The recorder, or, Lady's and gentleman's miscellany (Richmond, Va.), 1802-08-25 00:00:00

THE RECORDER; Or, LADY'S AND GENTLEMAN'S MISCELLANY;
Printed by HENRY PACE, and JAMES T. CALLENDER, RICHMOND, VIRGINIA; and published every WEDNESDAY Morning. Subscription Two Dollars per annum
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 25, 1802.
THE SUBSCRIBERS TO THE
REVISED CODE,
Now publishing by Messrs. PLEASANTS and PACE, are respectfully informed, that the printing part of the work will be finished by October. Several professional gentlemen have already sent orders to have their copies interleaved with blank paper, for the purposes of annotation; the charge attending this addition to the book will be moderate, a trifle compared to the convenience. Should any other gentlemen wish to avail themselves of it, a line, post paid, addressed to the subscriber, who is to have the binding of the work, will be thankfully received and punctually attended to.
JOHN FUMFREY. Richmond, August 18, 1802.
N. B. A general assortment of STATI- ONARY and BLANK BOOKS, kept constantly on hand.
*** BOOK-BINDING, in all its various branches, executed in the most approved manner, and with the greatest dispatch.
J. P.
THE Subscriber has lately removed to the Brick House, opposite to Crouch's Tavern, and near to Proffer and Moncure's Vendue Store.
He proposes to practise the Law in the High Court of Chancery, and District Courts, and in the County and City Courts, which are held in this city.
HENRY BANKS. Richmond, August 25, 1802. 15.
TO BE SOLD
By virtue of a deed of trust, for cash, on the 20th day of October next, on the premises, a tract of Land, containing two hundred and ninety seven and an half acres, whereon Robert Dabney now resides, (lying in the county of Louisa, on the North Anna River) or so much thereof as will satisfy a debt due James Dabney.
JOHN OVERTON LANCELOT MINOR } Trustees. SAMUEL DABNEY. August 12, 1802. 35.
THIRD NOTICE.
IN THE CASE OF MOODY & PRICE, BANKRUPTS.
THE Commissioners appointed under a Commission of Bankruptcy awarded and issued, and now in prosecution against Moody and Price, of this City, late Merchants, will attend at the Rising Sun Tavern, on the 4th Day of September next, at the Hour of Nine o'Clock in the Forenoon, at which time and place the said Bankrupts are hereby required to surrender themselves for their final examination. The Creditors who have not yet proved their Debts, may then attend, for the purpose of proving the same; and those Creditors who have proved their Debts, under the said Commission, will then attend to assent or dissent to the allowing of the Bankrupts a Certificate of discharge.
DAVID LAMBERT HENRY BANKS } Comm's. JOHN DIXON Richmond, August 7th, 1802.
A CAUTION.
I Forwarn all persons from taking an Assignment on a Bond, I gave John Magic, in November last, for Two Hundred Pounds, as I have Discharged said Bond, and have a receipt for the same.
HUGH M'LAUGHLIN. Richmond, Aug. 7th 1802. (36)
NOTICE.
ALWOOD, A MULATTO BOY, Came with me in the SALLY, from Maryland, who was going to see for his mother back from Richmond. Any one leaving information of him at the office of the "Recorder" will oblige
ROBERT GREEN. Norfolk, July 28th, 1802.
FOR SALE,
A Capital Young Horse,
Calculated to make an elegant SADDLE, CHAIR, OR OTHER CARRIAGE HORSE. Apply at the office of the Recorder. Richmond, July 14th, 1802.
FOR SALE,
A light, active NEGRO BOY,
About 20 years of age; has been accustomed to wait in the house, and take care of horses; he can drive a carriage; price 350 Dollars cash. For further particulars, enquire of the Printers. Richmond, July 28. 15.
THE Property heretofore advertised for Sale by the Subscriber, beyond the Basin, consisting of sundry Lots and Tenements, may now be purchased from Three to Four Years Credit, at any time within Sixty Days from the Date hereof, on application to
D. M. RANDOLPH. Richmond August 6th, 1802. (37)
[The following article was, for some time, put out of the way. We hope that still is comes in good time.]
From the VIRGINIA GAZETTE.
COMMUNICATION.
THE NEXT GOVERNOR.
"It is confidently asserted, that Mr. Giles has no intention to become a candidate for the governorship. If such were his intentions, he has abandoned them."
"The person who is most likely to give satisfaction to all parties, is Mr. John Page, of Gloucester. The steady, inexhaustible patriotism of Mr. Page, during the revolution—the uniform excellence of his private character—his age and great personal respectability,—all plead in his favor."
"There does not appear to be any man in society, concerning whom, both parties will be more apt to unite, than in the choice of this political veteran. The federalists will not complain; the republicans cannot. It may be truly said of Mr. Page, "behold the man in whom there is no guile."*
* Note by the Editors of the Recorder. "A liar should not be believed, although he speaks the truth."
WE are very glad to see the foregoing paragraph, and take the earliest opportunity of circulating it. We know Giles too well to take his word, or the word of any man who gives it, upon the faith of anything which Giles may say. The man who can tell a lie with the view to induce another to injure a third person, who when summoned to a court upon that sole account, refuses to appear, and suffers the publisher to undergo nine months of imprisonment, rather than face his own words, would not hesitate to say and unsay, to promise and retract a thousand things, provided, that, by doing so, he could induce the members of the next assembly to make him governor.
Every honest Virginian, who knows anything about it, must be disgusted at the bare idea that there could be a question between Mr. Page and Giles. It is not possible, even if Mr. Page was out of the way, that there could be a majority of the assembly so ignorant, or so depraved, as to elect the impudent, calumniating, gambling, oath-breaking GILES. We should be glad to see a reasonable answer to this note from the Richmond artillery, or the toast-writing Samuel Coleman. Our readers are to know that we do not oppose Mr. Giles, because he belongs to the republican party; nor recommend Mr. Page, because he belongs to the same party. We are governed by the belief that, in the first, may be found every thing that is mean and detestable; and in the latter every thing, which is honorable, virtuous, and amiable. The first is a disgrace, the second an ornament to society.
† These things have been done by William Branch Giles. See Recorder of last week.
JAMES CHEETHAM.
WHEN an unhappy wretch has completely crossed the line which separates vice from
virtue, when, at every moment, if that moment be turned upon himself, he exclaims involuntarily I am a scoundrel it may be expected that his conduct will be marked with transactions suitable to his depravity.
Cheetham, editor of the Watch Tower, is one of many proofs of this position. Cheetham, by his own confession, has stolen, opened, and published letters, which belonged to another person. He has profaned the sacred rights of private repose and security, rights secured by law, and by the terrors of capital punishment. Cheetham not only lives unpunished for this crime, but he is the organ and echo of presidential blasphemies against the private character of every man from whom anything can be feared.
