antagonists of a religion, whose morality is so pure, are advocates who defend their own cause.
Almost all of them have attacked christianity by reproaching it with the abuses it has experienced, as if the abuses were the thing itself; as if, after having directed the wind on the straw, we must still blow away the grain; as if wine and iron ought to be proscribed, because there are debauchees and assassins.
In the stormy course of our revolution, the infidels held, during some years, the sceptre of power; you were a witness of the use they made of it. In an instant, these champions of toleration and humanity were seen to display all the ferocity of Diocletian; to shut up, profane & destroy our temples; to pursue the religious man even into the asylum of his thoughts; to incarcerate and transport bishops and priests. A great number of catholic pastors were dragged to the scaffold; during eighteen months I feared and expected the same fate; it is well known with what outrage I was loaded, in the midst of the national convention, for having braved the infuriated howlings of impiety; the greatest favor that was accorded us, was only to mark us out as superstitious , as fanatics ; these were the epithets in fashion. For several years we were constantly under the axe of executioners, calling ourselves philosophers . Do you hasten to tell me they usurped this title? We are agreed. God preserve me from attributing to philosophy the crimes of brigands, who dressed themselves in her liveries. In the face even of the altar, I have justified her from crimes she abhors; but will our infidels ever exercise good faith? Will they ever cease to reproach christianity with the abuses which she laments?
What further did they do? They travestied august liberty as a bacchante; they exclaimed no one could be a once a christian and a republican, at once a republican and a moderate; though thousands of examples among us, as well as among you attested the contrary; though a holy and natural alliance establishes itself between those characters. Some pious but unenlightened men, were frightened by these clamors; believing themselves placed between liberty and religion, they could only balance in their choice? It may be seen how our reformers, wishing to associate the republic with every thing that could destroy it, themselves precipitated the vessel of liberty into the abyss, at the moment it was reaching the port.
What would they have substituted for christianity? A goddess, and a temple of reason, man for God himself. They afterwards made temples to the Supreme Being; temples in which theophanthropy erected her booths, till the period when the worship of the deists found its chapels deserted in France as that of David Williams was in London.
At this period foreign nations waved among us the banners of discord; they were powerfully aided by all the enemies of the revolution, of whom a part having fled their country when it was in danger, to stir up against it the potentates of Europe, corresponded with those who remained in their homes, to kindle discord and anarchy. By a refinement of perversity, they conceived the plan of destroying the most salutary reforms, by outstretching the object, and forcing every measure; of rendering odious or ridiculous the soundest notions by exaggerating them; in fine, of revolting the people by alarming their consciences.
Who could believe it, if accumulated facts did not attest it, that two classes of men the most opposite were seen at this period acting in concert to commit the same crimes, and to destroy religion? Preterted philosophers from hatred against it; pretended christians from hatred to every
Discourse on the opening of the national council of 1801 p. 2.
priest, who had submitted to the law requiring an oath? They would rather have seen our altars overturned, our sanctuaries profaned, and covered with filth and sacrilege, than behold their brethren in the same sacerdotal habits, but faithful to their God and their country, offer the same sacrifice, and preach the same gospel. These distressing recollections will be engraved by history, they will resound in future ages; and when reason shall surmount extinguished passions, impartial posterity will decide on which side were truth, charity and justice.
Does not your engraving appear to retrace, not as regards the manner, but the results, what our persecutors have executed? The illusory theories of impiety are falsified by the most decisive experience; which attests that morality is wavering and without support, if it does not receive it from the hands of religion; that religion is without consistence, if it is not positive, that is to say, founded on facts and on revelation. I conversed on this subject with your countryman, Thomas Paine. Write, said I to him, on political rights, but not on religious matters; your Age of Reason has discovered your incapacity; you will never be able to oppose any thing solid to the excellent refutation of your systems by a crowd of writers, above all by the learned bishop of Landaff.
Some of our persecutors , who styled themselves philosophers, are already thrown into the sewers of history, the rest will be, in their turn. The greater part of those who have survived went themselves in maledictions over the tomb of Robespierre, that it may be forgotten they were his accomplices, his guards, and his banditti. They would be so again, if he and his power were resuscitated. Formerly under grotesque names and cynical dress, they dishonored the cause of liberty; vile Protestants, they have changed their language still more than their dress. Formerly they blasphemed against christianity; bigots now, and at no time pious, limited to certain forms, certain trifling customs, neglecting in religion every thing that restrains them, perverting its august truths as their interest may dictate, and from the motives which St. Augustine has developed in so striking a manner in his City of God , they call themselves christians through policy, because, according to the expression of a modern orator, religion is necessary for the people ; and as the secret of their heart always betrays itself more by their conduct than their discourse, the sacred instrument they would pervert is broken in their hands; for among that race always frivolous and without character, that is called Frenchmen, there is not one, even to the servant girl, who, in robbing her master, does not repeat that religion is necessary for the people , on condition that she may be dispensed from having it herself.
Religion, necessary to every individual, is still more so to those magistrates who are the regulators of states. Fatal experience of the misfortunes occasioned by an abandonment of christianity has not yet opened our eyes. We have recourse to a palliative to cure the wounds which have been made by irreligion, and its offspring immorality; they have loosened the bonds of society to such a degree, that they menace it with decomposition, which will be common to many neighboring nations. If ever decrepid Europe makes a step towards moral order, it will be less from love of that, than from lassitude of crime; but it will be under the escort of christianity and in consequence of inevitable catastrophes. In spite of the clouds that cover the future, this epoch may be perceived, though we are unable to predict it in a precise manner, though unable to calculate its term, or its disasters.
If the bounds of this letter permitted me, I would oppose to the evils engendered by infidelity the benefits profusely spread by the christian religion; its introduction was the most vast of all revolutions, and the most beautiful, because the most useful to the human race. The cross and the gospel, in preparing us for the happiness of eternity, have civilized the world; virtue and knowledge have everywhere marched in their train; every region has been abandoned by virtue and knowledge, which has lost christianity; those regions have re-
turned to barbarism; witness the church of Africa, illustrious for so many learned men, and which was once one of the most brilliant portions of christendom. Witness Algiers, where you resided two years; such would be the lot which the United States would feel, if ever they should cease to be christians.
And is not this equivalent to what you propose in some lines, and by an engraving, which a disciple of the gospel repels with horror? The attributes of pure christianity are classed among the emblems of prejudices. Where are your proofs? It is in the nature of things, that what is invariably useful should be essentially true; instead of proofs, you give up to derision objects revered by many hundred millions of men, who will not believe you on your word; they will see that your anticatholic sentence wants justness; that it is a consequence without premises; that, without reasoning at all, you decide that all the disciples of the gospel reason falsely.
