The recorder (Richmond, Va.), 1802-12-01 00:00:00

THE RECORDER;
PRINTED BY HENRY PACE, & JAMES T. CALLENDER, RICHMOND, VIRGINIA; PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY MORNING. SUBSCRIPTION TWO DOLLARS PER ANNUM, IN ADVANCE.
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1802.
TO THE PUBLIC.
MANY gentlemen residing in states north of this have addressed letters to us, to send them the Recorder; and requested we would name any person in Philadelphia, or New York, where they could send their subscription money. We take this opportunity of informing the public, that Mr. Lewis, paper-maker, at Philadelphia, will receive any subscriptions sent for the Recorder, and Mr. Coleman, printer of the New York Herald, at New York.
TO SUBSCRIBERS.
THE subscribers to "The Recorder," are desired to recollect, that the payments for this paper should be regular and prompt. We shall not, at any future period of our editorial progress, be telling the public, in terms of declaration, that our subscribers are indebted to us in four, six, or ten thousand dollars. We pay a strict attention to our subscription lists; and as soon as we can convince ourselves that a subscriber is disposed to fall behind in his payments, off he goes , without delay. Do you think that the editors of this paper are going to be such simpletons as to have a parcel of twelve, or fifteen hundred ragged, beggarly subscription accounts, dispersed all over the state, of two, four, eight, or twelve dollars a head? Do you think that we know no little of common business, and of common sense, as to be giving credit for two or three years at a stretch, or even two months, to republican citizens, that remember to forget to pay the postage of their letters, wherein they solicit us to put down their names? Indeed, gentlemen, as the mayor of Coventry said to queen Elizabeth! They have got the wrong pig by the ear. You may depend upon it that no person exists upon the surface of this commonwealth, who shall ever be five dollars in debt to the Recorder, unless by the most peculiar and fatal combination of incidents. Does any man of business fancy that we are going to send money before hand to Philadelphia, to pay for paper, to wait three months for its arrival; to pay every body in the house in advance, for working it off, and then, to be giving three years credit, with a law-suit at the end of it, to some worthy republican who resides five hundred miles to the westward of the Blue-Ridge? That is not the way, in which we design to do business. We shall have no advertisements ascertaining the simplicity of our having accounts dispersed all over the state, to the amount of six, or eight, or twelve thousand dollars. Whenever a subscriber to The Recorder, knows himself to be behind hand, he must not differ with the post-master of the county; he must not think that he feels an apoplexy of surprise, if the paper does not come next week; for, he may rest assured, that we shall pay the strictest attention to the state of payments and of defalcation; and, as we are obliged to pay for every thing in advance, our subscribers may rest assured, that nobody shall be in our debt, if we can help it.
NOTE.
* We are satisfied that this will very seldom be the case. We have not more than one subscriber in forty, but what pays in advance, and assures us that he will continue to do so.
SEMINARY.
HUGH WHITE, A. M. (educated at the University of Glasgow, Scotland) on the first Monday in December next, in the city of Richmond, near the court-house, opens A SEMINARY, OR SCHOOL; In which he will teach Greek, Latin, French, English Grammar, Navigation, Surveying, Geography, Book-keeping, Arithmetic, Martin's Philosophy, and Ferguson's Lectures. So far as these last two can be taught, without the apparatus. He will take particular care of the education, and morals of pupils, whom parents, guardians, and others may commit to my tuition. He shall possess strong impressions of gratitude to those who shall encourage him. Governor Monroe, William and John Mayo, and Robert Gamble, Esqrs. are acquainted with him.
TERMS. Greek, Latin, French, £. 10 per annum. Navigation, or Surveying, 8 dollars a piece. The rest at the rate of £. 6 per annum. Richmond, Nov. 27th, 1802. (37.)
FOR SALE, FOR CASH,
ALL that property of D. M. Randolph's beyond the Basin, heretofore particularly described; apply to THOMAS LADD. Richmond, December 1st. 1802. (11.)
BY virtue of a deed of trust made to me by Nelson Berkeley, to secure the payment of a sum of money therein mentioned, will be sold at public sale on the premises, for ready money.
A TRACT OF LAND
In Hanover county, containing 302 acres, situated on New Found River, and bounded by said River on the South, by the land of Capt. Thomas Price on the East, by the main road on the North, and by Landon C. Berkeley on the West. There is on the land a small Dwelling-House, with a Kitchen, Dairy and Meat House, and a new Barn 20 by 40 feet. There are also young Orchards, of Apples and Peach Trees, and more than one hundred bushels of Wheat have been seeded upon the land, together with some Rye and Barley. At the same time will be sold several valuable Negroes, the flock of Horses, Cattle, Sheep, Hogs, a Waggon and Team, and Plantation Tools.
CARTER BERKELEY
Also Will be sold an moiety of a Merchant Mill, and fifty acres of land adjoining, on New Found River within a mile of the above tract of land, together with an unexpired lease for six years of the other moiety. The above Mill will be sold to satisfy a mortgage. The sale of the above property will commence on Monday the 3d day of January next, and continue until the whole be sold. Hanover Nov 22d 1802. (14/5)
LANDS FOR SALE.
To be sold at Public Auction on Thursday the 30th of December next, at twelve o'Clock at the Eagle Tavern in the City of Richmond 17,101 Acres of Land in the State of Kentucky. Lot 1st. 9000 Acres in Hanover County Bays Creek, above Sulphur Lick; — 2 800 ditto ditto Walnut Creek; — 3 950 ditto ditto above Sulphur Lick — 4 207 2 3 do. do. Middle Fork Drake's Creek; — 5 1350 do. do. Skeggs Beaver Creek; — 6 1000 do. do. North side Big Barren; — 7 2000 Acres in Green County East side South Fork Little Barren; — 8 1240 do. do. South side Little Barren; — 9 5000 Acres in Logan Co. on Big Barren River; — 10 850 do. do. N. side Cumberland River; — 11 566 2 3 do. do. South side of ditto; — 12 270 ditto, ditto, North side of ditto; — 13 2000 do. do. West Fork Crooks Creek; — 14 856 2 3 do. do. S. Fork Little Barren. Acreage 17101
Lot 15 150 Acres in the W. side of Eagle Creek North West of the Ohio. Special warrants will be given on securing the payment of the purchase money, by bond with approved security. Payable one fourth in six months from the day of sale, one fourth in twelve months, one fourth in eighteen months, and one fourth payable in two years, with interest from the date of purchase.
JAMES BROWN. Richmond, Nov. 26th, 1802. (41.) William Willeham, Executor to the Estate of A. Ronald.
NOW LANDING FROM THE SHIP BELLONA.