It is in the paper published by this Cheetham that we have read the following passage.
"The gift was in him ( Mr. Jefferson ) a mere act of humanity, to save an half starved, filthy wretch from starvation. The poverty and wants of Callender were known; and thinking him a man of some talents, Mr. Jefferson may have given him the one hundred dollars mentioned. And the miscreant has completed his character, by publishing the benevolent act with a view to injure the executive. With no one, however, but rogues or fools can it have such an effect. We see in the donation, every thing laudable. Callender, however, has at length shown himself unworthy of it; under-serving indeed of the patronage of any good man."
"Mr. Jefferson has given one hundred dollars to save a wretch from starving! That wretch Cheetham means to be Callender. The public, who have read the story, will pay no regard to Cheetham's remarks; but every body will admire the unblushing impudence of a self convicted culprit, whose crime should rouze every merchant and trader of New York to drag him to trial, and pursue him to destruction."
This Cheetham says, that Callender was saved from starving by the benevolence of Thomas Jefferson, by the donation of one hundred dollars. The same persons who believe this, do not expect that the donation of 100 dollars will ever be necessary to save Cheetham from starving, or (winging). The man who can commit a crime such as that of which Cheetham is convicted, who can dare afterwards to put his face into the public highways, has a heart sufficiently obdurate, sufficiently steeped in iniquity to commit any other flagitious act. Sin and iniquity are his pot companions; lying is his trade. In all his outgoings, and incomings, when he lies down to sleep, and when he arises in the morning to go forth, his first, his last, his constant soliloquy may, and will be, " I am a scoundrel. I am ripe and ready for all sorts of wickedness. Welcome mischief! Welcome turpitude! Welcome guile! All hail! 'tis Cheetham, the stealer of letters, and Duane his accomplice, who invoke your aid, your counsel, and your presence! "
People of America! Behold the chosen vessels; behold the amiable characters, which are selected as your political teachers, by the MAN whom the people delight to honor!!!
MERIWETHER JONES AT NORFOLK.
LAST Thursday, there came to this office the first number of the Commercial Register. This is a Norfolk newspaper, which has been just started under the conduct of Meriwether Jones, whose creditors, and whose infamy had made Richmond rather too hot for him. Jones told us, when he was first elected public printer, a gentleman in the assembly remarked in the house, "that it would be a pity to have a man of no education and no sense in the public printing office." This piece of coherence or simile. We have three months old is perhaps true, and immense improvement.
CONSTANT.
As soon as the Port treaty being concluded is dispatched with the Turkish minister at Paris.
This, to be sure, is
quence. Jones then begins to squeak in an address to the public. He sets out, as usual, with a fib. He could not, as he says, get a proper supply of paper, although it was to have arrived upon the 10th of July. Messrs. Willet and O'Connor tell a story of the same kind; and, as they are men of business, of property, and of credit in the mercantile world, every body will believe what they say. Their deficiency arose from some oversight, or accident. But with respect to Jones, we all know the reason why he cannot get paper. In five words he does not know how to pay for it. Before Jones has resided three months in Norfolk, he will have got as far into debt, as he can possibly go. There is more paper to be had, at this day, in Philadelphia, for ready money, than Jones will ever make use of to the end of his printing life. We congratulate the constables of Norfolk upon the arrival of so good a customer. But we must caution the jailor of the borough to beware of him. The keeper of Richmond jail has been completely taken in. Mr. William Rose trusted the subscription of Meriwether for the board wages of James T. Callender, during his nine months of imprisonment under the sedition act. An hundred and eleven dollars was the scanty amount of Mr. Rose's bill. Ten gentlemen agreed to pay the money. About sixty dollars have been paid. Jones has declared in his Examiner, that he will give himself no farther trouble about the recovery of the money; and Mr. Rose and the writer of this article must, between them, lose the balance. This is the kind of treatment which a man must look for, when he hazards his time, his happiness, his personal freedom, and perhaps his life, to serve the republican Virginia cause. Take it, in all its aggravations, and you will hardly find anything like it. Mr. Jefferson has been reproached in fifty newspapers, as a criminal, because he paid one hundred dollars to assist in the publication of the book for which Callender was imprisoned. A reproach of the like nature must not be cast upon the republicans of Richmond. They cannot, with reason, be accused of prodigality, in their efforts for relieving or assisting a man who went much farther to serve their cause than any one of themselves did; and who, most likely went much farther than they durst have gone. The man that wears his YELLOW HORNS with so much impatience, proves a perfect economist as to the payment of the board wages account of Mr. William Rose. We therefore caution the keeper of the Norfolk jail that he also may not get his fingers burnt.
Extract from Sedgwick and Co. or a Key to the Six per cent Cabinet. Published at Philadelphia, in 1798.
[N. B. Mr. Jefferson read this work in manuscript, as it came from the press. He paid for ten copies of it. He wrote a card to the author pointing out a mistake, which, as he said, had occurred by my trusting to the authority of the historian, Gordon. His amendment stands on the last page, as an ERRATUM. There is only one sentence in the whole piece, that I wish to alter. This sentence conveys a slight censure upon Mr. Jefferson himself. He received the criticism with his usual politeness.]
"Instead of denying the fidelity of my citations, or the accuracy of my assertions, the presidential gazette announces that I have a scald head. I contest not the superior elegance and dignity of Mr. Penno's personal form; but his impeachment implies nothing criminal, and it wants even the miserable merit of being true. To have driven an adversary to the use of diffracted weapons argues that I stand on superior ground. The hundred, or thousand columns of filth and falsehood respecting me, which have babbled through the press of Mr. Green and Webster, or Penno and Liffon, are about the loquacity of vanity, and their dead, of my plain appeal argument and proof."
This was originally designed for the Virginia Gazette of last week, but several reasons have induced a postponement to this day's paper.
ZETTE.
at, there edition only

he's made. This piece, although neither long, nor highly coloured, has produced a violent answer in the Examiner; and which implies, of course, an attack upon the character of the Virginia Gazette. I shall take my own way of defending my defender and myself, in the Recorder. But, as that paper does not appear till next Wednesday, will your kindness indulge me with the insertion of a few lines, in the mean time?
As for myself, I care but very little, what any man can say. General reproach goes for nothing; and a specific charge I am always eager to meet, and, I trust, always able to repel. Amidst the mountains of accusation which have been piled up against me, it is not recollected that any Richmond writer has impeached me with cheating him, or any other person out of a shilling. It has never been said that any man in this city had occasion to dun me for payment of an account. The whole arraignment amounts to an incoherent rhapsody concerning 1. personal filth. 2. hard drinking. 3. ingratitude. 4. apothecary. 5. an endless collection of all the degrading epithets in the English language.