Virtuous minds would sigh to behold calumny, impiety, and lubricity display themselves with effrontery, protected by the liberty of the press; but as we do not know where to place the limits, if we attempted to establish by law repressive measures, this evil would be counterbalanced by others, if our mouths were locked, and our pens crushed by tyranny. The press is free in your country; thus you are not reprehensible by the law, but condemnable at the tribunal of opinion, the supreme judge of all crimes that offend propriety and justice. Yours offends both.
It offends justice, because it is a gratuitous outrage, that resembles that of the Jesuits at Japan. What would you say, if the attributes of liberty, which are so dear to you, were trampled under foot before your eyes?
It offends propriety, because, in holding out as prejudices the emblems of the christian religion, it is saying to all those who profess it, that they are fools; this compliment addresses itself to the disciples of the gospel in every part of the globe; it addresses itself to the estimable descendants of those catholics, who, flying from British persecution, established in Maryland, a state belonging to your confederation; it addresses itself to the venerable Carroll, bishop of Baltimore; you trample on the attributes of his pastoral character. In France, it is true, the non-conformists outrage in this way episcopacy in the person of those pastors, who, faithful to the voice of their consciences, have committed the unpardorable crime of submitting to the laws of their country; this is a sad example to cite, not a model to imitate. Your Presbyterian countrymen will perhaps ask, if you have abjured the principles that you professed when you were the chaplain of a regiment in the war of independence.
If to believe in the gospel be a prejudice, permit us to partake of it with the feeble minds of Addison, Abbadie, Arbuthnot, Bacon, Berkeley, Barrow, Beattie, Bentley, Berchhave, Bonnet, Boyle, Blackstone, Clarke, Cullen, Doddridge, Dittion, Forbes, Fothergill, Ferguson, Grotius, Gray, Hervey, Hanway, Hartley, Harrington, Hyde, Haller, Jones, Johnson, Locke, Lardner, Leibnitz, Lyttleton, De Luc, Milton, Newton, Puffendorf, Paley, Prior, Pringle, Priestley, Price, Ray, Rabener, Rousian, Robertson, Sherlock, Spenser, Steele, Thompson, Wolfe, Washington, Usher, Woodward, Young, etc. and with those madmen, worthy of pity, Bossuet, Bourdaloue, la Bruyere, Copernicus, Corneille, d'Aguisseau, Descartes, Despreaux, Fenelon, Galileo, Gassendi, Honbigan, Mallebranche, Massillon, Nicole, Pope, Pascal, Racine, Winslow, Winkelmann, &c. all sincere catholics; but to speak seriously, it is pleasant to lose ourselves in such a brilliant company.
I must add, that, in wishing to undecieve us in regard to what you call prejudices , you err in the choice of means; for conviction can only be the effect of reasoning; man cannot detach his affection from the object most dear to him, unless the motives that support it are destroyed. But if injuries that revolt are substituted for arguments that convince, we are sure to strengthen the adhesion to principles which are rooted in the mind and the heart. If to convert a mussulman, instead of proving to him that Mahomet was an impostor, I should commence by placing before his eyes a picture, in which the Koran and the Crescent
were trampled under foot, his beard cut, his understanding, and prevent all access to my attempts. Apply these reflections to the true religion, and see if you have not failed entirely in a deplorable design.
Persecution, my dear Barlow, does not consist only in exiling, incarcerating, and assassinating men; Julian invented more cunning, and not less cruel vexations. They have been refined among us at the end of the 18th century, in hampering and lacinating the catholics without cessation, by repeated inquisitions, by a multitude of those little means, whose application was continued torture; impious verses, songs, epigrams, caricatures, every thing was made use of. You are very different from such men; but why resemble them in any thing? Your engraving is an offence against the freedom of religion; a sort of persecution which your heart disavows; reflection will bring on regret. Believe me, my friend, that these injured catholics will not make use of reprisals; true piety opens her bosom to erring brethren, without opening it to error; to enlighten them, she preaches the truth of the gospel in the band of character, having but a moment to exist in this world, we should love our duty, and be benevolent towards all, whatever may be their religion, their color, or their country. Jesus Christ has given us both precept and example in conduct; he displayed alternately a mild and good-natured towards the penitent, he pardoned the Samaritan, he accepted judgment against himself.
If you should say, that you have offered examples worthy of imitation, and that, previous to christianity, Americans, my zeal should have been excited to convert the whole world, and to prevent the objection, that christianity weakens the obligation, I would say that, in a country where so many unbelief have returned to their wells, we see, pitied and circulated freely the obscene poetry of a number of the national institute, and the tracts of romantic writers, who stir up disgust in so many times, and in a world say too, that, without respect to the first bond of the state, which ought to give an example of decency, immorality is authorized, by peopling the garden of the palace with licentious statues, to such a degree, that virtuous mothers dare not conduct their children thither.
You see that I am far from avoiding objections; but my disapprobation of an offence, in which I have no share, and against which my colleague, Lanjuinais, protested vainly in full senate, though with the general assent of the senators, I have reserved to myself the right of telling you, that to discriminate is not to answer; and that what might be alleged as an example to follow, cannot be but as an house to reform. Gorani observes that the licentiousness of painting and sculpture had exercised a disastrous influence over Italy; that the master pieces of the arts had drawn away sound minds from useful and necessary studies, had depraved their manners, overrated their courage, and fomented the most hateful vices. When public shame is extinct, do not expect to preserve the private virtues; and when religion is publicly insulted, it is a wound to morality, a national calamity.
Many times I have repeated having employed so many efforts to defend the arts and those who cultivate them against Vandalism; not that those arts which are called fine, and which are not always good, are bad in their very nature; but, almost always, they are flatterers and corrupters, when, by an inconceivable fatality, pre-eds, bring on, escort, and follow depravation. Even in his time the illustrious Gorani complained of it, to whom France owes a monument, and whom she has almost forgotten; he was grieved to see scandalous pictures, and a libidinous work, the Romance of the Rose , exposed to the eyes of youth. At the moment I am writing, we are menaced with a new edition of it.
What will be the fruit of my remonstrance? You are not one of those men who are afraid to acknowledge that you are wrong. A man is always honored in doing an act of reparation. I appeal to your loyalty, to your delicacy; this is to put you at strife with yourself.
* See the preface to the Manuscript secrets of the history of the court of Catherine II. by Gorani, Paris 1793.