CAPT. AGNEW, FROM LIVERPOOL, AND
FOR SALE
By the Subscriber. 10,000 Bushels of Salt, 40 Crates of Earthenware, 10 Boxes of Pipes. JOHN FOSTER, WHO HAS ALSO FOR SALE French Brandy 4th proof by the pipe, hoghead, or quarter cask, Port Wine, Molasses in hogheads, Sugar in barrels, Tallow in hides, Logwood, White Lead, A few pieces of French Silks, Silk Hose, Writing Paper by the ream, And an assortment of Hanging Paper. Richmond, Nov. 16th, 1802. (31.)
THE Subscriber has lately removed to the Brick House, opposite to Crouch's Tavern, and near to Prolter 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 22, 1802. (4.)
WANTED, AS AN APPRENTICE
To the Printing Business. A Young Lad, from the Age of Thirteen to Fifteen Years. Enquire at this Office. Nov. 17th. 1802.
JUST ARRIVED, And for Sale by the Subscriber, A fresh assortment of DUTCH BOLTING CLOTHS. JOSEPH DARMSDAT. Richmond, Nov. 8th. 1802. (4r.)
THE HIGH BRED ENGLISH STALLION, HAMILTON,
IMPORTED from London in 1797, will stand the ensuing season at the farm of Speed, Wilton & Co. on Dan River in the lower end of Halifax County. Terms will be announced in due time. JOHN WILSON. Halifax County, Nov. 18. 1802. (41.)
WANTED TO HIRE, BY THE YEAR; AN ACTIVE NEGRO-MAN, Who will be taught the Printing Business, at Press. Enquire at this Office. Richmond, Nov. 3d. 1802.
VIRGINIA; In the High Court of Chancery for the Richmond District. Between Henry Banks And Nathaniel Anderson, Robert Pollard, George Winton and Thomas Stewart, Defendants. ON the motion of the plaintiff, the court, this second day of October in the year of our lord one thousand eight hundred and two, with the consent of the defendant Nathaniel Anderson, by counsel, doth refer the accounts between the plaintiff and that defendant, to one of its commissioners, to be by him examined, stated, settled, and to the court reported with any matters specially stated though pertinent by himself, or required by the parties to be so stated, and ordereth, with the consent of the parties, the cause to be finally heard at the next term, if that officer, in the mean time, shall state and examine them, or, upon examination of the papers, a final decree can be made without the report.
A copy, teste, Peter Tinsley, c. c. Commissioner's Office, Richmond, October 20, 1802. The parties concerned, are desired to take notice, that I have appointed Monday the twentieth day of December next, for carrying into effect the within decretal order, upon which day, their attendance is required at my office, with copies of the court papers and their accounts ready for examination. William Hay, m. c.
JUST PUBLISHED AND FOR SALE AT THIS OFFICE PRICE TWO SHILLINGS AND THREE-PENCE THE CONDUCT OF MERIWETHER JONES, IN A SERIES OF LETTERS, ADDRESSED TO THE PUBLIC, By JAMES T. CALLENDER.
MANY gentlemen, when subscribing to this paper, have enquired for complete sets of the Recorder. These are not to be had. But this little publication will, in some measure, supply the want of them. Besides the seven letters to Jones, the last of which has rung through every state, and every second newspaper in the union, the collection contains many other articles. Among these are, Defence of Aaron Burr—Mr. Samuel Coleman, No. 1.—Defence of Timothy Pickering—A little more about republican economy —with a variety of small pieces.
FALL GOODS, SAMUEL P. BRADDICK.
HAS just received from the Octavia, from London, a very handsome assortment, which he will sell low, for Cash or Produce. Richmond, Oct. 12th 1802. (2m.)
FISH, A QUANTITY OF HERRINGS and SHAD, for Sale, By FRANCIS HYLAND.
Richmond, Nov. 2d, 1802. (1m.)
KENTUCKY LANDS FOR SALE.
To be sold at public auction, on Thursday the 30th of December next, at 12 o'clock at the Eagle Tavern, in the city of Richmond, 5320 ACRES OF LAND, In the State of Kentucky, belonging to the estate of the late Andrew Ronald, deceased—viz. 2420 acres, lying on Big Barren River; 1000 acres on Green River, on the mouth of the Big Barren; 1840 acres on the head branches of the South Fork of Skeggs Beaver Creek;
5320 acres, issued in four patents to Charles Dabney, of Hanover County, the 2d. Oct. 1726, and purchased of him by the late Andrew Ronald—the whole recorded in the court of appeals, in the state of Kentucky, the 22d June, 1796, as by a certificate of Thomas Todd, eq. clerk of said court. The terms of payment will be, one fourth of the purchase money to be paid in 6 months from the day of sale, one fourth payable in 12 months, one fourth in 18 months, and one fourth payable in two years, with bond and approved security—the bonds to bear interest from the date.
WILLIAM WISEHAM, Executor to the estate of Andrew Ronald, Richmond, Nov. 22 1802. (14/5.)
50 DOLLARS REWARD.
RUN away from the Subscriber in this city, in May last, a Negro-man, named BALLOU. A Black complexion, about Twenty-Six or Seven Years old, about Five Feet Seven or Eight. Formerly belonged to the estate of Hooper and TOLSON. Has worked as the Blacksmith's trade. Was purchased at Public Sale, last Spring. Whoever secures the said Negro, and lodges him in Jail in this City, shall have the above reward by applying to William Faucher. THOMAS MOORE. October 15th 1802. (14/5.)
PORT WINE.
A FEW pipes and quarter casks of genuine old port wine are this day landed, and will be sold on moderate terms by ROBERT GAMBLE. Richmond, Nov. 2d, 1802.
FROM THE VIRGINIA GAZETTE, DUANE'S SUBSCRIBERS.
DUANE, in the Aurora of the 15th, has published a lengthy address to his subscribers, which deserves attention for no other reason but to exemplify the inconsistency, the falsehood, and the impudence of the organ of Pennsylvania. Duane in a former paper told the public he had four thousand subscribers; he now tells them that only a few more than forty have come forward to pay their subscriptions in the close of the year. Estimating the annual subscription of each of those four thousand at six dollars, which is less than a medium between the city and country paper, the amount due to Duane after deducting fifty subscriptions, ought to be twenty-three thousand seven hundred dollars. But Duane tells us in this address, that the subscription due to him, only amounts to seven thousand. Wherefore it is evident that Duane has wished to impress the public with a belief, that his subscription revenue was fifteen thousand seven hundred dollars more than it actually is. If Duane's last statement is correct, which probably it is, the number of his subscribers cannot exceed twelve hundred and seventeen. How stupid must the organ of the public will be, not to have foreseen the inextricable position which he has assumed.
