Massachusetts spy and Worcester advertiser. [volume] ([Worcester, Mass.]) 1823-1825, 1824-03-10
FROM THE BOSTON cEYT1NEL.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE cENTINEL.
SIR
In selecting from the catalogue of crimes
for which his Excellency has arraisned lis
native State, the affair of the Hartford Con-
Vention for the subject of my remarks, do
not proceed merely under an impression that
this is the most heinous of the charges. In
deed to do justice to the whole speech would
require a dispassionate retrospect of all the
measures adopted by the State in the troub-
lous times which succeeded Mr.. Jefferson's
accession to power.--For his Excelleucy
covers the whole ground of the ''long con
tinued opposition,' though not intending to
include 4 presume) his own opposition to
jays Treaty, TO the measures and charac-
ter OF Washington, the object OF his latter adj
miratioa. He accuses the State as false and
recreant to its federal bligations-As shrink
ing from the danger of battles which other
States were obliged to fight in its defence,
" parayzng the means and agents." EMPLOY
ed to shield it from the assaults of a common
enemy, and sacrificing the S vital interests of
the country to an unhallowedn spirit of
party. Ia short his Excellency by throwing into
one dark group the delormities of the factious
monsterha presented to the world the picture
OF degenerate State, resembling the decayed
and rotten republics of which we read, in the
last periods of their decline. 1t is true, how
ever, that with the pretensions of sklful
painter he aims to relieve the obscavo by the
etaro, and exclaims Gin substance) in sort of
gubernatorial ecstacy.
Z" What though your crimes were many and
were great,
" What though they shook the basis of the
State!''
Yet now you have made me Governor, your
SINS which were Of scarlet are made white
as snow, and you are readmitted into the
" American family''-" Jam 7loya proee1ies
e.Cto denutatur aitO.''
But it certainly is not my peculiar province,
nor my intention to analyze this extraordinary
specimen Of an Inauguration speech-Neither
am influenced by a wish that it should do
his Excellency political harm, nor a belief
that it will have that effect. The zeal of
those who delight in the aliment offeIcl to
their unextinguishable resentments, and of
those whose hopes would be blasted by the
return OF spirit of general concord, will al
ways prevail over the passive disapprobation
of persons of better feelings, who, though
supporters, ofhis Excellency, condemned his
speech. 1t will therefore probably add to
the number ofhis voters. But in that part of
the speech which adverts to the Hartford
Convention, my associates and myself are
stigmatized by every designation short of the
'tappel nominal" Circumstanced as was
in respect to hls Excellency, his hearers could
not but look about them to see if were pres
ent-tc see him point his " slow' and mag.
unanimous finger at me from the top of the
ladder 10 which he had assembled. thus feel
myself called upon to answer in behalf of nv
old constituents.-My friends will lament on
my account what they will regard as a super
fuous and thankless task. The subject they
will be ready to say is already compfehended
by all who have examined it with a wish for
correct intormation-that the superficial will
not examine, and that the perverse will never
own their conviction. Above all that a sub
ject now dry and obsolete will find no readers,
while the time is pregnant with questions and
events of mole urgent and attractive inter-
est. There is much of truth in these sugges-
tions. The history of the Convention and of
all the material facts connected with its in
shtution and proceedings have from the be-
ginning been in possession of all who have
seen fit to consult public documents The
story of plot or secret combination, imputed
to that body, is regarded as impossible in the
nature Of things, by those who reflect upon the
publicity and nature Of our modes of legisla-
ton. And the disclaimers and essaysts who
use ii as a Fhantasnlagoria on the approach
Of an election, connot converse together upon
the imposture, by themselves, without laugh
ing in each others faces.
But while all this is undeniable, it is not less
certain that the history of human credulity
affords no example Of more general illusion
than yet prevails in relation to the origin and
objects of that assembly.-A deep rooted and
undeGnable prejudice is found among thou
sands whose distempcred imaginations resist
the prescriptions Of truth and reason. They
choose to believe that it was organized at
first for some bad purpose, or that it sponta-
neously brooded over some atroclous conspi.
racy, heresy, or schism. Nothing it is adj
United was done, nothing publicly suggested
repugnant to the duty Of good citizens. But