† Vide his works, edit. Dupin v. ii. p. 191. &c.

My soul is oppressed in finding cause of blame in a man in whom I see so much to praise. Your character is not degraded by meanness, like that of the greater part of your brethren the poets; you have not prostituted your talents to adulation; you do not tar- nish them by incredulity, nor by a sort of persecution. Placed at the summit of the American Parnassus, a creditor of glory, you have sung in beautiful verse that liberty you defend- ed with your arms; you came to render her homage at the bar of the national convention, where, as president, I an- swered in a manner that accorded with the principles you proclaimed. Our hearts were in unison.
The true foundation of political li- berty is in the gospel; for it perpetually reminds men, that having all proceed- ed from the same stock, they com- pose only one family; that there exists among them, not a species of relation which, as has been said in a well known work, but a real consanguinity, whose bond is indestructible. The gospel un- ceasingly inculcates on men a spirit of charity and fraternal sentiments. The christian religion was per- verted and disguised, it was subor- dinate to the caprices of rulers and the passions; but well understood and rightly practiced, it is the most cer- tain guarantee of the purity of public and private manners. Under its wings my friend, your state of society was raised and consolidated, and the do- mestic virtues hereditarily transmit- ted; it is to that, without doubt, that you owe, among other advantages, that of having a wife gifted with so many rare qualities and inestimable virtues. Ingratitude alone could mistake the benefits of this august and divine reli- gion; it would be like despising the bosom of our mother.
I have discharged, my dear Barlow, a very painful task in censuring, with- out human respect what in your person offends christianity. The work being public, I give the same publicity to my remonstrance; thus satisfying what is prescribed to me by my principles, my situation, my conscience, and my invariable friendship.
H. GREGOIRE. Former Bishop of Blois, Senator &c.
Paris, 15th March 1809.
LETTER
TO HENRY GREGOIRE, Bishop, Senator, Comptroller of the Empire and Member of the Institute of France, in reply to his Letter on the COLUMBIAD.
By JOHN BARLOW L. L. D. Fellow of the American Philosophical Socie- ty and of several other learned Institutions.
Editors of Public Journals, who have published Gregoire's letter, are requested to insert the following reply as soon as con- venient. It is an act of justice due to him, and to the character of their Journals, as well as to the author.
LETTER
My Dear Good Friend,
I have received your letter, at once complimentary & critical on the poem I sent you. Our venerable friend arch- bishop Carroll informs me that he has likewise received from you a copy of the same letter; and he has expressed to me his pleasure at the engaging in writing his disapproval at the engraving which has offended you.
While I assure you that I sincerely regret my regrets with yours and with his on this subject, permit me, my ex- cellent Gregoire, to accompany them with a few observations that I owe to the cause of truth & to my own blame- less character. Yes my friend, I ap- peal to yourself, to our intimate inter- course of near twenty years, when I repeat this claim of character. It can- not be denied me in any country; and your letter itself, with all its exposu- ting severity, is a proof of the senti- ment in you which justifies my appeal.
The engraving in question is gone forth, and unfortunately cannot be re- called. If I had less delicacy than I really have towards you and the other catholic christians whom you consider as insulted by the prostration of their emblems which you therein discover, I might content myself with stating, what is the fact, that this engraving & the picture from which it was taken were made in England while I was in America; and that I knew nothing of its composition till it was sent over to me not only engraved, but printed and prepared for publication. My portion therefore in the crime, if it is a crime, is only the act of what our lawyers term an accomplice after the fact. But my affectionate regard for an offended brother will not suffer me to meet his complaint with so short an answer. I must discuss the subject, and reply to any whole charge as though it were all my own; promising, as I have already done, that I am sorry there is occasion for it, and regret that the engraving was ever made.
How much our religious opinions de- pend on the place of our birth! Had you and I been born in the same place, there is no doubt but we should have been
of the same religion. Had that place been Constantinople we must have been mussulmen. But now the mussulmen call us infidels; we pity their weakness and call them infidels in our turn. I was born in a place where catholic christians are not known but by report and the discipline of our sect taught us to consider them, not indeed as infidels, but as a species of idolaters. It was believed by us, though erroneously, that they worshipped images. We now find that they employed them only as instruments of worship, not as the object. But there is no wonder that to the vulgar apprehension of our people it should appear as we were taught to believe; and that those nations who bow the knee before these emblems of deity, & address their prayers to them, should be considered as really worship- ping them. This idea was perhaps corroborated by their prayers being uttered in an unknown tongue.
The decalogue of Moses had inspir- ed us with an abhorrence for images, and for those who bow down to them and worship them; and hence arose our unhappy aversion to the catholics. We were told that their churches were full of pictures, statues and other vi- sible representations, not only of the blessed virgin, of all the apostles and many of the saints, but of every person in the holy trinity. Our fathers had protested against that great section of the christian family which calls itself the mother church, not merely on ac- count of the sale of indulgences, against which Luther had led the revolt, but likewise on account of its making these pretended images of the inimageable God.
The sect of puritans, in which I was born and educated, and to which I still adhere for the same reason that you adhere to the catholics, a conviction that they are right, were the class of reformers, who placed themselves at the greatest remove from the mother church, and retained the least respect for her emblems and the other cere- monials of her worship. They could suffer no bishops, no mitres, crosiers, crucifixes or censers. They made no processions, carried no lighted candles thro' the streets at noon day; neither did they leave them burning in their churches through the night, when no human eye was there to see them; having entirely lost sight of this part of the institutions of Zoroaster, Isis, and Ceres. They would not allow their prayers to be written in any lan- guage, not even in Latin, though they did not understand it. But they chose to utter their supplications extempore, like their other discourses, to commu- nicate their own ideas, to express their wants and offer their confessions directly to the invisible God; through a mediator indeed, but without holding him in their hand, or having him fixed in effigy on a cross before their eyes. They had no organs in their churches, no instrumental music in their wor- ship, which they held to be always profane.
These people made use of no cross but the mystical one of mortifying their sins; and if they had been called upon to join in a crusade to the holy land, they must have marched without a standard. They would have fought indeed with as much bravery as saint Louis or the lion Richard; but when they had reconquered the tomb of Christ they would have trampled on the cross with as fervent a zeal as they would upon the crescent. They were not conversant with what we call the fine arts; they spoke to the ear, but not to the eye; and having no rever- ence for images or emblems, they des- pised those that had, though they were doubtless wrong in so doing.