This address of Duane's furnishes us;

also with a most conclusive and decided proof of the meanness of many of the supporters of the Aurora. Duane, by declaring that only a few more than forty have come forward to pay their subscriptions, has told us in plain terms, that only a few more than forty among his subscribers can be honest men; for no man but a knave or a fool would subscribe for a paper without paying for it. What a melancholy proof of the principles of those citizens who at present form the ruling party in America!!
THE Ship Belona, Capt. Agnew, will sail for London, in eight, or ten days. For passage, apply to Thomas Willock, in Norfolk, or the subscriber in Richmond. JOHN FOSTER.
Richmond, December 18. 1802.
The RECORDER. RICHMOND.
DECEMBER 18. 1802.
The following is the copy of a Memorial, that will be presented, next week, to the General Assembly.
Unto the Honorable the Assembly of the State of VIRGINIA.
THE MEMORIAL OF HENRY PACE, PRINTER IN RICHMOND, Respectfully represents
That, by an act of the assembly passed the 22d. of January 1798, it is enacted that the public printer "shall, within thirty days after the rising of the assembly, publish all laws passed during the session; that he shall publish the journals of the house of delegates regularly during such session; that he shall publish in his Gazette, or otherwise, as the same may be directed, all intelligence, notices of particular laws, proclamations and advertisements from the executive; also all orders and advertisements directed to be published by the supreme courts, the treasurer, the auditor, attorney general, justices of the peace, and other public persons, or bodies, acting in their public capacity, and to supply the executive, treasurer, auditor and inspectors with blanks."
That, by another clause of the same law, the salary of the said public printer is augmented to the "annual sum of two thousand seven hundred dollars."
That the memorialist is willing to undertake the faithful execution of the whole duties of the office of public printer, as specified and enumerated in the act above cited for the annual sum of twelve hundred dollars; that he is joint proprietor of a newspaper, which has by far the most extensive circulation of any published in Richmond; that of consequence, this newspaper will give advertisements of a public nature, a most extensive circulation; and that if the honorable the assembly should require it, he is ready to give security for the execution of the duties of this office; that the extent of printing required by this act above quoted is in its nature fluctuating; but that he considers the above sum of twelve hundred dollars, as a fair and reasonable compensation, upon a medium, for the quantity of business, which the public printer is, by law, required to perform.
That the executive council have frequently found it necessary to employ the public printer in a number of publications over and above those enumerated in the statute above cited; that it is well known, and that, if necessary, the memorialist is ready to prove it at the bar of the honorable the assembly, that, for those extra pieces of business, the present public printer has been in the habit of receiving a much larger compensation than what had been ever granted to his predecessor, Mr. Davis. The memorialist pledges himself to prove that, in one instance, twelve hundred and fifty dollars were paid, when any other printer in Richmond would have done the business for three hundred and seventy-five. He can prove that, since the rising of the last session of assembly, eight hundred and seventy dollars have been paid for as many copies of a pamphlet which cost the present public printer one hundred and fifty-two.
That the memorialist is willing to find security for the accurate execution of all such extra pieces of work, at a fair and moderate tradesman's price. He is willing to submit the charges advanced in his bills to the arbitration of two printers to be selected by the executive council, and a third to be chosen by himself. He has examined some of the accounts of the present public printer, and he is humbly of opinion that, upon this head, perhaps fifteen hundred dollars per annum might be saved to the commonwealth, in addition to the fifteen hundred dollars that may be saved by reducing the present salary of the public printer from two thousand seven hundred dollars to twelve hundred.
The memorialist respectfully submits these details to the consideration of the honorable the assembly. In respect whereof, &c.
MR. THOMAS PAINE.
Has announced the memorable and important intelligence of his arrival in this country, in a first letter to the people of America. The piece is distinguished by that boldness, promptitude and impetuosity of style, which often mark the compositions of this writer. Having praised the title, our encomium is at end. Three fourths of the letter are taken up with Mr. Paine himself. The conqueror of Italy, of Germany, and of Egypt, when dictating his orders to the pirate of Algiers, does not speak with one-tenth part of the self-consequence, that is here assumed by the hireling, or the volunteer of Thomas Jefferson. His name, for whatever reason, is held in general detestation. Yet this man addresses the people of America with the haughtiness of an offended divinity, thundering vengeance and destruction through the battles of Homer. We consider the whole performance as more than half an insult upon the country. When Cicero ran through all the changes of egotism, as to Catiline's conspiracy, when Demosthenes, in a court of justice, boasted of the greatness of his public services, each orator was extremely careful to flatter the feelings of his audience. Cicero is always reminding the Romans that they are the masters of mankind; and the Greek assures his countrymen, that amidst all their follies, and all their disgraces, they are the most eloquent, the most generous, and the bravest people upon earth. They praise themselves, to be sure, in the highest terms. But their audience had been artfully prepared for the endurance of this praise. Overwhelmed by a luminous burst of thought, the mind bends under the grasp of their eloquence; while veneration and gratitude for the artist forbid us to question the justice of the likeness.
But, in Mr. Paine, we find nothing of all this. When he is to speak about himself, he always falls below himself. The boaster neither glides upon your confidence with the sweetness of Cicero, nor forms your conviction with the grandeur of Demosthenes. It is the grossest and most vulgar vanity, stripping itself naked, and strutting on tip-toe round a stage of its own erection. Mr. Paine affects to despise newspapers, and, as an avenue to public notice, he has chosen one of the most despicable. He says that his arrival has alarmed the federalists. It has at least alarmed and disgusted an immense number of republicans. I shall examine the facts and principles that Mr. Paine has asserted and assumed. As for his biography, and "his horse button," I wish to have no concern with the one or the other.
I pass over a long ranting extract of a former letter, that Mr. Paine gives us, and which contains nothing but noise. For thirteen years, he had suspected that "the principles of the revolution were expiring on the soil that produced them." "I now," says he, "know from the information I obtain upon the spot, that the impressions that then distressed me, for I was proud of America, were but too well founded. She was turning her back on her own glory, and making hasty strides in the retrograde path of oblivion. But a spark from the Altar of SENECA, unextinguished and unextinguishable through that long night of error, is again lighting up, in every part of the union, the genuine flame of rational liberty."
When Mr. Paine wrote this letter, he had scarcely been ten days in the country. He had been surrounded by the president and other leaders of that party.* They had told him whatever they thought proper. But Mr. Paine might have known that, after fifteen years of absence from America, he could not, in ten days, become master of her intervening history. The fluency of his assertions may excite a suspicion that he is credulous and precipitate. If the principles of freedom are of so brittle a nature, or so worthless a frame, if they are so apt to turn their back on their own glory, and to fall dead of an apoplexy, this, of itself, would present an invincible objection against all future revolutions. "The retrograde path of oblivion" is a phrase without meaning. America may be enslaved or disgraced; but she cannot be forgotten. During this period of turning her back, America received an addition of two millions of people. Her commerce, her tonnage, and her wealth, multiplied with a rapidity that the world had never seen before. It was during this period of turning back that Philadelphia, after losing fifteen thousand lives by the pestilence, doubled her population; and that Baltimore, from a dirty village, became a wealthy, populous, and well built city. It was in this path of oblivion that fifty thousand families cut their way through the bosom of the forest and the bottom of the marsh, and peopled the savage solitudes of the Ohio, and the Mississippi.