As for the first, my skin is about as clean as James river can make it. If every one would take the same trouble, if they would accustom themselves to the cold bath at all seasons of the year, there would be very small mention of agues, and rheumatism. As for the second charge, it was advanced in the Examiner; and the author of it received an answer, which, I trust, he will remember to the last day of his life. Those who peruse the Recorder can determine whether they think that I am in possession of my faculties. I hasten to pass over the remainder of my accusations.
The personal attack upon the writer of the Plain Dealer came from a desperado, who, is out of the law. This valuable editor, in last Friday's Examiner, advanced a specific denial of a fact which had been officially recorded. Your diligence anticipated me in the purpose of detecting this untruth. The correspondence between Mr. David M. Randolph and Levi Lincoln, has hit that nail upon the head. We shall hear very little more about the remission of fines from the private purse of a president.
It is not so well known as it ought to be, that the mistaken friendship and the culpable humanity of the Plain Dealer, went far towards preventing an arrestment and trial of Skelton Jones. Thus minutely correct is the old proverb, Save a thief from the gallows, and he will cut your throat. The business remains open. If the assassin is ambitious of a trial, he shall be gratified. If nothing short of destruction can silence him, as a fairly warned man, HE SHALL BE ARRESTED. His brother has, at least, more prudence, although not better principles than himself; and the new Norfolk editor is implored to apprehend the present intimation in its broadest and most impressive latitude. "Young man," said Julius Cæsar to the tribune Metellus, "you know that it is as easy for me to do as to say this."
JAMES T. CALLENDER.
Richmond, August 21st. 1802.
From the VIRGINIA GAZETTE.
The Virginia Gazette of the 18th current contains a long extract from the Recorder of the 12th. This comprehends part of our answer to Cheetham, which promises, by the way, to have an extensive circulation. We have already seen three complete republications of the whole piece, at Alexandria, at Washington, and at Baltimore. After making an extract, Mr. Davis concludes with the following observations of his own:—
It is not possible for us to publish the whole of this answer. We believe that this statement and publication, embrace all the most material parts. Our readers will no doubt be pleased in contemplating the singular strength and energy of Mr. Callender's stile, and we suppose, that all those, whose curiosity or suspicion, may lead them to read the Recorder, will not fail to unite with us in opinion, that Callender has turned the tables upon Cheetham, and that Mr. Jefferson has transcended his powers, in giving the two hundred dollars to Callender, after they had been paid in pursuance of the judgement of the court.
With respect to the payment of 200 dollars, as an encouragement for writing the "Prospect," it will appear to every one, that if there was any guilt in writing and publishing the "Prospect before Law," Mr. Jefferson had and abetted the author. In whatever respect any characters or measures were abused by Callender, they were in like manner abused by Jefferson, Madison, and all others of that fashion, who knew the contents of the "Prospect." The revolution has been admitted, that it is highly satisfactory to the court, that they are implicated as they are likely that immediate retribution will be had. They have been institut...
When this d... maine to y... in suppo... ment
aided or abetted the publication, if Callender had, at the beginning made a full confession of the whole, and given up the names of his accomplices? The federal court would most certainly have instituted prosecutions. Mr. Jefferson, at that time the vice-president of the United States, and several other high political characters, would have been called to the bar of the court; sentence would have been passed upon them, and they must have taken the place which fell to Callender.
When we reflect upon the whole subject, there appears to be great room to admire the firmness and perseverance of Callender; and we are astonished at the pitiful reward which has been given to him by his employers. In every point of view, it appears that Callender has had great cause of complaint, and we cannot be astonished at the unequivocal manner in which it has been expressed.
10 DOLLARS REWARD. RUN AWAY, A NEGRO WOMAN, FANNY,
ABOUT thirty years old: she is of a middle size, speaks quick and short, with a pleasing countenance; walks with her toes turned in. No doubt but what she may have got a forged pass, and will endeavour to pass for a free woman. I expect she will endeavour to get to Frederickburg, or Richmond, where she has been before, and attempted to pass as a free woman. Her dress was a black petticoat, with a white jacket. Took with her sundry other clothes, among which were a striped Virginia cloth petticoat; generally wears a silver ring; wears a neat pair of leather shoes. I rather expect she will endeavour to get on board of some vessel or other, if possible, as she made the attempt once before. I therefore forwarn all masters of vessels and others from harbouring of the said negro, or taking of her off.
I will give Ten Dollars reward to any person who will bring her to me in Louisa County. JAMES YOUNG. Louisa, August, 17th, 1802.
WANTED,
FOUR or Five Journeymen Shoemakers, that are good sober workmen. Their wages shall be—Long Boots, 18/—Short do. 15/—Shoes 6/ per pair; and other work in proportion.
D LOCAN, Who has on hand, a large and general assortment of BOOTS and SHOES for sale, on reasonable terms for Cash. Richmond, August 23d, 1802.
THE RECORDER.
RICHMOND. AUGUST 23d. 1802.
A numerous quantity of letters is weekly sent to this office, without paying the postage. We give the public this notice, that in future, should any letters be addressed to this office, respecting the "Recorder," and not post paid, such letters will be returned to their original owners, under another cover. Richmond, August 19th, 1802.
IF Turner Dixon, or near Port Royal, chuses to send to this office twelve cents as the postage of his late letter, and two dollars in advance for one year of the Recorder, he shall have it; and not otherwise. We cannot be sinking money for people of whom we know nothing, but that they do not pay the postage of their letters.
IN last week's Recorder, there was inserted a long letter from Duane to one of the editors. So many complaints have since been made concerning the grossness of its language, the absurdity of its contents, and the d... which has been produced by its se... almost carry for be... of remenant... been att...
Callender's is benefactor. Res that I had Progress. The looks very like a all such stuff, we graph, and without passage, that is in all will what I take to This explanation re-patience, gentle rea... such tiresome rubbish,
In the fall of 1797, Duane was employed by Mr. John Stuart, the printer in Philadelphia, to assist him in the publication of a history of the French revolution. Mr. Stuart has, at present, a house and family in Richmond. He is master of a vessel on the river, and is well known to the merchants of the city. With Mr. Stuart, Duane continued, as a journeyman historian, and a journeyman printer, during the whole winter, the following spring and summer, down to the month of August, 1798. He wrote his history upon slips of paper, with occasional extracts from printed books, which lay in the office. And after having wrote or marked out a sufficient portion of copy, the other hands and himself composed it. In a second letter to me, he has most impudently said, that, during this period, he was employed by Mr. Bache, at ten dollars a week, to write for the Aurora. He never in his life, received ten cents from Mr. Bache for writing, and much less ten dollars a week. During that whole period, he was closely engaged with Mr. Stuart, and his employment was very laborious. His eldest son worked by his side; and when he reads that letter, he will be very clearly satisfied that his father has been fibbing.