I mention these things, my worthy friend, not with the least idea of levity or evasion; but to prove to you how totally you have mistaken my meaning and my motive; to shew by what chain of circumstances, mostly foreign to our own merits or demerits, our ha- bits of opinion, our cast of character are formed; to shew how natural it is that a man of my origin and education, my course of study and the views I must have taken of the morals of na- tions, their causes and tendencies, should attribute much of the active er- rors that afflict the human race to the use of emblems, and to the fatal faci- lity with which they are mistaken for realities by the great vulgar of man- kind; how the best of christians of one sect may consider the christian em- blems of another sect, as prejudices of a dangerous tendency, and honestly wish to see them destroyed; and all this without the least hostility to their fundamental doctrines, or suspicion of giving offence.
I never supposed that those Hollan- ders who, to obtain leave to carry on commerce in Japan, trampled on the cross, as a proof that they did not be- long to the same nation with the Pur- itans who had done so much mis- chief in that island, really meant to re- nounce their religion as christians, when they trod upon its catholic em- blem. The act might be reprehensi- ble, as being done for lucre; but it
must appear extremely different in the eyes of different sects of christians. To a catholic, who identifies the cross with the gospel, our only hope of sal- vation, it must appear a horrid crime; but to a protestant we may easily con- ceive it might appear of little moment, and by no means as a renunciation of the gospel.
You have now furnished in your own person an additional example, and a most striking one, of identifying the symbol with the substance. In your letter to me, you treat the cross and the gospel as the same thing. Had I been sufficiently aware of the force of that habit of combination among the catholics, especially in a mind of those acute perceptions and strong sensibili- ties which I know to belong to yours, I should surely have suppressed the engraving.
You must perceive by this time, that you have mistaken my principles and feelings in another point of view. You suppose I should be greatly of- fended "to see the symbols of liber- ty, so dear to me, trampled under foot before my eyes." Not at all my friend. Leave to me and my country the great realities of liberty; and I freely give you up its emblems. There was no time in the American revolution, though I was then young and en- thusiastic, when you might not have cut down every liberty pole and burnt all the red caps in the United States, and I would have looked on with tran- quility, perhaps have thanked you for your trouble. My habits of feeling and reasoning, already accounted for, had accustomed me to regard these trappings rather as detrimental than advantageous to the cause they are meant to support. These images we never greatly multiplied in this coun- try. I have seen more liberty caps at one sitting of the Jacobin club in Paris, than were ever seen in all America.
You will say perhaps that it is the difference of national character which makes the distinction. This is doubt- less true; but what has been the cause of this difference in the character of our two nations? Has not the univer- sal use of emblems in one, and the al- most universal disuse of them in the other, had as great if not a greater ef- fect than all other causes, in producing such difference? I do not say that our national character is better than yours; far from it. I speak frankly I think you undervalue the French character. I have a high esteem for that nation. They are an amiable, intelligent, ge- nerous, hospitable, unsuspicious peo- ple. I say nothing of their govern- ment, whether regal, revolutionary or imperial. In private friendship they are as disinterested and unshaken, at least as any people I have seen. Of this I could cite numerous examples, both within my own experience and that of others; though it would estab- lish my position in my own mind if I were able to mention none but you.
It would indeed be paying too high a compliment to any nation on earth to cite Gregoire as a sample of its moral and social character. If all catholics had been like you, the world at this day would all be catholics. And I may say, I hope without offence, that if all pagans had been like you, the world had all been pagans; there might have been no need of catholics, no pretext for the sect of puritans.
This is an amicable discussion be- tween you and me. The suavity of your manner does honor to the fortitu- duds with which you defend your prin- ciples; though it is not easy to per- ceive against what opponent you are defending them. Your letter expati- ates in a wide field and embraces many subjects. But really, my friend, the greater part of it has nothing more to do with me than one of Cicero's let- ters to Atticus. You begin by suppo- sing that I have renounced christianity myself, and that I attempt to overturn the system by ridicule and insult. Neither of which is true; for neither of which have you the least color of proof. No, my honest accuser, the proof is not in the book. Review the work with all the accumen of your dis- cernment, and you must, you will re- call the hasty accusation. I defy you and all the critics of the English lan- guage to point out a passage, if taken in its natural, unavoidable meaning, which militates against the genuine principles, practice, faith and hope of the christian system, as inculcated in the gospels and explained by the a- postles whose writings accompany the gospels in the volume of the new tes- tament.
On the contrary, I believe, and you have compelled me on this occasion to express my belief, that the Columbiad, taken in all its parts of text and notes and preface, is more favorable to sound and rigid morals, more friendly to vir- tue, more clear and unequivocal in pointing out the road to national digni- ty and individual happiness, more en- ergetic in its denunciations of tyran- ny and oppression in every shape, in- justice and wickedness in all their forms, and consequently more conson- ant to what you acknowledge to be the
spirit of the gospel, than all the writ- ings of all that list of christian au- thors of the three last ages, whom you have cited as the glory of christendom, and strung them on the alphabet, from Addison down to Winckelman. Un- derstand me right, my just and gene- rous friend; I judge not my poem as a work of genius. I cannot judge it nor class it nor compare it in that respect because it is my own. But I know it as a moral work; I can judge and dare pronounce upon its tendency, its bene- ficial effect upon every candid mind; and I am confident you will yet join me in opinion. But let me repeat my prayer that you will not mistake the spirit of this observation. It is not from vanity that I speak; my book is not a work of genius; the maxims in it are not my own; they are yours, they are those of good men that have gone before us both; they are drawn from the gospel, from history, from the unlettered volume of moral nature, from the experience and the inexperience of unhappy man in his various struggles after happiness; from all his errors and all his objects in the social state. My only merit lies in putting them together with fidelity. My work is only a transcript of the tablet of my mind imprest with these images as they pass before it.
You will see that I have nothing to do with the unbelievers who have at- tacked the christian system either be- fore the French revolution, or during or since that monumental period. I am not one of them. You say I re- semble them not in any thing else; you will now add that I resemble them not in this.
So far as you have discovered a cause of the failure of that revolution in the renunciation of the christian faith by those who held, in stormy quick suc- cession, the reins of your government, I thank you for the discovery. I was in want of more causes than I had yet perceived, to account for the unhappy catastrophe of that gigantic struggle of all the virtues against all the vices that political society has known. You have discovered a cause; but there is such a thing in logic as the cause of a cause. I have thought, but perhaps it is an error, that the reason why the minds of the French people took the turn they did, on the breaking out of the revolution, was to be found in the complicated ceremonials of their wor- ship, and what you yourself would term the non essentials of their re- ligion.