As for the spark that is again lighting up, it will be hard to prove that the present governing faction are better men than their predecessors. More of this, by and bye. But,
NOTE.
* On the news of his landing at Baltimore, Mr. Dawson went expressly to conduct him to Washington. Upon his arrival there, he was immediately waited upon by the president's private secretary.
letting aside the federal government, there has been a long night of error, and it still continues, in some of the state governments. For example, the assembly of Pennsylvania, spend one half of their time in debating whether they should adjourn?† Their sessions are notoriously prolonged that the members may get three dollars per day for attendance. The patrimony of the Penn family, that rich and noble inheritance, has been torn from the community, by some of those very men that were appointed to preserve it.‡ Some years ago, a prisoner was devoured alive by rats, in the jail of Philadelphia, and not a word was said of it to the jailor. A mayor of Philadelphia breaks up two private letters from a British ambassador; and a republican governor sends them to the press!§ A republican printer breaks into the treasury office in the dead of night, steals the books, publishes gabbled extracts from them, and instead of being sent to jail, he is admired as a hero, and invited to dine with a federal president! All these matters and millions more of the same sort, seem to prove that, although Mr. Paine has been three weeks in America, the long night of error is not yet at an end. As for the genuine flame of rational liberty, the Alien and Sedition acts expired of themselves. There is no reason for thinking that either Jefferson, or the other heads of that party disapproved of the principle of the Sedition act. It was the particular exercise of the law, which they did not like. The patrons of a horse breaker cannot be suspected of scruples, or principles, of any kind. Rational liberty stands just where it was five years ago. Mr. Paine proceeds thus:
"As the French revolution advanced, it fixed the attention of the world, and drew from the pensioned pen of Edmund Burke a furious attack. This brought me once more on the public theatre of politics, and occasioned the pamphlet, RIGHTS OF MAN. It had the greatest run of any work ever published in the English language. The number of copies circulated in England, Scotland, and Ireland, besides translations into foreign languages, were [Mr. Paine meant was] between four and five hundred thousand."
"The principles of that work were the same as those in Common Sense, and the effect would have been the same in England, as it had been in America, could the vote of the nation have been quietly taken, or had equal opportunities of consulting or acting existed."
With all its energy and acuteness, Rights of Man contains much false reasoning. One of Mr. Paine's favorite topics is the ridicule of hereditary rights. But some things that seem absurd in theory are often very useful in practice. Of the small portion of repose that Europe hath ever enjoyed, a great part may be traced to this same foolish doctrine of hereditary rights. It has, upon the whole, produced much more good than harm. Of all forms of government, an elective monarchy is, perhaps the most wretched. Witness Poland, Persia, and the dynasties of Indostan!† The French reformers discovered, some years ago, that it was very wrong for a man and his wife to live together, after they had become tired of each other. There cannot be a more beautiful theory. It was reduced to practice; and France, already sufficiently fertile of prostitution, was immediately filled with strumpets, cuckolds, bastards and divorces. Mr. Paine, with great triumph, enumerates the number of civil wars that have been produced in England by hereditary right. Very true! But if you must have a king, the chance is that there would have been almost a perpetual civil war, if that king was to be chosen by the people. Laugh as much as you please at the conceit of a nation's being transferred like a herd of cattle. But if a king is to be had, let him, by all means, be hereditary. Nothing can be more false or more shallow than the ridicule which has, in this instance, been attempted by Mr. Paine.
NOTES.
† I heard them told this to their faces, by Mr. Robert Waln, who has since sat in Congress, for Philadelphia.
‡ This, I have had from several members of the legislature. The matter is no secret.
§ Vid. Duane's letter in last week's Recorder.
† I refer in particular to the history of Aurangzeb's successors.
The other leg upon which Rights of Man may be said to stand is equal representation. Upon this subject Mr. Paine did most completely exonerate the British. As a political gladiator, his merit is of the highest kind. He knows, beyond most men, both when and where to strike. He deals his blows with force, coolness, and dexterity. But, in the present case, the whole weight of his authority is turned against himself. The federal government has not a hereditary king, nor a house of peers. The representation is about as equal as it can be; and yet, Mr. Paine tells us that the principles of liberty were expiring. We have neither a king, nor peers, nor rotten boroughs. How then could these principles be upon their death bed; and continue so for thirteen years? In England, Mr. Paine held up America as the pinnacle of perfection; and he gives, as a reason for it, the republican form of her government. But, when he comes to this country, the fairy scene vanishes, and republicans are found to be just as corruptible as the rest of mankind. Equal representation is in itself, a most valuable and excellent thing, and so is pure spring water. But the one will no more secure a government from corruption than the other will give to him who drinks it, immortal life. The evidence of Mr. Paine himself, as advanced in this letter, proves that a considerable part of Rights of Man was a piece of gross deception. Nor is there any thing in the peculiar form of the federal government that makes it more liable than others to abuses. We have constitutions of all kinds. That of Virginia is as democratical as any body can wish it to be. Yet a great part of its revenues have been wasted in the most foolish manner imaginable. Laws have past, or have been suffered to exist, that are perfectly destructive to the welfare of the country. If, two hundred years ago, the British house of commons had authorized a debtor to shoot the sheriff that attempted to arrest him; if, when a man's servant is hanged for a crime, they had burdened the public with the purchase of another; if they had saddled merchants and storekeepers with an enormous tax to pay for building an armory that was worse than useless; in a word, if parliament had framed a system of laws for protecting the property of a fraudulent bankrupt, they would only have done, what has been done since by the assembly of Virginia. They would have buried the axe in the root of manufactures; and this the rotten borough parliaments did not do. They never past any law so like bedlam, by ten thousand degrees, as Madison's scheme of emancipation, or his gift to Congress of the North Western territory.
Pennsylvania has a constitution greatly different from that of Virginia; and, fourteen years ago, she had another constitution quite as different from both of these. Under each of them, corruptions multiplied; because, from the very nature of the thing, perfection is impossible. The result must be that Mr. Paine's Rights of Man contains a vast number of false positions. The example of the long parliament, as well as of the French revolution, might have taught Mr. Paine that an alteration of government is, at all times, a very hazardous experiment; and that, if the people of England could believe all the stuff which he told them about the matchless purity of republics, they were too ignorant of human nature to be fit for making a constitution.
