Alexandria daily gazette, commercial & political. [volume] (Alexandria [Va.]) 1808-1812, 1808-07-12
saon THE srruslIcAs fAIsAss) CRISIS.
LITTER If.

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pom 1r. Richard Saunders, to q ffst'' .ls ~
neighboring stare
81 DID not mean to be harsh IN my last
letter, for / have regard Tor you YOU
and MANY other honest men joined the de,
,nocrats because you thought and beleyed
that Iohn Adams, with his stamp act and
his eag law, as you called it, was gong toe
sfar-o . so YOU turned about and voted the
federals out, and brought IN the others
and things appeared to work SO well tor z
while that MANY other honest men thought
shev had been wrong in supporting the ie-
deralis.s, and turned about too-out the
ed gentleman has shown his cloven foot at
last. and now honest men Will turn from
him. T did not much like the stamp act
myself. because the British had imposed
stamp act on us once and hated the name !;
but I found after while, that lhad no need
20 paw any thing ! made no note higher
than 90 dollars, and 90 dollar notes, you
remember, were not to be stamped-the
rich, to be sure, who dealt largely, had to
paw roundly, because a man who took COLI
rations for thousands would not take the.
3 trouble to make 100 notes-but that was no
thing to ne-and as to the gag law, 1t al
lowed the. truth to be given n evidence
and between you VA and sl, me, # man tells
alarmed Ass =. .-- .l:l OF MIR. dams,
heought to smart for il Morgan Lewis
and Ambrose Spencer don't cay so tho
At the trial Of II. CrosweIl, Judge Lewis
and lawyer Spencer said the truth should
! not be given in evidence--they said the
greater the truth the greater the libel. These
are both leading men in your party now
but Pm for telling the truth and shaning the
Devil, that is to say, when it is necessary
tho don't know where was the necessity
for telling all that about black Sal, and Ga
briel Jones, and such stuf--but all men
have their faults, and the fcderalisss have
talked too much about nfr. Jetfel.an's not
believing in religion, and about his black
woman, and so On.
1would not look at men, but at measures
--ifor instance, would look at the federal
direct tax, and then at the taxes OF the pre-
sent party. / paid los. cd. to the first, and
believe in my conscience I have paid one
hundred los. Cd. to the latter--:he high
price we got for produce under Adams, you
know, introduced extravaganza, and when
once we begin to be extravagant, we cant
stop. My wife and daughters must have
shop goods and my boys had their cloth
coats with sleeves big enough for four arms;
we did not think how many per cent. was
laid upon these articles by the custom house,
and we did not care, but we paid more tax
for muslins and shawIs and such trumperv
than we did to the direct tax--bus with all
the II millions of dollars the people paid
for imported goods yearly, your party could
not get along-you were Obliged to sell the
millions of stock we had in the bank of
the u. States. It is great pity the demo-
Gratis sold that stock--the federalists had
laid it up against arainy day, and now we
should be glad of it, because, for what !
see, we must 80 to war with the British or
the French, and we shall need little mo-
ney, and this cursed embargo prevents
shilling from coming IN. We shall want
money to build ships, for those we had have
been sold by your party, and we never can
think of gong to war without ships--gun-
boass won't do on the ocean-;ndeed il we
are taxed TO build ships, ! don't know where
we are to get sailors, they are all gone
poor fellows, they were Obliged to go or
starve, ard I'll be hanged if the British will
let them loose again to fight against them
selves. don't know, but / think we are;
{ IN dreadful situation, and that we never
shall be better till we have change of men.
If the federaiists were in power again,
you may rely OMIT things would soon be
( settled between us and the British without
loss or dishonor- fact is the British be-
Ieye your party to be their enemies, and
the friends of the French, and they won't
give way an inch to you--but they would
give way an inch or foot to those they