The Potter journal. [volume] (Coudersport, Pa.) 1857-1872, 1864-09-28
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Rebels Of rs and COPperheads
GF:Si

A
Of'64.
Mr.. Lorenzo Sabine has just published
work entitled "The Loyalists of the
American Revolution )" a filter title
would have been "The Tories of the Rev
olution." The preliminary historical
essay is full of facts which afford striking
historic parallels to some of the circum-
stances of the present time The Chris
tan Register says;
1t teaches that not single wrong ex-
lists now but existed then to greater
extent. Do men uow plot in secret against
the governmedt? Thirty thousand 10y
alists, according to the lowest computation,
then took up arms against the govern
ment; and South Carolina forced Gov.
Lincoln to surrender her Capital to the
enemy in 1784.
Are there men now to be found who
sell to the enemies of their eountry7-
Washington, while his army vas in rags
and starving at Valley Forge, writes to
Colonel Stewart, Il an amazed at the re-
port you make Of the quantity of provls-
ions that goes daily into Philadelphis
then occupied by the British army from
the county Of Bucks"
DO officers, through personal iealousies
or desire to shirk, now throw up their
commissions? John Adams in 1777,
writes:
81 am worried to death with the wran
gIes between military officers, high and
low. They quarrel like cats and dogs.
They worry Que another like mastifs,
scrambIing fer rank and pay like apes
after nuts"
Are surgeons nov dismissed for incom-
potency or Peculation "Nany Of the
surgeons" says Washington, are very
great rascals, countenancing the men to
sham complaints to exempt them from
duty, and often receiving bribos, to GER
tjfy iDdispositlons, with view to procure
discharges or faylopghs They also draw
medicines and stores in the most profusc
and extrayagant manner for private pur-
poses" Have we "bounty Jumpers ?"
So had our fathers. Men enlisted only to
get their thousand dollars, and then desert
4 thousand men after they had voIutatily
enlisted, periured themselves, in order to
escape the service. Many deserters re-
enlisted under new recruiting officers
1t was no uncommon thing for them to
desert by the twenty and thirty at time
Have we now shoddy contractors who
tatten on fraud, and demagogues who TO-
ment strife? BEAD Washington's pic
lures Of his life time. 81 should in ono
T0rd say that idleness, dissipation, and
eztraVaganco, seem to have laid fast held
CT NEST that speculation, pecuIation,and
an Unsuitable thirst for riches, seem to
have got the better of every order of men,
and that party disputes and personal quar-
rels are the great business of She day"
There is, in fact, no possible discour-
agement ROW encountered by American
patriots, bat existed in a greater degree
during the Revolution, and yet our fath.
ers triumphed over all Of them
We dc rot press this subject on cur
leaders to excuse any rascality or treason,
but to show that our fathers nad to deal
with the same difficulties which confront
US. And we would warn those men who
now plot against the government, THAI
their names, in company with their cons.
panions of the Revolution, will 90 dowa
to posterity covered with infamy.
We hope those Rho are inclined toeE-
aggerate the present evils by false esa-
trasts With the past, will read the olosiEg
chapter Of Mr. Sabine's Historical Essay,
for, to use his own language, it may 10
to correct the exaggerated aEa
gloomy views which are often taken OF
the degenerate spirit of the present times,
founded on erroneous, because on a par
tial estimate Of the virtues Of bY-go2e
age.