The reasonable limits of a letter will not allow me to do justice to this idea. To give it the proper develop- ment would require five times the vo- lume that I shall give to the present communication. The innumerable varieties of pomp and circumstance which the discipline of the church had inculcated and enjoined, became so incorporated with the vital prin- ciples of faith and practice; and these exteriors were overloaded with abuses to such a degree, that to discriminate and take them down, without injuring the system, requir- ed a nicer eye than the people can possess, a steadier hand than can com- port with the hurried movement of a great revolution.
The scaffolding of your church, permit me to say it, had so enclosed, perforated, overlooked and underpropt the building, that we could not be sur- prised, though sorely grieved to see the reformer lay hand his like a blind Sampson, to the great substantial pil- lars, heave and overturn the whole en- cumbered edifice together, and bury himself in the ruins. Why did they make a goddess of reason? Why erect a statute of liberty? A mass of dead matter for a living energetic princi- ple! Have the courage, my good friend, to answer these questions. You know it was for the same cause that the people of Moses, made their gol- den calf. The calf Apis had from time immemorial become a god in Egypt. The people were in the habit of seeing their divine protector in that substantial boval form, with two horns, four legs and a tail; and this habit was so interwoven in the texture of their mind as to become a part of the intellec- tual man. The privations incident to a whole moving nation subjected them to many calamities. No human hand could relieve them; they felt a neces- sity of seeking aid from a supernatural agent, but no satisfaction in praying to an invisible God. They had never thought of such a being; and they could not bring themselves at once to the habit of forming conceptions of him with sufficient clearness and con- fidence to make him an object of ado- ration, to which they could address their supplications in the day of great afflictions.
Forty years of migration were judged necessary to suppress the habit of us- ing idols in their worship; during which time their continual marches would ren- der it at once inconvenient for the peo- ple to move the heavy gods, and to con- ceal them in their baggage; while the severity of military discipline must expose their tents and their effects
to the frequent inspection of their officers.
Shall I apply this principle to the French nation in her revolution? No, my friend, it is too delicate a task for a foreigner who has received her hos- pitality; I will leave it to your own compassionate and philanthropic mind. You will recollect how often I partook of your grief during that scene of mor- al degradation. No sooner did you and the other virtuous leaders in the revolution begin to speak of august li- berty, holy reason and the divine rights of man, than the artisans took up the hammer, the chiselled and the plaster of Paris. They must reduce these gods to form before they could present them to the people with any chance of their being understood; they must create before they could adore. Trace this principle through five years of your history, and you will find why the catholic religion was overturned, morality laid asleep, and the object of the revolution irretrievably lost, at least for our day.
My dear Gregoire, I am glad you have written me this letter, though at first it gave me pain. I was sorry to find myself so entirely misconceived by a friend so highly valued; but I see your attack is easily repelled, a thing which I know will give you pleasure, and it furnishes me an occasion at the same time to render a piece of justice to myself in relation to my fellow-cit- izens. You must know I have enemies in this country. Not personal ones; I never had a personal enemy, to my knowledge, in any country. But they are political enemies, the enemies of republican liberty, and a few of their followers who never read my writings; that is my writings that I wrote, but only those that I did not write; such as were forged and published for me in my absence; many of which I ne- ver have seen, and some of which did not hear of till ten years after they had been printed in the American gazettes.
It has even been said and published by these christian editors, (I never heard of it till lately) that I went to the bar of your convention, when it was the fashion so to do, and made a solemn recantation of my christian faith, declaring myself an atheist or deist, or some other anti-christian a- postate; I know not what, for I never yet have seen the piece. Now, as an active member of that convention, a steady attendant at their sittings, and my most intimate friend, you know that such a thing could not be done without your knowledge; you know therefore that it was not done; you know I never went but once to the bar of that convention, which was on the occasion to which you allude in the letter now before me, to present an address from the constitutional society in London, of which I was a member. You know I always sympathised in your grief and partook of all your re- sentment while such horrors and blas- phemies were passing, of which these typographical cannibals of reputation have made me a participant.
These calumnies you see could not be refuted by me while I did not know of their existence. But there is another reason which you will not con- ceive of till I inform you. The edi- tors of newspapers, you know, ought to be considered as exercising a sacred function; they are the high priests of public opinion, which is the high court of character, the guardian of public morals. Now I am ashamed to inform you that there are editors in this coun- try who will publish the grossest cal- umny against a citizen, and refuse to publish its refutation. This is an im- morality unknown in France since the death of Marat.
A private letter of mine, written from Paris, was mutilated in this coun- try, made to say things that I never wrote nor thought, and published in all our anti-republican papers. I saw it a year after the date and immediately wrote an explanatory letter, which re- established my first intention. This last I then published in Paris, London and Philadelphia. Not one editor who printed the original mutilated letter has, to this day, printed my answer; though it was published in all those places ten years ago. And perhaps not one person in twenty who read the first has ever seen the second, or yet knows of its existence, except those editors who refused to publish it.
You must not suppose from this statement of facts that I am angry with these people. On the contrary, I pity and forgive them. And there is no great merit in this, for they are not my enemies. They only do the work they are set about by their pa- trons and supporters, the monarchists of America. Their object is not to injure me, but to destroy the effect of my republican writings.
They now publish your letter with great avidity because they think it will tend to decry my poem. It may have this effect in a small degree; but I still thank them for multiplying your publication. There is no work of yours that I do not wish to see universally

read in America; and I hope soon to find in our language and in the hands of all our readers your last very curious and interesting treatise de la littérature des nègres . It is a work of indefatigable research, and brings to light many facts unknown in this country; where the cause of humanity is most interested in propagating that species of knowledge. I hope the manuscript copy of Mr. Warden's translation is not lost; or if it is, that he will be able to furnish our booksellers with another.
It had renounced christianity, as your letter seems to suppose, that letter and my reflections on your life and conversation would certainly bring me back. For you judge me right when you say I am not ashamed to own myself possibly in the wrong, or in other words confess myself a man. The gospel has surely done great good in the world; and if, as you imagine, I am indebted in any measure to that for the many excellent qualities of my wife, I owe it much indeed.
I must now terminate my letter; or I shall be obliged to turn from you to the public, with an apology for making it so long; since I must offer it to the public in my country & trust to your sense & justice to do the same in yours and in your language, in order to give it a chance of meeting your letter in the hands of all its readers. If, thus united, they serve no other purpose, they will be at least a short lived monument of our friendship, and furnish one example of the calmness and candor with which a dispute may be conducted, even on the subject of religion.