In February, 1798, I published the sketches. As soon as they were gone to press, I began Sedgwick and Co. Mr. Stuart was engaged as printer. Duane was then his journeyman. I now return to the eighth paragraph of the first letter. Duane speaks of two modes of argument; one of which he tried on me, as he says, and with success. He refers to what follows. While Sedgwick and Co. was in the press, he came one forenoon to the room in Mr. Bache's office, which had been reserved for me. Mr. John Smith, the present marshal of Pennsylvania, was sitting at a table, reading newspapers, when he came in. Duane produced a proof sheet of the publication, with some leaves of old manuscript, which had been made use of, and cast aside, some time before. It was not possible to convince him, that the sheet from the press, and the papers which he brought with him, had not the smallest connection. It was that part of the work which treats of Indian wars. It was full of names and dates, for which I could not trust to memory. Duane gave disgust and was dismissed. I could not get to Mr. Stuart's office till next morning. The proper manuscript was found. Duane was gently reproved for his misconduct. He became saucy. He seemed disposed for fighting. His son was immediately told that I had done with his father, that, for the future, when I came to Mr. Stuart's office, I should address myself not to his father, but to him. I never after exchanged a word with Duane. To show that I did not bear malice at the man, occasion was sought, in the course of printing the remainder of the piece, to speak with civility of one of his publications. This is the basis upon which he has erected a triumphal arch.
As for my being upon terms of sale with Robert Lison, the president will be concerned when he reads this specimen of his partisan's effrontery. In the Recorder of August 4th, my situation with Mr. Bache has been candidly stated. For its accuracy, an appeal is made to the five following gentlemen: Mr. Israel Israel, Dr. James Reynolds, Mr. John Smith, marshal of Pennsylvania, Mr. John Beckley, clerk to the representatives of congress, and Mr. Matthew Carey, bookseller. They all know that I was engaged with Mr. Bache, about the month of April, 1798; that Duane was desirous to get the situation; and that he did not get it. They were subscribers to a small salary for paragraphs. Dr. Reynolds, Mr. Israel, and Mr. Carey, complied with their engagements. Mr. Beckley was never solicited for his quota. Mr. John Smith never had the money to spare. I continued with Mr. Bache, writing, when I thought proper, till the day before I left Philadelphia. Without attempting to follow Duane through all the windings of fable, it will be found, upon comparing this piece with his two letters, that they are flatly contradicted in their essential points. These five persons just named can tell the world whether they ever entertained a suspicion that I was in danger of being purchased by the British ambassador. They can tell whether they believe that Duane, in the winter of 1797, and 1798, received ten dollars a week from Mr. Bache, for writing pieces for the Aurora. If Duane can bring forward any three of those persons to attest his tale, or any part of it, in opposition to my statement, there is a second string to the bow. These were not the only subscribers to this business. When I called upon Mr. Jefferson for his subscription of sixteen dollars, he said that he had paid the money, upon my account, to a gentleman whom he named, and from whom I afterwards got it. This gentleman knows that Mr. Jefferson preferred me to Duane, or any body else. But it is impossible, that Dr. Reynolds, or Mr. Israel should think, for one moment, of supporting Duane in this series of insolent falsehood.
So much for the proposed purchase by the British ambassador. In February, 1798, there was published the Sketches, a volume of 264 pages. In May following, there came out Sedgwick and Co. In what interval was there a chance of my being purchased? Duane has begun by printing fables upon me, without the circumspection which was requisite
for making them stick together. He now forges in a file of desperation. He cares not for consequences. He has jammed himself up in a corner of the draft board. He can't not stir without instant extinction. Stand forward! Thou organ of the public will! thou, presidential bag pipe, thou bullying poltroon, thou hardened ruffian! In the name of God, and this country. I charge thee to stand forward, and give an answer if thou canst, to the Recorder's defences of Timothy Pickering.
Tell us whether the committee's report, or thy battered contradiction deserves most to be trusted? Tell us into how many rags Oliver Wolcott must have flogged thy carcass, had he caught thee, in the Treasury office, at midnight, with stolen keys in one hand, and a cut-throat lantern in the other! Methinks I see the HOUSEBREAKER skulking over Chestnut Street, loitering and squinting around him, trembling at every step, and afraid of his own shadow! Ask Duane, at this day, what secrets he discovered, what deeds of darkness he brought to light, what "BURGLARY" and "PLUNDER" he detected? Duane is dumb. Duane wants to get off with canting about The Political Progress, and Lison's project for the purchase of Callender. He wants to sneak off by fishing facts in a torrent of falsehood. He shall not thus escape! Not one word will Duane say concerning Branton's letters, or the notorious advertisement of himself as a more than suspected villain; or the printing of the private, intercepted, the broke up letters of a British ambassador; a felony for which he was prosecuted, and which he committed with the concurrence of governor Mifflin. A being thus backed in fraud, thus black with treachery, has Thomas Jefferson selected as the defender of his fair fame! There sometimes occurs in life an intuitive union of souls, that is immediately discerned and felt, that spurns the letters of distance and suspicion, and rushes at once in the grasp of confidence! Such is that instinctive friendship, that sympathetic harmony of hearts, which glows in all its glory between the printer and his president, the Pylades and Orestes, the David and Jonathan of the day. "Thou shalt write calumnies against Callender; and I shall pay thee for them. He shall unmask my character; and thine be "shall exterminate."
* Duane styles himself so. † This was the title to his noted articles in the Aurora of June, 1800. There never was a more absolute humbug than the whole story. The federalists were completely beaten with their own favorite weapons.
MORE LAST WORDS WITH CHEETHAM AND DUANE.
Besides a multitude of other pieces, which bear effrontery and Duaneism, in the face of them, what follows can be ascertained by a whole printing office of witnesses. In winter last, there was drawn up for the Virginia Argus, a small piece upon the neglect of manufactures in Virginia. We lamented the preference of attention which was bestowed, upon the pedigree of Kitty Fisher, and of Dave Devil. About a fortnight after, the piece came back from Duane under the shape of an extract of a letter from a gentleman in Richmond. Duane was mean enough to steal an article, which he was too envious to borrow, in an honest manly manner; and then he covered his theft by the invention of a falsehood, by the fabrication of a gentleman, who never had a being. We have on former occasions, given various instances of such tricks. Almost every number of his paper has impostures of one kind or other. This is the present high proof of republican principles into what a professed state of degradation must the presses of a party be plunged, when the labours of such men as Duane and Cheetham, can be considered of importance!
