Berkeley and Jefferson intelligencer. [volume] (Martinsburg, Va.) 1802-1810, 1806-06-13

to come more plainly to the point, when
We see half million Of English volun-
teers, as formidable and as stiff in buck.
ram as it is in the power Of tailors to
make uniforms, parading the coasts of
SUSSEX, Essex and Kent, and yet trust-
ing only to the vigilance OF the British
navy to hinder the French from crossing
the chanpe-surely, when we see these
things, we must be unwilling to reflect,
or utterly incapable Of reflection, if we
can suppose that the array of the militia
in the secr.tary's 6fice would transplant
fear from MI. Jeferson's bosom into Be-
naparte's. .
To gay nothing Of the improbabilit9 OF
the militia obeying the call for actual ser
vice, $r, ifthey should appear promptly
and in sufficient numbers, of:the imPos-
sibility Of OBTAINING them in service long
enough to make their arms Of the least
imaginable use, direful experience has at
length instructed nations, that when they
are in danger, they are to be preserved
from it by their real soldiers. These
are made, not in tailor's shop, by fac.
ing blue cloth with red and yellow, but
by learning in the field, that subordinate
on Of mind that will make men do and
ensure their doing all that men possibly
can do.
Old Rome did not outnumber her Z.
nemies. Two legions each, ofless than
six thousand men, and as many of tho
Latin or other Italian allies, made com.
plete consular army. Such an army
routed the numberless forces of Mithri-
dates and Antiochus!> Il cost the Ro.
mans more exertions to subdue Perseus.
king of Maeedon, than to conquer all the
east. His phalanx, of sixteen thousand
men, was harder to break than all the
million militia Of the other successors Of
Alexander. Rome, by the perfection
Of her discipline, became mistress of the
world.
Would Bonaparte calculate on the Vi.
gour Of our government, as an insupera-
Die obstacle to his military attempt ON the
United States! Would the Congress
! majority like a Roman Senate create
means and employ them, with spirit
that would prefer death to seryitude or
tribute The French Hannibal surely,
with our seventeen millions of tribute
money already in his treasury, would
have no dseourasing fear of this sort.
When hereads our treaty with TTipoi,
by which i appears that We chose tribute
when victory was within our reach, when
he sees that the Bey of Tunis presumes
to say BY his minister at Washington,
pay or fight, what can Bona2arte con-
cl1de buttha: honour is name, and in
America an empty one, and that our ma.
tional spirit can never be reused to q
higher pitch, than to make calculation.
With US honour is coin, whose very
baseness confines it at home for cur.
rency. Such apeople, he will say, are
degraded before they are subdued. They
are too abiect to be classed or employed
among my martial slaves. Letthem toll
to feed their masters and teplenish my
treasury with tribute. -.~--
L. there a spirit in our people that
would supply the want ofitinour rulers!
Our total unpreparedhess both BY land
and sea, to make even the shew Of resis-~
lance against an attack, is eertainly not
from want of military means in the u
nited States, but from dread ofthe loss
popularity if they should call them
forth.
Why is it unpopular Because the
progress of French doSination is not
seen at all, or is seen with fatal COM
placency, because We love our money
better than our country; because ween-
Joy our ease almost as much as we love
our money, and because by shutting our
eyes to our public dangers, we escape
the insuPportable terror Of their approach.
and the tolls of an efficient preparation to
resist them.
| Its a thing incomprehensible, that
even the childish babble of the Chroni-
Gle is not dumb. Admitting the stupi-