These remarks are not pointed against the worth and excellence of an equal representation. They only serve to show that Mr. Paine deceived the people of England by over-rating it. We must not cast away a watch, because it does not tell us the longitude. We must not neglect an equality of representation, because legislators are often factious, ignorant, or corrupted. Under such a system, we may commonly say, with Candicus, "all things are not so well here as in Eldorado; but yet they are pretty well."
Mr. Paine says that "if the vote of the nation could have been quietly taken," &c. He must be perfectly conscious that there was not the smallest

chance for it. In a country, where ten thousand people travel fifty miles to see a boxing match, where a Westminster election has been decided by bludgeons, and cutlasses, it is a burlesque upon common sense to think of such a thing. I, for one, have lived long enough to become sick of revolutions. I sincerely wish that the health and the power of Bonaparte, his wisdom and his good fortune, may be prolonged for fifty years to come. Imperfect and blundering, as our federal constitution is, I would rather go back for a second nine months to my jailor and benefactor, Mr. Ross, than be the witness of a serious endeavour to subvert it. In pulling out a rotten tooth it is possible to break the jaw bone.
In France, there could be no change for the worse; and it is long since the condition of the people has become infinitely better. In England, there might have been a change for the worse. The experience of nine years in America has convinced or reminded me that a mere equality of representation is not a certain remedy for all sorts of political evils; and that the removal of one despot may be succeeded by the rise of another. Mr. Paine has called our attention to his Rights of Man . These remarks are designed to cool the ardour of enthusiasm. Hitherto, we find nothing in Mr. Paine's first letter, that seems either worth the odium, or the parade of his importation. The theory of his Rights of Man stands in direct opposition to his picture of the United States. If equal representation cannot secure us here, there is much less reason for thinking that it could have secured the liberties of England.
"But in the midst of the freedom we enjoy [says Mr. Paine] the licentiousness of the papers called federal (and I know not why they are called so, for they are in their principles anti-federal and despotic) are a dishonor to the character of the country, and an injury to its reputation and importance abroad. They represent the whole people of America as destitute of public principle and private manners. As to any injury they can do at home to those whom they abuse, or service they can render to those who employ them, it is to be set down to the account of noisy nothingness. It is on themselves the disgrace recolls; for the reflection easily presents itself to every thinking mind, that those who abuse liberty when they possess it, would abuse power could they obtain it; and therefore they may as well take [as] a general motto for all such papers, WE AND OUR PARTONS, ARE NOT FIT TO BE TRUSTED WITH POWER."
Mr. Paine is one of the last men upon earth, who are entitled to complain of the licentiousness of the press. No writer has ever taken greater freedom than himself with popular opinions, and with venerated names. The republican prints are quite as licentious as the federal. They are quite as much "a dishonor to the character of the country." Mr. Paine discovers the deepest ignorance in affirming that such papers can be of no service to their party, that they must be set down to the account of noisy nothingness. The two last words exactly describe the remainder of this paragraph. The next contains the principal effort in the whole letter. In every sentence, Mr. Paine discovers the poverty of his information, the badness of his memory, or his want of temper. He makes assertions, that every man must know to be false. Take notice!
"There is in America, more than in any other country, a large body of people who attend quietly to their farms, or follow their several occupations, who pay no regard to the clamours of anonymous scribblers, who think for themselves, and judge of government, not by the fury of newspaper writers, but by the prudent frugality of its measures, and the encouragement it gives to the improvement and prosperity of the country; and who, acting on their own judgment, never come forward in an election but on some great occasion. When this body moves, all the little barkings of scribbling and witless curs pass for nothing. To say to this independent description of men you must turn out such or such persons at the next election, for they have taken off a great many taxes, and lessened the expenses of government; they have dismissed my son, or my brother, or myself, from a lucrative office in which there was nothing to do, is to shew the cloven foot of faction, and preach the language
of ill disguised mortification. In every part of the Union, this faction is in the agonies of death, and in proportion as its fate approaches, it gnashes its teeth, and struggles. MY arrival has struck it as with a hydrophobia; it is like the sight of water to canine madness."
All this is mighty serious and solemn. The conclusion, also, is remarkably temperate and modest. As to the first sentence, it is certain that the citizens of America derive their information almost exclusively from newspapers. Very few political pamphlets are published. In some states, it is common for members of Congress to write circular letters to their constituents. But these two sources of information do not, when put together, produce one five hundredth part of the impression, which arises from newspapers. Of this Mr. Jefferson was perfectly conscious, when he paid me sixteen dollars for writing paragraphs in the Aurora. At that time, the president gave it, as his fixed opinion, that newspapers were more likely to be impressive than books. He was perfectly right. Mr. Paine may tell us, if he can, where people are to get information unless from newspapers; or by what other means they are to judge of the frugality of government? As for the improvement and prosperity of the country, they are above the encouragement of any government. They arise from the efforts of individuals. Government is chiefly known by the expence which it occasions. It is a sort of complex contrivance, a something hired to keep the peace, and nothing more. In Common Sense , Mr. Paine has very fully explained this doctrine. He observes that society arises from our wants, and government, from our vices. The definition is perfect. Government is to society, what a bridle is to the horse, or a dose of salts to the human body. They produce no positive good; but they prevent the existence of evil. Is a nation the more prosperous for being taxed; or does a cornfield produce a better crop on account of the rail fence that surrounds it? No! But hill taxes and rail fences are often necessary; and you may with equal reason say that a rail fence enriched your land, as that taxes promote the improvement and prosperity of the country. All this explanation has been fully proved by Mr. Paine himself in an hundred passages of his Rights of Man .
I return to the subject of newspapers. In fact it is their weakness, or ability, that must decide the fate of every administration. Put the case that the reasons upon each side are equally good, and that all the prints of the one party are entrusted to a conductor as richly gifted by nature as Thomas Paine. Put Cheetham, and Blake, and Jones, and Miss Smith, at the head of his adversaries. They could have no more chance with Paine than Madison had with Patrick Henry, or than the modern writers of farce would have with Shakespeare. In six weeks, he would make them fly, like chaff before the wind, and do by himself half the business of a president's election.
"When this body moves, all the little barkings of scribbling, and witless curs, pass for nothing. Yes! But what moves this body? The press. And what are Americans most fond of reading? Newspapers."