One circumstance is sufficient to convince the world in what an extremity of defiance and contempt of all that is called honourable, Duane is in. He is a republican receiver, and the republican thief. We give them entire columns; and we do not think it worth while to make an answer to one fourth part of what we quote. We transcribe from these hacks, frankly and completely, without garbling, or flinching, as far as the limits of our paper will permit. When Duane is to attack another editor, he selects a few words from a long passage. He adds whatever suits the purpose before him; and then he draws what inference he thinks proper. In the Recorder of July 21st. our Virginian correspondent has fixed Duane in a fact of this kind. It was not a casual mistake, which is frequently made, even by the best of men. It was not an insolent exaggeration of truth, which has so often sullied the splendor of victory. Duane was convicted of a cool, and elaborate system of falsehood. Never, since the existence of human reason, has the world seen a more absolute triumph upon the one side, or, upon the other side, a more complete extinction of the possibility of defence, or of resistance. We were not ambitious of

making a coffin for the fellow's character, but he would not let us pass without it. We recommend to the attentive perusal of our readers, the long quotation from Ches- ham, in the Recorder of the 12th cur- rent. This most wretched, of all wretched scribblers, begins by telling us, that "Cal- lender's pen may be strong, but that it is "the strength of a Goth, the rudeness of a bar- "barian." Be it so; but it was by Goths and barbarians, that the solid fabric of Roman greatness was torn from its foundations. "Few," says he, "of the facts, if any, which "Callender brought forward against the late "administration, have been, or can be, confu- "ted." His statements, although uncouthly dressed, are of a RESISTLESS NATURE ." The substance of this is, that, as a political writer, Callender is accurate and irresistible. The utmost pride, or vanity of man, could not ask for a more splendid encomium; and it is the attestation of an enemy.
Since writing the above, we received a third letter from Duane. His second was more inde- cent than his first. * His third is more indecent than his second. We shall give him another hearing next week.
* Vid. a full copy of the first letter in last week's paper.
FROM A CORRESPONDENT.
THE streets of Richmond are almost always in one of two situations. We are either blinded with dust, or drenched in mire. Why is not a proper tax im- posed to discharge the expence of paving that part of the city which is closely built? This, at least, is extremely prac- ticable. It is to be sure, impossible at present to pave Shockoe-Hill; but still much might be done for other parts of the town.
One reason why the police of Rich- mond is as full of defects, as a sieve is full of holes, appears to be this.---The magistrates are not paid, as they ought to be, for their trouble. And do you suppose, that men of business, or men of independent fortunes, will take the pains of doing for nothing all your magisterial drudgery. Indeed, my good friends, you cannot, in common sense, expect it. Does any one of us wish to work for nothing? Any kind of work be more perfectly disgusting than a great part of the official duties of a magis- trate? If the common council consisted entirely of Surgeons, I could see some reason why Richmond is destitute of lamps, and why both ends of the bridge are fortified with pit-falls? In that case, one might have supposed, that a surgi- cal magistracy wished for a few addi- tional dozens of legs and arms to be frac- tured, and put together, per annum. But, as the common council does not consist of Surgeons, the neglect of such matters must be ascribed to a different cause.
My panegyric upon the high roads adjacent to Richmond, must likewise, be postponed to a future day. How is a cart, or waggon to move, when the mire is half a yard deeper than the height of the axle-tree? About a mile, or thereby, above Bacon's Branch, there is a passage, or rather an impossibility of pas- sage, where in wet weather, you may sometimes find five waggons sticking at a time. Xenophon, at the head of his ten thousand Greeks; or Hannibal, ascend- ing the Alps on his elephant, would have felt his blood freeze at such a pros- pect. We should not always be sur- prised, that the markets of Richmond are dear, when we are so often surround- ed by such impregnable abyses.
The state of high roads may be traced up to the same origin as that of the streets of Richmond. In other parts of the world, an overseer is paid for his attendance. But, I am preaching to the desert; and I shall stop. An hundred years ago, the high roads of England were quite as execrable as ours at pre- sent are; and an hundred years hence, the great-grandsons of the present Virginian generation will begin to blush at the negligence of their ancestors.
For the Recorder,
ONE of the greatest advantages which a man can boast of is that he pos- sesses the privilege of speaking what he thinks. This right may be abused; because a man may reason incorrectly, and, by certain consequence, he may speak falsely. This falsehood to borrow, the language of an eminent writer, may be pick his neighbour's pocket, or break his
But there appears to be one exception to this general remark. Scripture says, take no thought of to morrow. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. Agreeably to this precept, I venture to advance it as my opinion that no man has a title to torment his neighbours concerning the affairs of the next world. These common observation than the affairs of to morrow. My principles are justified by the constitution of Virginia. This in- strument declares that there shall be no such thing as religious persecution; that no man shall be compelled to pay the parson for preaching sermons which he does not think worth hearing. I am old enough to remember with what trans- port of congratulation this legislative sentiment was embraced in Europe. Thousands, and ten of thousands who had never before repeated the name of Virginia, for a second time, did now mention it in transports of admiration. I shall not, at this time of day, quote the passage that has already been so repeat- edly cited, and so universally admired. Returning to this position then, I observe that religious mistakes or falsehoods on my part, cannot injure my neighbour, or pick his pocket . He, should, there- fore let them alone.
I am extremely sorry to say that the same liberal principle, which animates and adorns the constitution of Virginia, has not advanced its progress through every one of the eastern states. In the American Annual Register for 1796 it was found necessary to specify some instances of clerical oppression, which had recently been perpetrated in the state of Massachusetts. Matters are not yet mended. These remarks have oc- curred in this place on account of a tran- saction which, as we are credibly in- formed, took place a few months ago, in that state. Three methodists, one of them a class leader, and the other two private members, were seized by autho- rity of the state and carried to Northamp- ton Jail, there to remain till they should pay their taxes for the support of a con- gregational or Presbyterian minister. And pray wherein was the one sect pre- ferable to the other? These things are not as they should be.
THE AURORA of July 28th with great so- lennity assures us that the same cause which sent COOPER to a prison sent "Sydney and DEWITT to the scaf- fold."