Your affectionate friend, JOEL BARLOW. Kalorama, 13th Sept. 1809.
WASHINGTON CITY. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 29.
Among the ridiculous calumnies with which a number of the federal prints term (other respectable prints of this denomination, we admit are characterised by a far different tone) none is more unfounded than that which ascribes to the republicans a disposition to foment our misunderstandings with England into war. Because the late disavowal of Mr. Erskine's arrangements has excited the general indignation of the nation and produced a universal conviction that the motives of such a government ought to be viewed with distrust, and that until its conduct shall be explained, it is absurd to talk of its justice or friendship; because its continued violations of our rights, when the cause it assigned itself for them has ceased, have been inculcated as furnishing strong grounds for the opinion that we have nothing to calculate upon but that which shall be extorted from its fears; because, under these circumstances the nation is guarded against the dangers of false security—we are told that there is a strong desire to precipitate the U.S. into the horrors of war.
The folly of this language is the best evidence of the forlorn situation to which the opposition to the existing administration is reduced.
The charge of French influence, so dexterously urged against Mr. Jefferson, by the leading federalists is altogether abandoned in relation to Mr. Madison.
Our existing measures, by which commercial intercourse is prohibited with England and France, were sanctioned by every federal vote in the Senate, and by a large portion of the votes in the House of Representatives. Even Pickering and Quincy voted for them.
The arrangement made with Mr. Erskine has been extolled to the skies by the federalists.
The recent proclamation of the President reinstating the provisions of the non-intercourse has also met with their general approbation.
The talents, the virtues, the moderation, the independence of Mr. Madison, are the constant theme of federal applause.
Nothing, in short, has been done by him, that is not approved.
Still an attempt is persisted in to divide the people, by exciting their fears and fomenting their suspicions of the eventual course that shall be pursued by the administration.
There can be but one motive for this otherwise inexplicable conduct. It must be to prepare the public for that denunciation which it is intended to oppose to whatever measure shall be finally taken by the government. In this nation, as in every other where any freedom exists, there will always be an opposition composed of malcontents, of men who have been disappointed in their personal views, who have coveted honors or offices denied them by the government; of men, who, from the peculiar structure of their minds, are destined to be in eternal opposition to any government; and of weak men, who, for a variety of causes,
are the ill-fated victims of political delusion. Such are the materials of which the present opposition is composed. The honorable conduct of the government, by a fortunate concurrence of circumstances, has become so manifest, as to have shaken from their fealty most of the talent and respectability of the federal party. Enlightened & honest federalists, having become convinced of the pure views of administration, disclaim to lend their aid to the calumnies of faction; hence the opposition is reduced even more in talent than in numbers. It is not surprising that, in this forlorn condition, the abortion of hope should have produced the madness of despair and that the few federal prints which still hold out should exhibit the ravings of bedlam, and be stuffed with the most incoherent nonsense.
DIED on Tuesday the 19th inst. at Green-wood in Prince Georges county, after a distressing illness which he bore with unexampled fortitude, NATAL GRAVEUR, esq. in the 44th year of his age. In the death of this truly meritorious man, society has sustained a serious loss, which to his family and friends can never be repaired. On the day following the funeral ceremony was performed before a numerous assemblage of his neighbors, by the Rev. Mr. Scott in a strain of pious and unaffected eloquence peculiarly impressive.
Charleston, Sept. 15. CENSUS. —We have been favored with the following as containing the number of the white inhabitants of this state, taken in pursuance of an act of the Legislature, passed at the last session:—
 Pendleton district 19,936  Charleston 15,951  Edgefield 15,666  Abbeville 12,126  Spartanburgh 11,890  Laurens 11,068  Greenville 10,748  Newberry 8,960  York 8,877  Chester 8,512  Union 8,262  *Fairfield 7,871  Sumter 7,702  Barnwell 7,646  Orangeburgh 6,489  Marion 6,303  Darlington 5,924  Colloton 5,392  *Beaufort 5,293  Kershaw 4,885  *Lancaster 4,217  Lexington 4,061  Marlborough 3,648  Chesterfield 3,601  Richland 3,482  Horry 2,934  Williamsburgh 2,227  Georgetown 1,750 
Total 215,451 The census of 1800, taken by the Federal Marshal, gave the number of the white inhabitants at 196,255
Increase in 9 years, 19,166
* These are not correct; and we understand the Executive has given further directions respecting them.
Philadelphia, Sept. 25. Arrived, ship Superior , Capt. Butler, 51 days from Liverpool, with a full cargo of dry goods to sundry. Capt. Butler sailed the tenth of Aug. and brings nothing later than already received. Spoke the ship Oliver Ellsworth , from Liverpool for New York, which vessel sailed three days after the Superior , and was informed by her, that accounts had been received in England of the complete success of the British expedition—Plushing and all the other points of attack having surrendered. Off the Western Isles, spoke the British sloop of war Nautilus , who had fallen in with a cutter from Spain, carrying dispatches, containing an account of victory obtained over the French in Spain. This must relate to the action of the 27th and 28th July. The loss of the French, as reported by the Nautilus , is but 14000, killed and taken prisoners.
The city council of London, the day before the arrival of the Superior , had a motion before them for rescinding their former vote of thanks to colonel Wardle.
It is reported by the Superior that Bonaparte had returned to Paris. This is not likely to have occurred so soon.
American produce had experienced a considerable rise in England, in consequence of the well-grounded expectation that immediately on hearing of the rejection of Mr. Erskine's arrangement, this government would revive the provisions of the non-intercourse.
[Translated from Le Publiciste of Paris] The most distressing intelligence is received at Constantinople from the Holy Land. It is reported that the Armenian inhabitants in the neighborhood of Jerusalem have quarrelled with the Christians there, and proceeded to such extremity that many persons have already lost their lives. It is added that many disasters have
happened in the Holy City, and that several churches have been destroyed.
Extract from the Messina Gazette of July 31, 1809.
A vessel under a neutral flag from Civita Vecchia has furnished us with a copy of the declaration issued by his Holiness Pius 7th, at the time of the sacrilegious invasion of all his dominions, and of the patrimony of the church; and likewise of the sentence of excommunication issued against Bonaparte and his accomplices, on the 10th of June: which acts of the Pope are herewith published, to render them more generally known throughout the Catholic world.
PIUS POPE VII. The disastrous designs of the foes of the Apostolical See are at length completed.