"To say you must turn out such persons, at the next election, for they have taken off a great many taxes and lessened the expenses of Government, is to shew the cloven foot of faction, &c. It would be the cloven foot of nonsense; it would be such an address, as never was and never will be made. But people might say "a number of taxes were imposed to pay off the national debt. They were collected without disturbance, and with very little oppression. They have been repealed to curry favour with you, at the expence of public utility. The republicans reprobated the existence of the national debt; and they have destroyed the only conceivable source by which a cent of it could be paid. This is the most egregious hypocrisy and inconsistency. To support this
farce, they have been compelled to sell their government shares in the bank of the United States. By these shares they made a clear annual profit of forty thousand dollars, besides their interest in the other property of the bank. The shares produced a regular dividend of eight per cent. So that the sale is exactly the same thing with an eight per cent loan. You know the racket that they raised against Adams, when he borrowed upon these terms. The stock has been sold in a private manner, when it should have been put up in detached parcels to the highest bidder. The stock has been sold to a foreign banking company, when it could have found abundance of purchasers at home. If it was a good bargain, we should have kept it among ourselves. But, to make bad worse, the paper has been sold for an hundred and thirty thousand dollars less than its current price in the market. And then we have a prattle about republican savings."
"The party brag of lessening the expenses of government. They have set aside the mint, and the sixteen additional judges. For all this I thank them; and here my panegyric must expire. They reduced the navy to be sure. But for this we are no more obliged to them than for the summer that warms, or the winter that freezes. The powers of Europe put an end to the war, and to their own piratical depredations, without consulting Thomas Jefferson. Hence, a navy was no longer wanted; and if we are to judge from the report of their famous committee, the less that they meddle with maritime affairs, it is just so much the better. This committee first informed mankind that the navy yard where ships are built is the very same thing with the dock where ships are laid up. With a degree of ignorance, or of impudence, also, that seldom has been matched, their official printer, and Paine's selected editor, affirmed that six seventy-four gun ships could be built in the little dock yard at Philadelphia, when he might have known that the thing was physically impossible; when he might have known that, instead of six seventy-fours, it could hardly serve to hold the timbers of one forty-four gun frigate. What sort of a secretary to the navy must Robert Smith be, when he suffered such absurdities, to pass without extinction? And, by the way what do you think of our little ci-devant whipping republican secretary of state, who has promoted the foundation of a scheme, by which three hundred thousand thieves and strumpets are to be turned loose on the state of Virginia?"
"As to reducing the expenses of government, has not the present Congress voted an hundred and twenty-six thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars for the charge of one year's Indian treaties, when the Creeks and Cherokees are constantly committing murders,* and when a thousand frontier rustlemen, at fifty dollars per scalp, would sweep the left bank of the Mississippi in less than six weeks? Is it not a shame to give eight dollars per day, besides all expenses, to commissioners for Indian treaties, when a French, or British treaty is discussed for the bare six dollars? Why should Albert Gallatin get five thousand dollars per annum, after asserting and voting that his predecessor should have but four thousand? And is it not the consummation of insolence to prate about extinguishing the public debt, when at the same instant, six hundred pounds sterling are pinned to the tail of it?"
Mr. Paine speaks of the federal faction as in the agonies of death. I can see
NOTE. * While this article is going to press, an account appears in the newspapers that the Cherokees have committed several fresh murders, and that a war with them is expected. † Mr. Smith.
nothing of all this. In New York, there are at least six daily newspapers; and only one or two republican. If you judge by the state of advertisements, and that is no bad criterion, nine tenths of all the mercantile property in the city belongs to the federal. Philadelphia has five daily newspapers. Three of them are decidedly federal. Bradford's leans very much so, and the federal republican Aurora can hardly keep upon its legs.† At Alexandria, and Washington, we have Rind, Snowden, and the Ohio, upon one side, and Miss Smith, and the Literary Advertiser upon the other. At Baltimore, the Federal Gazette takes the lead; and so does the Herald at Norfolk. I received, this summer, a warm invitation to take up a federal paper, at Charleston (S. C.) where it seems there is a strong opposition to Jefferson. At Fredericksburg, there is only one paper, which is federal. At Petersburg, Lynchburg, Staunton, at Fredericktown, in Maryland, at York and Lancaster in Pennsylvania, the federal printers are at least upon equal terms with their adversaries. North Carolina swarms with federal newspapers. Six months ago, Jones and Duane were so kind as to tell the world that the federal had bought "The Recorder." The consequence of this falsehood was that we have got a much better set of subscribers than Jones and Duane put together. We have, at this moment, above a thousand subscribers that have paid us in advance. Compare this with Duane's more than forty; and with Jones's outstanding accounts of six thousand dollars; and then let Mr. Paine judge whether all this looks like a faction that is in the agonies of death; and that, in proportion as its fate approaches, gnashes its teeth and struggles.
If any person on the continent is, at this time gnashing his teeth, it must be Thomas Jefferson. What between his inaugural speech contrated with his two letters to Callender, between Mr. Walker's lady, and black Sally, between his letter to Peter Carr, and his pastor board tender to Mr. Gabriel Jones,† the president, IF he has one remaining spark of sensibility, must find himself a truly miserable being. As Fielding says of Blistif, his situation can, in that case, be envied only by a man who is just going to be hanged. In the court of public opinion, Mr. Jefferson stands convicted, irrecoverably convicted, of hypocrisy, of treachery, of ingratitude, of impiety, of personal cowardice, and of brutal lust.
To be continued.
NOTES.
† Duane boasted, some time ago, that he had four thousand subscribers. In a late address to these people, he complains that only a few more than forty have come forward, at the end of the year to pay their subscriptions. Thus, it appears that only one democrat out of ninety-nine is willing to pay for the paper. This is a most wretched account of the party; but it is his own. He says, also, that seven thousand dollars are outstanding. Divide this by six dollars, at the medium between eight dollars for his daily paper, and five dollars for his paper thrice a week. You then see that, besides those more than forty, he has only eleven hundred and sixty-six subscribers; and two thirds of one. Upon my soul! I would not take the present of such a beggarly subscription list. But it is very possible that these seven thousand dollars have swelled from four thousand by Duane's ambition to look big. At this rate, his list will shrink to five or six hundred. Again, it is very likely that some of these subscribers are owing not for one year only; but for two; or at least, for eighteen months. This again gives a terrible smash to the patriot list of eleven hundred and sixty-six. As for Duane's assertion, upon this, or any other subject, it is evidently not worth a farthing, after his enormous lie concerning the FOUR THOUSAND subscribers. If one could forget the existence of Meriwether Jones, it might be laid of Duane, as Demosthenes said of Eschines: he told such monstrous falsehoods, as no other human creature, either before or since, ever uttered.
† Vid. next week's Recorder.

DUANE'S LETTER.
IN publishing this letter, some uninteresting passages were omitted. The original is left at the office of the Virginia Gazette, that, if any person should think it worth while to compare the manuscript with the printed copy, he may have an opportunity.