We should be glad to hear what Dewitt Duane refers to. We remember to have read in history of only two persons, of that name. These were Cornelius and John Dewitt, two Dutch brothers, the latter of whom was at the head of a political party, in opposition to the Prince of Orange. The brothers were massacred, broiled and eaten, by a Dutch mob. Is this what Duane means, when he speak of Dewitt's dying upon a scaf- fold? Or why does Billy pretend to dabble in history so very far beyond his depth? Is this all that our Republi- can Goliath knows about the History of Europe? Is it by writing stuff of this sort, that he means to pursue his course steadily, and to laugh at insolent stupidity ?
The same Aurora says that Callender stated that "the file of Porcupine was "best suited to the American taste." In what publication, did he say that? Duane, if asked, could not tell. But it is certain that Porcupine's file met with great approbation from great numbers of people. Our editor is welcome to make his best and his worst of this assertion.
From the Baltimore Federal Gazette. The times are charged, and so are we.
HOW very applicable is this adage to the Democratic editors who still re- main to disgrace the cause of real re- publicanism. The American editor this morning or citizen Driscoll for him, who it is said has just left his Temple of Rea- son shop to take charge of this ministerial mouth-piece, ludicrously enough ex- claims, "Nor can we cease to wonder why the laws do not cause the person, character and dignity of the president of the United States to be more respected." When a man ceases to respect himself, it is worse than useless for his minions to make laws to cause him to be respected by others. We know no greater disgrace the nation
could suffer than the humiliating degra- dation of its PRESIDENT, in his associa- tion with such fellows as Duane, Camp- bell, Cheetham, &c. The "wonder" of this new editor has had the same ef- fects upon his intellects, as upon those of all the rest of the "sect." It has bewildered their imagination, and de- stroyed their memory. They appear to have entirely forgotten the floods of abuse poured forth for the last thirteen years against every officer of the federal government from Washington down- wards. They no longer remember the two Pennsylvania insurrections, pro- duced principally by their wicked mis- representations and turbulence. Yet not a word must be said against the mad career which is hurrying our liberty, our country to destruction---a gag is to be put in the mouths of the federalists for telling truths at the very time these mini- sterialists themselves are calling Mr. BARR, the vice-president one of their own "sect," a hypocrite, a Cataline , a tyrant , a man desitute of all morality, honesty, honor and fidelity .---Yet the man who is him- self doing the greatest injury to his own character and the most lasting injury to the nation, is to hear nothing but adula- tion. The laws should cause him to be respected, by making him respect him- self.
HAVE our readers suitably pondered on the conduct of Mr. Jefferson towards Callender?
This is your philosopher, practising such philosophic tricks of meanness as would raise a blush on Satan's cheek.
This is your honest man, who could carest and honor the name of Washing- ton, and at the same time assist Freneau in stabbing his reputation: who could sincerely pray that no accident might happen to that he should be obliged to exercise the duties of chief magistrate instead of Mr. Adams, saying that they "had been justly confided to the eminent "character which had preceded him, "whose talents and integrity had been "known and reterred by him during "long course of years;" and who could bribe a venal writer to hack his feelings and blast his character, by he- ping lie upon lie, and base slander on base slander. This philosopher could openly extol the talents and integrity of Mr. Adams, could speak of him with rever- ence, and at the same time could possess a foul soul and vile enough to perpetrate deeds at which common hypocrisy would shudder.---Where is the Democrat who justifies this? there are not ten in the United States. Where is the Democrat who is not ashamed of the executive? there are few if any. Where is the vir- tuous man whose bosom is not filled with pity, anger and contempt? He exists not. We feel indignation, the strongest indignation; we wish not to lie under the imputation of that insensibility, which does not feel indignation; nor would we lie under the imputation of that abomi- nable Jeffersonian hypocrisy that dares not express what it feels.
Thus it appears that Mr. Jefferson has given Callender 350 dollars, 200 out of the public money, the amount of his fine; 100 while Callender was writing his " Prospect ," and 50 when he applied for an office, from his own private purse. What money this honorable and virtuous executive has lavished, by way of bribes on Duane, previous to the un- happy commencement of the present administration, we know not; but we have good reason to suppose much greater sums than to Callender, either in money advanced, or in promises, de- pending on the success of their criminal policy, afterwards punctually per- formed.---If Duane should become offen- ded at the present administration, what crimes might he not expose; what a canvas of horrid pictures might he not justly and correctly paint---If some wealthy federalist should offer Duane a very large sum of money, we have no doubt but that he would thus expose his own and the villainy of rogues in high offices; for what objection could Duane have? He wants money; and as to character, he has none to injure, much less to lose.
We wonder how Mr. Jefferson ap- pears, how he feels, when he looks ho- nest men in the face, who are not igno-
rant of this as well as other means by which he so meanly and inhumanely obtained a seat justly due to another. What must be Jefferson's and Gallatin's feelings when they see such men as Callender and Duane, who are able, once affronted, still lower to find their repu- tation, so as to shame their associates, and to make still more pale the linen visage of democracy. We say inhumanely ob- tained his seat. Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson (the two names ought how- ever not to be mentioned in the same sen- tence) were competitors for the office of president. Mr. Jefferson to further his views bribed (for we can call it nothing else) one man at least inhumanely to represent his competitor as a weak, cor- rupt person; guilty of great crimes, and holding opinions injurious to the United States, &c. Thus could he in this in- human underhand manner injure the character and wound the feelings of a sage and patriot, whose shoes he is un- worthy to stoop down and unloose.
We are not to be surprised that Mr. Adams should be greatly affected in his feelings. He had been above 30 years in the service of his country, and thus in the evening of life, conscious with what singleness of heart he had ever conduct- ed, to see the ingratitude of his fellow citizens, to see honors leaving him, to be conferred on one who had no just claim to them, and who never could have ob- tained them but by "bursting open the doors" to see, as in many instances, virtuous but uninformed characters op- posed to him, to fear the delusion would continue till the country he had so long served would be ruined---to fear injus- tice would be done to his memory---it was a severe trial for the philosophy of one, who, when it regarded himself, forgot the doctrines he had often caught of the instability of the multitude, the ingratitude of republics, and the fu- of intriguing Camagoues . But Jefferson's attempt to stab the char- of Washington and Adams will be i in vain. On the remembrance posterity dwell with eloquent admiration of their great man. every honest man's pronunciation. ( Alexandria Intelligencer. )
THE FREDERICK TOWN HERALD of July 24th has a long essay, signed A Plain Dealer . Of this gentleman's plain dealing here follows a sample:
"In relating what passed between Mr. Potts and General Jackson, when the Treaty was before the senate, it would have been candid in the Whig to have quoted the authority for this anecdote. That authority is no other than a pamphlet, called "The Pros- pect Before Us," written by the fa- mous Callender, for the purpose of destroying the late Federal admini- stration. Since the election of Mr. Jefferson, Callender has renounced his old Democratic friends, and he is now the Editor of a paper (The Recorder) in Richmond, wherein he has attack- ed with great force the present ruling powers, and is bringing to light the dark deeds of his former associates. Of course, Callender is now become in the eyes of the Democrats a hateful wretch, unworthy of the slightest cred- it. Yet on this occasion, the "Whig" is not ashamed to publish a stolen passage from his book, although Cal- lender now confesses himself, that he may have been led into gross mis- takes in that book by the idle sug- gestions of democratic malice. But though we really cannot admit, whether he was mistaken in this in- stance or not, we consider it as a mat- ter of perfect indifference.