After suffering the violent and iniquitous spoliation of the fairest and most considerable portion of our dominions, we now behold ourselves deprived entirely, under unworthy pretexts and with the most grievous injustice, of all our temporal sovereignty, with which our spiritual independence is closely connected. This consolation accompanies us, under the pressure of this severe persecution, that it has not been incurred for any wrong done to the emperor, or to France, which has been always the object of our tender fatherly solicitude; nor on account of any worldly political artifice; but because we would not betray our duties or our conscience.
No one, who professes the Catholic religion, and much less he, who presides over, and is principally bound to announce it, can displease God for the sake of pleasing men.
Bound moreover to God; and to the church to transmit our rights whole and entire, we protest against this new spoliation, and declare it null and void.
We reject with the most determined resolution the assignment of any allowance intended for us or the members of our College (of Cardinals) by the emperor of the French.
We should be overwhelmed with disgrace in the sight of the church, if we submitted to receive our subsistence from the hands of the usurper of her patrimony.
We resign ourselves entirely to Divine Providence, and to the devotion of faithful servants of God, and shall be satisfied piously to conclude the bitter career of our painful life.
We adore with profound humiliation the inscrutable designs of God. We invoke his mercy over all our good subjects, who will be always our joy and our crown —and after having discharged in these most distressing circumstances, our duty, we exhort them to preserve, in all integrity, their religion and faith, and with sighs and tears between the porch and altar, to unite themselves with us in supplication to the Supreme Father of lights that he would graciously be pleased to work a change in the wicked designs of our persecutors. Given at our Quirinal Apostolical place this 10th June, 1809.
PIUS POPE VII.
Conclusion of the Sentence of excommunication.
PIUS POPE VII. By authority of the Almighty God, and of the Saints Peter and Paul, we declare you Napoleon Bonaparte and all your accomplices (co-operators) in the act, which you are now executing, to have incurred the censure of excommunication; under which by our apostolical letters, cotemporaneously published and affixed at the usual places in this city, we declare all those to have fallen who, since the forcible invasion of this city on the 2d of February, 1808, have committed the violences, against which not only our successive secretaries of state by our orders, but we ourselves have protested in two consistorial allocutions (discourses) of the 16th of March, and 11th of July, 1808 and the same penalty attaches to all mandatories, supporters, and all others who have executed themselves or procured the execution of the above mentioned usurpations and violences. Given at Rome, at the Church of S. Maria Major. June 10, 1809.
PIUS POPE VII.
London, Aug. 7. We have just received Hamburg papers to the 30th ult.—Frankfort of the 22—Berlin of the 25th—and Vienna of the 13th. The following is the substance:
Vienna, July 15. The emperor Napoleon is expected to set off for Paris to day.
Frankfort, July 23. Notwithstanding the armistice, the duke of Brunswick was on the 19th at Nonstadt, and sent his patroles to Gotha.
Ludgursberg, July 20. According to reports received here of the 17th, general Vandamme has broken up from Neustadt towards Graz, as the Austrian general Giulay refuses to
give up the fortress in virtue of the armistice.
Moravia, July 21. Yesterday the head quarters of the archduke Charles were at Polescha, near Loutomesche. The emperor Francis has been in Hungary since the 9th.
PURSUANT to a Resolution passed at a meeting held on the 22d instant, we have to request you to convene the citizens of Washington to take into consideration the expediency of forming a Mutual insurance Company against loss from Fire.
JOSEPH HUDDLESTON, RICHARD DINMORE, CHARLES JONES.
ROBERT BRENT, Esq.
Mayor of the city of Washington. 23d September, 1809.
In consequence of the above communication, a meeting of the citizens of Washington is respectfully invited, at Lindsey's Hotel on Saturday next, the 30th inst. at 5 o'clock, P. M.
ROBERT BRENT, Mayor. Sept. 24th, 1809.
W E the Subscribers, Stockholders in the Washington Theatre , being desirous to have the accounts closed, request Mr. Smith to publish the following notice.
GEORGE BLADEN, FRED MAY, GRIFFITH COOMBE, JOHN LAW FOR T. LAW, DALE. CA. ROLL OF DUNN.
The STOCKHOLDERS in the WASHINGTON THEATRE are requested to attend at LINDSEY'S Hotel on Saturday next, the 30th inst. at 4 o'clock P. M. in order to form some plan to close the business of the concern. September 29—It
THE Partnership of Robert & Walter O'Keefe (Painters), is dissolved by mutual consent. The business will in future be carried on by ROBERT O'KEEFE, RANDOLPH Pennsylvania avenue, opposite the West Market, they will mind rake House and Sign Painting and Glazing in the best manner, with good materials and on the shortest notice. N. B. Oil, Lamp-black, &c. for sale on the most reasonable terms. Washington, Sept. 29—3t
By Montgomery county Orphans court, August 16, 1809.
ON application of Thomas Turner and Samuel Turner, executors of Samuel Turner late of Montgomery county, deceased, to sell the Personal Property of the said deceased: Ordered by the court, that they sell the same on a credit of nine months on all above twenty dollars, taking bond with good security bearing interest from the day of sale; all sums under twenty dollars cash—giving thirty days notice in some newspaper printed in Georgetown and the city of Washington; and printed hand bills set up in the most public places in the county of the time and place of sale. Test SOLOMON HOLLAND, Reg.
PURSUANT to the above order and on the terms and conditions therein stated, will be exposed to Public Sale at the late dwelling plantation of Samuel Turner, deceased, (about five miles from Montgomery court house) on Friday the 10th day Nov. next, the Personal Property of the said deceased, consisting of valuable Negroes, men, women, lads, boys and girls; stock of Horses, Cattle, Sheep, Hogs, &c. Household & Kitchen Furniture, Plantation Utensils, crop of Corn, Potatoes, &c. &c. The sale will commence at 11 o'clock and continue, if necessary, from day to day until all is sold. THOMAS TURNER, } Executors. SAMUEL TURNER, } September 9—tdos
THE Subscriber informs his friends and the public in general that he has commenced business on the Capitol Hill, in the Store formerly occupied by Mr. Wm. Emack, where he has
FOR SALE. French Brandy, Holland Gin, Jamaica Spirits, Spirit Bounce, Whiskey, Teas, Coffee and Chocolate, Loaf and Brown sugars, Allspice, Pepper, Ginger and Mustard, Raisins and Almonds, Cheese, Pork and Bacon, Shad and Herrings, Flax and Indigo, Blue and Starch, Mould and Dipt Candles and Soap, &c. all of which he will Sell FOR CASH.
He has likewise opened a LIVERY STABLE back of Corrall's Long Room , where Horses will be taken at three dollars per week—there is a large yard for the use of Carriages adjoining the premises. Every attention will be paid to give general satisfaction.