The principal object of this publication is to show the utter falsehood of Duane in pretending, as he has done, that he never could endure the Prospect, and that it injured the republican cause; all which he, and his miserable mimic, Jones, and twenty other republican printers have asserted an hundred times over, in the course of this summer. How is it possible that a people should not be misled and unfortunate with such stupid quack instructors upon one side of the ditch, and Bronson, with his band of lying incendiaries, upon the other? We do not mean to say that every printer who republishes an untruth is conscious of its being so. But this is too often the case. For instance, when Mr. Thomas Field, in his Petersburg Republican of November 12th, published the following falsehood, he must have known that it was such:
"As to the federalists, they will believe any thing, which appears in a federal paper;" "whatever comes from CALLENDER is regarded as orthodox." Affirmations that this is a federal paper, (we mean in the vulgar and factious acceptance of the term,) cannot injure the Recorder, but they must hurt the printer who makes use of them.
We go back to Duane. Without publishing the above letter, there is full evidence how highly he was gratified by the perusal of The Prospect. Some long passages of the second volume had been printed from the manuscript by Mr. Field. This was long before the book itself appeared. Duane, in his Aurora, republished one of these extracts. In a short preface, he observed that the following observations came from the pen of an author, who, when he confines himself to facts and sentiments— "ILLUMINATES, INSTRUCTS and INFORMS beyond any writer of the present age. We mean the author of The Political Progress of Britain." For this expression, or something about it, Duane was indicted. He published the indictment, with this preface in the midst of it. One of these original Auroras may be seen at this office. It is, in itself, of very little concern to any body what Duane thinks of Callender. But as the house-breaker says that he has four thousand subscribers, it is of great consequence for all these persons to know that he is a being unworthy of trust; and that he has printed ten thousand fictions for every hair on his chin. This leads you to enquire by what motive Duane has been impelled to the publication of such tremendous fibs? The result is that he wrote them to please some of the present leaders of the republican party, who are just about as good as himself.
Duane, at one time said that C. fled from Philadelphia for stealing mahogany; then it was for stealing wood; and within the last three weeks, it has been transformed into flight from the paws of the sheriff. He has quoted a letter which Callender wrote to a gentleman. What is this gentleman's name? or where is the manuscript of the letter?
Duane made a much better newspaper, two years ago; and C. has not scrupled to praise it. A reverse of his title has been charged as inconsistency. The Calcutta policeman was gifted by nature with abilities. But they seem to have been dissolved in the sunshine, or drowned in the intoxication of success. Setting aside its indecency, and its falsehood, the Aurora is not at present worth reading, on the mere score of ignorance and stupidity. Duane continues to thump upon subjects, which have had their day, which are exhausted, and of which the world is completely tired. Callender has gradually discovered that a multitude of his most important facts were the mere invention of the house-breaker's own brain. All this explains and vindicates a reverse of title, when speaking of the bagpipe, and his Aurora.
NOTES.
* And so will the republicans with theirs. + His real number may be guessed at twelve, or perhaps thirteen hundred. Sometime ago, we promised to overtake poor Jones. We have left him and his forty-seven or forty-eight quires, behind us; and this, within a shorter period than we had assigned. We imagine that we have likewise overtaken the organ of the public will.
FROM THE VIRGINIA GAZETTE.
TO JAMES CHEETHAM,
EDITOR OF THE AMERICAN CITIZEN.
SIR,
WITH the greatest reluctance I come forward to address a person, whose name is not attached to any thing virtuous and honorable, or connected with genius or talent, but which is notorious for infamy, and celebrated for the most scurrilous abuse, which conveys to every American the idea of hardened profligacy, of audacious impudence in short,
of every species of vice and crime, that the human imagination can conceive. The patronage which a few gentlemen, in order to promote their own ends, afford to you, is the only apology which any mortal can offer to the public, for inflicting them with the odious name of James Cheetham.
I shall therefore regard you at present, as having from the Clinton family a passport of respect, such as may entitle you to receive and answer a few questions that I shall put to you, without either degrading myself, or injuring the feelings of the subscribers to the Virginia Gazette.
You assert that I am, next to Callender, the vilest of all wretches, and the most abandoned of all sinners. Pray in what respect? Mention some facts or actions of my life, to confirm your assertions.
You declare that I am an Atheist. Please to condescend upon some sentiments that I have expressed in the trifes which I have written, that will warrant such an assertion.
Having done this, you will oblige me also, by giving candid answers to the following questions respecting yourself, as by proving the rectitude of your own life in any respect, you will add considerably to the degree of belief, that may possibly be given to your charges against me.
1st. Was or was not your father hung for horse stealing at Lancaster in England, or was it some other person of the same name, a stranger, or a relation of yours?
2d. Did not your brother Benjamin apply to John Douglas of Corlars Hook, a few months since, and demand from him a certificate that your father was not hung? Did the same John Douglas decline or give a certificate? If he gave one, produce it.
3d. Was you carried aboard the ship in which you embarked from Liverpool, as a chest of dry goods; or did you walk on deck boldly, and pay your passage?
4th. After your father's death, did you change your name from Cheetham to Cheetham; or was your name always Cheetham?
5th. Soon after your arrival in New-York, were you and your brothers publicly taken before the sitting magistrate on a charge of breaking people's doors, or was it a malicious report that was propagated against you?
6th. Was your brother Benjamin once since his arrival obliged to find bail, on an accusation preferred against him for setting fire to his neighbour's house; or was there only a false rumor to that purpose?
7th. Dare you deny that you forged a letter in my name, in the narrative which you and Denniston published against col. Burr?
8th. Dare you deny that you requested Mr. George Baron to propagate a malicious slander against col. Burr, informing him at the same time that it would assist your cause?
9th. Have you any conception of the persons who stole Bronson's letters? What punishment is due to letter stealing? Ought letter breakers to be hung, flogged at a cart's tail like Billy Dunn, set astride on a pole like the Calcutta organ, or paraded through the streets as your brother John was at Manchester, or what punishment would you devise for such a crime?
10. When you dined with Mr. Jefferson, last winter, did you acquaint him that you was the purest patriot and most innocent man alive? Did you tell him that your father was never hung; that you yourself never committed treason or sedition; that you never was under the necessity of being concealed for days and nights together in an old chest; that you never was arrested for breaking people's doors in New-York; that none of your brothers were ever bailed on a suspicion of setting fire to houses; and moreover that you never stole letters?
JOHN WOOD.
FROM THE BOSTON GAZETTE.
AMONG the numerous accomplishments of a certain wise and virtuous Great Man, the public have not yet been informed that he possesses the
fire and the soul of a poet. Scarcely a day now passes, without developing some new and unexpected excellence in the character of that incomparable man; and the following long will abundantly prove, that his poetical powers are not less conspicuous than his philosophical acumen, and his capacious and minute acquirements as a farmer—It was indeed written under the immediate and omnipotent inspiration of love; but its inimitable beauties of sentiment amply demonstrate, that its author has a genius of universal application. The lover of the Muses will regret that the cares of the nation have deprived us of "so sweet an Ovid."