The first part of this passage refers to the private debates in the senate of Con- gress, in 1795, respecting the adoption of Jay's treaty. All which the Pros- pect says upon those debates was extracted from minutes, that were taken upon the spot, by general Mason. They were delivered by him to the author for the purpose of publication. After an ab- stract had been made, it was read over to the general, that he might supply its deficiencies, or correct its errors. The senate of congress had no right to shut themselves up in this manner. It was of importance to the country that their debates should be published; though

it is the common and detestable maxim of statesmen, when they are in place, that the people should, as far as possible, be kept ignorant of every thing. If this maxim shall excite a clamour against the general, his integrity and his fortitude will enable him to despise it. He well knows that, with not one tenth part of his resources, the writer of this article has endured infinitely harder weather than any, which the present explanation is capable of railing.
The abstract contains a variety of reflections, for which, in the strict sense of the word, general Mason is not accountable; although, as he made some slight corrections in The Prospect , it is likely that he would have suggested others, if any thing in the abstract, had met with his particular disapprobation. Without attending to this candid and material distinction, it is very likely that the federal newspapers will in this, as in many other instances, misquote the present writer. They will make him say, what he never thought of saying, and then they will make inferences from premises of their own invention. The plain dealer says that it is a matter of perfect indifference whether Mr. Potts ever said the words which are ascribed to him. This is true, and from hence it follows that it was quite superfluous to have hugged in the Prospect . But it seems that it was thought necessary to introduce Callender and his conversion to federalism. Upon so hopeful a conversion it is difficult to speak with gravity. Here follows the short speech of Mr. Potts, as inserted in the Prospect .
IN June, 1795, the senate of congress locked their doors to debate on the ratification of the British treaty. In discussing the article for the recovery of British debts, Mr. Jackson enquired as to one of Maryland, in what condition of that state upon English flood, and whether any security was required by the paper this Mr. Jackson gave the following account. The way Maryland had lodged in the bank of England forty thousand pounds sterling. In June 1795, that sum, with the interest due upon it, amounted to about one hundred thousand pounds. Since the peace, Maryland sent an agent to receive this money. The lord chancellor had directed the cash to be paid into his own office, and refused to refund it. He ordered that the attorney general should be made a party to oppose, on behalf of the crown, the restoration of these hundred thousand pounds. Mr. Potts said that this had been done, and that, accordingly, the money remained unpaid. He subjoined that Jay's treaty made no provision for the recovery of this sum. It should have been provided for in the treaty of 1783. Messrs. Potts and Henry agreed to ratify that of Jay, without paying the smallest attention to the interest of their constituents. Mr. Henry had, for many days, been sick. When the vote came to be taken, he was conveyed to the senate chamber in a chair. He sat with pain. He could only give his vote, and seal the disgrace of his country. The citizens of Maryland must view, in a proper light, this shameful desertion of their concerns. These hundred thousand pounds sterling afforded the best materials for an additional clause. They deserved as well a special message to England, as the twelfth article. The assembly might at this day, have been lending that money, as an interest of seven and an half per cent to the commissioners for the federal city, with a premium of twenty five per cent on the principal sum. They might have cleared the channels of the Patowmack, and the Susquehanna. They might have founded free schools, formed high roads, or cut a canal from Newcastle to Brenchtown. They might have lent this money to the four merchants of Philadelphia, or Baltimore, at seventy-two per cent per annum, paid monthly; and the principal would have doubled itself in four hundred days. All these glorious possibilities are nipped in the bud, by the utter contempt in which
the state of Maryland has been held."
Here you see that Mr. Potts has only stated a few historical facts, which neither party, nor indeed all the political parties upon earth, are able to deny. They are facts, also, which no party can have any conceivable interest in denying. To those who are acquainted with general Mason, it is not necessary to say that, in attesting a plain fact, the world can hardly produce a witness more worthy of belief. A great part of the first and second volumes of the Prospect were finished for the press, in the form in which they now stand, under the immediate inspection of the general. A large proportion of the materials for the rest of the work was borrowed from his copious collection of all kinds of documents. But, independent of such external support, the volumes bear along with them, their own vindication. They are every where full of extracts from statutes, or reports of Congress, or other official papers; and, while the author is forming his conclusions, he is careful to exhibit the premises upon which they have been founded. He has indeed done a great deal, said Chase upon the trial; and the evidence of an enemy, and an oppressor, may deserve to be quoted, when the attestation of the despot is to be pointed against himself.
By the bye general Mason did not find it convenient to attend, when he was summoned as a witness upon the Richmond trial. His absence was regretted. He wrote Callender a polite apology. He was prevented as it seems from appearing by bad health, weather, and by business. He did not explain by what ailment he had been so unseasonably overtaken. The badness of the weather did not obstruct the immediate return to Richmond of the deputy marshal; and it is not, at once, perceivable that the roads, which were open to one person, should have been inaccessible to another. The general did not explain by what kind of interest he was prevented from appearing in the federal court, and from exposing the assertions which Callender had made in his name, and by his express authority. The attendance of general Mason was required by that federal constitution which he has taken an oath to support, and which, like many eminent Republican characters, he professedly and irrevocably despises. To repeat this truth does not amount to the disclosure of a secret. Whatever I may think of the constitution , is an expression ascribed to the general in a debate during the last session of congress. In the Richmond convention, this gentleman opposed the adoption of the constitution. The sequel justified a great number of the apprehensions and predictions of the anti-federal party. With the promptitude of a prophet, and with the correctness of an impartial historian, Mr. Monroe described before hand what were to be the consequences of the boundless influence of a president. With a semi-omnipotence of judgement, which has rarely been equalled, and which hardly can be surpassed, with a grasp of mind, that could encompass, condense, and concentrate every thing, with an eye, which, at the first glance, pierced through the bottom of a political question, George Mason described before hand your inestimable federal senators. He described them precisely as experience has proved them to be. Many members of the Richmond convention were opposed to the federal constitution. They have never been reconciled to it. Several of its most ardent supporters in that assembly, have repented of their approbation. All those who disliked the constitution, at that time, dislike it still. Examine the names of the Anti-federal minority of the Richmond convention. You perceive, that the same citizens who resisted the adoption, have actively resisted the fundamental measures of the federal party. Madison, who has been every thing, and who, in many respects, is nothing; Madison, after the constitution had been adopted, embraced a singular choice. He opposed almost every measure which was approved by Congress. He placed
† Uncle to the general.