FOR SALE. N. B. Oysters will be kept during the Season and cooked in the best manner—Wanted a smart, active Lad about sixteen or seventeen years old to attend in the Store. One who can come well recommended will meet with encouragement. R. D. R. Sept. 26—
TAKE NOTICE. THE Subscribers will receive Proposals in writing until the 14th day of October next, for building an addition to the Eastern Branch Market House; for the plan and other particulars apply to either of the commissioners. SAMUEL N. SMALLWOOD, } Commissioners. ADAM LINDSAY, } WILLIAM PROUT, } Sept. 27—
District of Columbia, Washington county, ss. I HEREBY certify that Henry Smith of said county, brought before the subscriber a Justice of the Peace for said county aforesaid, a BAY HORSE, 14 hands 1 inch high, three white feet, ridge main and some white spots on his back, shed before, trots and gallops, no perceivable brand, supposed to be 9 or 10 years old, taken up of the common of the city near the Navy Yard with the saddle and bridle on.
Given under my hand and seal this 5th day of September, 1809. HENRY M. QUEEN. The owner is desired to prove property, pay charges and take him away. HENRY SMITH. September 27—3t
NOTICE. Whereas LOLLY ROSS my wife, this with cut just or sufficient cause, I do hereby declare her to be no longer my wife, and I am hereby absolved from any claim on her account, as I am hereby absolved from any claim on her account. SAML. ROSS. Sept. 25—3t
Agreeably to an order of the Orphans Court of Charles county. THE subscriber will offer for sale on the plantation of the late deceased LOLLY ROSS , on Monday the 23d day of October next, if fair, and if not, on the first fair day thereafter, the following property, to wit; about twenty likely Negroes, one of two very valuable Blacksmiths, two young Women, and the rest Boys and Girls, from four to thirteen years of age. At the same time, about sixty head of Cattle, some of which are sleek and well broke, also several Saddle Horses and Gals, an excellent Carriage, with harness complete, plough, Cart and a Wagon, with suitable other articles suitable to plantation and farming. All sums above twenty dollars, paid with approved security, payable at six months, will be required—and for all other sums must be paid.
JOHN DE ST. LOUIS, } Administrators of Dr. David Jenkings, decd. Sept. 22—5t
THE SUBSCRIPTION. Will be held a Public sale on Tuesday the 14th day of October next at the house of WM. ROSS , in the town of Bladensburg at 11 o'clock in the forenoon a VARIABLE TRACT OF LAND , containing one hundred acres more or less. The said property is situated within one mile of Bladensburg and six from the Capital of the U. S. Terms of sale, one half of the purchase money to be paid at the time of the sale, and a credit of twelve months will be allowed on the remaining bond with security for the payment of the balance with interest. I have also to dispose of Slaves for Sale , several young PRATT SERVANTS , who have been educated at all kinds of house work, and are good seamstresses. MARGARET ADAMS. September 22—7t
SAMUEL BRUGH. HAS imported thirty five Bales of coarse and fine Plains and Kerseys which are for Sale at Thomas C. Wright's in Geo. Town. Sept. 15—9
ADVANCEMENT. THE Subscriber wishes to receive security of the public patronage, either on the most reasonable terms the following then viz.
Two bales of Rose Blankets, do. Striped Broad Cloths, Flannels, Baizes & Coatings, an assortment of Calicoes and Ginghams, 300 pieces of Muslin laid in before the rise, Shirting Muslin, Lencos, Dimity, Cambric and Laces, laced and plain stockings, Bed covers, and home made Tickings, country Cotton, and a variety of other articles too tedious to mention. Also, One doz. barrels Newburyport Shad, Herrings, requiring Flour, Whiskey & Cider, by the barrel, Ketchup, 10 barrels Bounce, fresh Lemons, Raisins & Almonds, Sweet Oil, Groceries, Cheese and Bacon by the quantity, and Soap by the box. Waggoners will find it an object to call at his Store, as he generally gives more for country produce than the Alexandria & Georgetown prices. N. B. For Sale 100 Shares in the new Bank by F. A. WAGLER, New store opposite Centre Market. September 22—3t
PATENT RIGHTS OFFERED FOR SALE.
The Subscriber offers the following Patent Rights for Sale. The first is a simple and easy method of Preserving Animal & Vegetable Substances without the use of salt, by which the substances will be rendered capable of bearing the transitions of every climate without danger of diminution or waste.
The second a Single and Nail cutting machine , that can also be applied to the making Laths, barrel and hogshead Staves.
The third is a Platting Mill , operated by a four ox power, by which from 20 to 30 ten feet boards may be planed up in a few minutes.
The fourth is a simple machine for Threshing Wheat and small Grain without injuring the straw; it will not only completely disengage the grain from the ear, but so clean and prepare it for market by one operation; with equal effect it may be applied to bruising apples for making cider.
The fifth patent is for a new method of Distilling in Cast Iron , instead of Copper Still, by which the whole operation is performed in the still itself, with advantages to the increase of quantity and quality of the spirit, not now generally obtained in the common way. For further particulars apply personally or by letters (post paid) addressed to JOSEPH COPPINGER, Baltimore. September 22—3t
JUST PUBLISHED. And for Sale at E. C. Weightman's Bookstore, Pennsylvania avenue. Mr. BARLOW's Letter to Bishop Gregoire, in reply to the Bishop's letter on the COLUMBIAN , price 12 1/2 cents. Gertrude of Wyoming, by Thos. Campbell. Miranda's Expedition. Memoirs of Mrs. Clarke. Several new Plays. September 22—3t
RAN AWAY FROM THE SUBSCRIBER. LIVING in Brenton, Prince William County, Virg. on the 11th Aug. 1809, a Mulatto man named CESAR , 21 or 22 years of age, 5 feet 9 or 10 inches high, calls himself KEYS ; is much sun-burned, has a full suit of hair—took with him a pair of man-keck pan-pantaloons, a Bennet Coat with coat having yellow and red collars; a short dark summer coat, besides several other articles. It is apprehended he has some money, having been traced into Washington City with a crowd of negroes returning from the camp meeting held in Fairfax county. He is not skilled in any handy craft, but has been entirely accustomed to the business of a plantation. Whoever shall apprehend the said negro, and secure him in any jail, shall receive twenty dollars reward if brought home all reasonable charges shall be paid by the subscriber. Masters of vessels are desired against receiving on board their vessels the said Slave. GERARD ALEXANDER, Stew. Sept. 22—24wtf.