O! formose puer! nimium ne crede colori Alba ligustra cadunt, vacinia nigra leguntur.
A PHILOSOPHIC LOVE SONG. TO SALLY.
LET poets sing, and striplings sigh, For damsels bright and fair, The ruby lip, the sapphire eye, The silken, auburn hair. My philosophic taste disdains, Such paltry charms as those— Scorns the smooth skin's transparent veins, And cheeks that flame the rose. In glaring red, and chalky white, Let others beauty see; Me no such tawdry tints delight— No! black's the hue for me! What though my Sally's nose be flat, 'Tis harder, then, to break it— Her skin is fable—what of that? 'Tis smooth as oil can make it. If down her neck no ringlets flow, A fleece adorns her head— If on her lips no rubies glow, Their thickness serves instead. Thick pouting lips! how sweet their grace! When passion fires to kiss them! Wide spreading over half the face, Impossible to miss them. Thou Sally, thou, my house shalt keep, My widow'd tears shall dry! My virgin daughters—see! they weep— Their mother's place supply. Oh! Sally! hearken to my vows! Yield up thy sooty charms— My best belov'd! my more than spouse, Oh! take me to thy arms!
In Addison's Cato, we find a warm advocate for African beauty. Syphax, when observing Juba to be enamoured with the Roman maids, thus speaks to his prince of the beautiful damsels of Numidia. "The glowing dames of Zama's royal court, have faces flush'd with more exalted charms. Were you with these, my prince, you'd soon forget the pale unripen'd beauties of the North."
The infamous Callender has come out with an assertion of that calumny about Mrs. Walker, which was lately used upon the authority of general Hamilton, by David Dagget in Connecticut. Mr. David Humphreys however, who went as secretary with Mr. Jefferson from Boston to France has shown that the story of Sally was a falsehood; general Henry Lee, who cannot be suspected of partiality for Mr. Jefferson, declared at general Bloomfield's table at Trenton a few days since, that there is no foundation whatever for that story. Aurora.
The tories in Virginia have become so much ashamed of Callender, that they have engaged Wood to bring about such a misunderstanding as may enable them to shake off the reptile. Wood they can manage, as he has written himself harmless. Ibid
WE have received various complaints of the irregular arrival, and of the frequent stoppage and loss of this paper. Among others, was a letter last evening from Baltimore. Our answer is that every single paper is regularly put into the post office. The fault does not lie with us. One or two parcels have been returned, where there was some defect in the package or address; and these papers have since been forwarded a second time. If improper conduct exists in the post office, we cannot help it. Citizens of America! Ye have framed a government for yourselves; and we have been libelled all over the continent for hinting that it was not absolutely faultless. If you have brewed well, lays the proverb, you will drink the better. The federal post office has always
abounded with abuses. You have set up a government over your heads, and you cannot help submitting to that sort of treatment, which in this, and all other other instances, that government may choose to give you. If a man puts a chain about his neck, he must not complain of the weight of it.
THE PUBLIC PRINTER.
THE MEMBERS OF THE NEXT GENERAL ASSEMBLY, or at least such of them as wish to prevent the waste of public money, are requested to give an early attendance in the approaching session. One of the first questions that are to come before them will be upon the choice of a public printer. The second will be whether it is proper to pay two thousand seven hundred dollars per annum, for a piece of business, that can be got equally as well done for one thousand. It is very possible that Mr. Jones may endeavour to get an election smuggled through the house on the first or second day of the session. This paragraph is wrote, therefore, to warn those members who are anxious to serve their constituents, that they ought to come to town in time at the first opening of business, in order to prevent an attempt of that nature; if indeed any delegate could be supposed to countenance it.
A memorial will be presented to the assembly on the first day of their meeting, stating the common printing price for which the duties of a public printer can be performed. The memorial will offer to perform the whole for a given sum, of about nine, or perhaps eleven hundred dollars. In the Recorder of October 20th, we made some remarks on this subject. They are not entirely correct. It is said that Jones, for his salary, printed two thousand eight hundred copies of the laws of last session. Further information assures us that Jones printed only two thousand for his salary. He printed eight hundred and seventy copies additional; and for these he received eight hundred and seventy dollars. These additional copies, containing each of them fifty six folio pages, would require twenty-eight reams of paper. The highest price which the paper cost him could not be more than three dollars and an half per ream; or, in whole, ninety-eight dollars.
Table with 2 columns: Item, Dollars. Rows include: Paper (98), Presswork (30), Stitching (24), Total expence of Jones (152), Paid by the executive (870), Balance in favor of Jones (718).
Thus Jones received a fraction more than five dollars and seventy-two cents, instead of one dollar; just as if you had paid five shillings and eight-pence half-penny for a loaf of bread, which was worth only one shilling.
This, to be sure, is a very promising sample of your executive council. They cost two thousand pounds a year for salaries; and governor Morris is not entrusted with a vote among these venerable fages. No part of the blame can, therefore, be attached to the preserver of the life of Thomas Paine. He achieved this act of justice and humanity at the notorious risk of offending those who sent him to Paris; at the risk of being recalled from his embassy. Jones was no doubt laughing within himself at this omission upon our part of these eight hundred and seventy dollars. For its extent there is not, and there cannot be a viler job, in the whole annals of corruption. You cannot shut your eyes, against facts like these! Samuel Coleman, the sub-clerk of this council, thinks it a terrible crime to tell such secrets; and such explanations soon, with John Guerrant, one reason for assuming that Callender is a traitor. A dollar for a meagre folio pamphlet of fifty six pages! The very sound of the words is an outrage upon common sense. The wretched stammering answers that Jones gives upon this subject demonstrate his consciousness that the ground upon which he stands is breaking down under him.
Senators and delegates of the assembly of Virginia! We have been assured by several of your members that there is not one man of you who will set his face in defence of those things. They say that the longer endurance of such enormities is not possible. They affirm that the story requires but to be proved in order to command reformation. You have only to peruse the public accounts, as they will be laid before you, and all doubt is at once extinguished in a burst of conviction. Get a public printer, if you please. But, in God's name, let him be paid at the rate by which other printers are paid. If one is ready to do the business for nine hundred dollars, for which you are at present giving twenty-seven hundred dollars to another, who, by the way, never set a type in his life, can you be simple enough to cast away eighteen hundred dollars? It cannot be.
We have formerly stated that the public printer receives, large sums besides his salary. Such were these eight hundred and seventy dollars. The whole saving by a reform cannot be less than THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS per annum.