himself at the head of the anti-federal party. His theory and his practice, his invariable contradiction to its movements, exhibit the secretary of state as a sort of political caput mortuum . He may rest assured that he will never be forgiven, and far less can he be cordially trusted, by the primitive anti-federal partisans. They cannot, they will not, and they ought not to forgive the donation of the North Western territory. Of Mr. Madison, as a politician, it is unsafe to say any thing more than that he continues to exist. Want of room has made it necessary to abridge these remarks and besides, so great is the infatuation, or fury of the public mind, that truth, and even official and recorded truth, must be circulated with a sparing hand.
NEW-ENGLAND VERSUS VIRGINIA.
From the Baltimore FEDERAL GAZETTE.
"It has been the fashion of late to compare the rival states of Virginia and Massachusetts-- The citizens of the former are forever prating about freedom, equality, economy and the rights of man"--while the latter talk little, but act. In the former state, the genius of slavery, with her lash of scorpions, and her iron fetters, breaks the spirits and condemns to misery one half of the inhabitants who cultivate the earth. In the latter, the genius of true liberty diffuses light, unity and happiness. Here not a slave exists. Here, to use the words of the eloquent Curran, "no sooner does the East-Indian, or the more oppressed African, set his foot, than his body grows beyond the measure of his chains. They burst, they fall about him, and he stands disenchained by the resistless power of the genius of universal emancipation."
There was not the least occasion for this ranting; and we are somewhat surprised to meet with it in a Baltimore paper. It is not surely from Maryland that Virginia should receive such lectures. This piece reminds us of a certain vulgar proverb about the Pot upbraiding the Kettle. There is not the smallest room for thinking that the Yankees, if placed in the same condition with the Virginians, would act with, one spark more of liberality than the people of this state. We rather think that they would behave with greater harshness and severity. Experience shews that the Yankees who have settled in this state are severe task masters. The number of slaves in Massachusetts was always but very diminutive. If they had been as numerous in proportion, as they are here, slavery would still have subsisted. We heard colonel Lyon say that, when the Massachusetts emancipation began to be seriously proposed, the masters of slaves in that state sent them by droves across Vermont into Canada, and sold them off. He also said that whole ship loads were embarked for the Southern States, and sold for what they would bring; and when the black population had thus been reduced to a very inferior proportion, the act of emancipation past. We do not vouch for the truth of this story. But it has a violent air of probability; and we have no reason to distrust the personal veracity of colonel Lyon.
As for the lash of scorpions , and the iron fetters , it is certain that, in Richmond, and Petersburg, at least, a much greater number of slaves has been spoiled by foolish and useless indulgence, than has ever been crushed by fetters and scorpions . The condition of a slave is very often much more comfortable than that of his master; and as for universal emancipation, it is a thing which can never possibly happen. Very small thanks, indeed, are due to those who have been the most zealous in promoting it.
The condition of the black people in Africa is infinitely worse than their condition in Virginia. Consult the late travels into the interior parts of Africa, by that intelligent and intrepid Scotsman, Mungo Park. Why, there is such a mass of misery in Africa we cannot say, but such is the fact , Sir! Some ve-
ry well informed negroes, who had lived in their own country, till they were of mature age, and who were brought here, have affirmed that they would rather be slaves in Virginia, than freemen at home. It is not easy to describe the mischief that has been done to the farmers of this country by a certain class of well meaning people, who tamper with the passions of their slaves. We should like to see a well drawn up act of assembly upon this business; and something like a disposition to enforce it. Mr. Madison as well as the president himself, appears to be deeply infected with the mania of emancipation. Last winter, the secretary of state made a report to congress upon the new census. He therein remarked, with a tone of exultation, that there were fewer slaves in the United States, by seventy thousand than at the former census. If Mr. Madison could have told us that, in 1801, the continent contained seventy thousand fewer blacks than it did in 1791, he would have repeated a piece of intelligence worth hearing. But to inform us that, within ten years, the slaves have diminished by seventy thousand, comes only to this that the free black people have augmented in a still greater proportion. And pray does Mr. Madison fancy that such augmentation can be of advantage to the community? His report proves that he thinks so; and that Mr. Jefferson thinks or pretends to think so. The president reads, we may be sure, all these pieces, before they go forward to Congress. He has read eight hundred octavo pages of our composition , before the public read them. What would be the situation of the Southern States, if, instead of seventy thousand free black people, (or whatever their number may be) the whole race were free? MAN OR PROPERTY! Pause. Think. And beware of a president, and secretary, who are capable of indulging such dangerous whims.
We do not wish to cast wanton reflections upon any part of the union. But we must remark that, if one were to judge from the little of their newspapers, the people of New England are the most illiterate, the most censorious and quarrelsome portion of the human race. It is hardly possible to open one of their newspapers without finding some libelous trash about Virginia, such as that above quoted. Scandal seems to form their daily food. We are constantly reproached with an unwillingness to pay a fair proportion of the public debt . This is false; but even if it were true, nobody can deny that Virginia has long since paid much more than all to which her share of the public debt and federal taxes would come, to, the end of the world. The North Western territory forms a fund which will one day become an inexhaustible source of revenue to the general government. We have formerly stated the vast sum which went, last year, into the federal treasury from this source. What can New England oppose to such a donation? She never gave one acre to the general government; while Virginia gave two hundred and twenty millions of acres of land, besides forty three millions of acres of water, consisting of lakes and rivers of immense value. Such reproaches against Virginia originate in the very depth of ignorance, impertinence, and ingratitude. By the scrap of Albert Gallatin , and some other patriots of his stamp, Connecticut received a slice of this territory, which is quite as large, and probably much more valuable than Connecticut itself. This act of rapine occurred in the session of December, 1798, or 1799, we have not leisure at this moment, to examine which of them. In a former session, the thing had been proposed in congress by Mr. Tracy; and general Mason, and other republican senators had met it with the most sovereign contempt.
General Mason told the writer of this piece that he and his friends in the senate, considered the proposal as too barefaced, and impudent, ever to pass through congress. It was more an object of ridicule than refutation. But, after all, the law has past .
* Vid. some account of this article in the Recorder of February 13.