Page images
PDF
EPUB
[merged small][ocr errors]

A

He next proceeds to inform us what he is fond of; he is fond of American plays, he is fond of seeing them performed, and I suppose he is fond of peas in summer. The gentleman next observes, 'it is unreasonable to expect that historical personages are to be represented by actors, resembling them in person, and that such resemblance is not to be expected." I have no design of displaying any astutia in reply to this observation, for the gentleman has luckily furnished me with an argument already. Garrick renounced Othello, because he was too small to give effect to the part.' What then? why the gentleman has completely overthrown himself. We are not to expect resemblances between the personages and the actors; and yet Garrick renounced the part of Othello, because this resemblance did not exist.

I know very little, says this gentleman, of the costume of our stage. The gentleman does not know the meaning of the word. The audidience would have been convulsed with laughter to have seen (what, with their ears?) our mothers, represented by young women, dressed in long waists, wide sleeves and ruffs:' certainly they would, and so much the better; this was not so very tragical, surely. The gentleman wishes to know what language I would substitute for the English, to be used by the Indians ; none at all; this should have been a pantomime, so far as respected any intercourse between the English and the Indians. But this illiterate gentleman insinuates that the objections against the kind of language made use of by the Indians are sound, because certain expressions imply civilization. I gave no such because, it was absurd that they should talk English at all; and if they did, the more so, that some of them should use such expressions as were quoted. Further, the gentleman observes that the metrical composition, spoken by the Genius, was existing at the beginning of the seventeenth century; before the year sixteen hundred and fifty. The gentleman is mad. He either is ignorant what the composition was, or does not understand the method of computing years.

I have done-It is my sincere hope, however, that I may never become acquainted with any person, as the author of the stuff to which I have now replied. For I certainly view him as a person of wretched talents, and pitiful arguments.

[blocks in formation]

What remains to be done concerns the collective body of the people. They are now to determine for themselves, whether they will firmly and constitutionally assert their rights; or make an humble, slavish surrender of them at the feet of the ministry To a generous mind, there cannot be a doubt, we owe it to our ancestors to preserve entire those rights, which they have delivered to our care; we owe it to posterity, not to suffer their dearest inheritance to be destroyed. JUNIUS.

THE NEW PRESIDENT.

THE period, which all America has expected to arrive with the strongest emotions of hope, fear and solicitude, is now past; and it is at this moment as difficult to determine what we are to expect of Mr. Madison, and what is to be the ultimate destiny of the nation, as it was a year ago. The time of the inauguration of the new President was peculiarly adapted in the present deranged state of our publick affairs, and distressed condition of the publick mind, to unfold his principles of national policy, and to trace with some little precision the future course of his conduct. Not only America, but the whole world, will consider attentively the opinions of the new President at his induction to office as an index, which will point out with some degree of accuracy the the contents of his political works; from this, the two great belligerent powers will expect to determine in what light they are to view him, whether as an open or concealed enemy; or as a friend to one and an opponent of another power. All that we can discover from the address of his Excellency is the truth of our former predictions, that he would support the old system which his predecessor had erected, and which every thinking man in the community believed was rotten at the foundation.

Throughout this speech, we can trace that same tendency to indecision of expression, from which nothing can be drawn, that characterized his predecessor, as well as the same cant of friendship to all nations and to all his fellow citizens, of economy, the discharge of the publick debt, of the diffusion of knowledge and civilization among the Indians, and of information among the people, &c. &c. The editor of the New-York Evening Post refrains from making any remarks Vol. 1.

W

upon the address, because he hopes Mr. Madison will appoint Federalists to offices of trust, and adopt an entirely different policy from that practiced by Mr. Jefferson; but for our part, whilst we shall be ready to acknowledge at any moment, whatever dignified or honourable act the President may think proper to perform, we cannot refrain from remarking that we cannot discover in the sentiments of this first speech, any foundation for such a belief, or any the most remote allusions to such praiseworthy intentions. Our remarks therefore will be perfectly unrestrained upon the subject. We confess we have strong prejudices against inaugural speeches in general; we have been dosed with their hypocrisy before now, and perhaps we may form a rash judgment in respect to this of Mr. Madison's. At any rate, we hope we shall hear no more of the white sattin and letters of gold, which the inaugural address of another President most shamefully disgraces.

If the talents of the new President are not to be made more evident by his transactions than they are in this address, well may he declare that he repairs to the post assigned him with no other discouragement than what springs from his own inadequacy to its duties. If he has a proper sense of his own inadequacy, we should imagine that were alone sufficient to render his new office intolerably burthensome.

Mr. Madison begins his career of duty with a non-intercourse act, which he expects will afford him a temporary popularity, by the partial repeal of the embargo law, which it includes. This act was probably dietated by the new President; it is his; it is incorporated in his administration; it does not begin to operate until his appointments have been made. The motives of this act, however, we really believe principally resulted from calculations of popularity; and it is doubtful whether the good of the country had any share in the decision. Congress believed it requisite they should do something. War was out of the question; there is no preparation for it, notwithstanding all Mr. Jefferson's talk ; and all Europe, to our eternal disgrace, are sensible that our national spirit and honour can never be exalted any higher than to a calculation of profit and loss. All that Congress dared to do was to hold out a threat, which both Great-Britain and France perfectly well know will end in its concession. This conclusion can be drawn from the face of the whole transaction; if France or Great-Britain do not rescind their decrees, where is our power to enforce our rights, and maintain our honour? Distance, and distance alone is our safety; the only reason which enables us to preserve our national existence. For as to any intrinsick energy which we ever possessed, it has evaporated through our calculating brains. The non-intercourse is worse than the embargo, because it cannot be considered merely a municipal regulation; it is a measure of hostility, a war measure, a measure of defiance. It is like a child running at a man with a wooden sword from a toy shop: the injury to the belligerent powers, will be just about as effectual, and it

lies with them to treat us with justifiable contempt, or whip us into

sense.

The new President has been evidently partial to the French nation, in, all his negociations. The last publication of suppressed documents prove the assertion beyoud all doubt or contradiction. And even this Whilst all trade

non-intercourse law, has a tendency the same wa

and all intercourse between us and any port in the actual possession of the English and French is prohibited; we find the terms of expression so guarded as to admit the construction of an admission to trade with Holland, by which, if it can be prosecuted, Napoleon will derive nearly all the benefit which could result to him from a trade directly with France. If Holland is not a dependency of France, when governed by a French king, what reason is there for doubting, as Mr. Gallatin does, about granting clearances to the kingdom of Italy? But the effect of this new law on the morals of this community, will be to the last degree deplorable; it erects a system of commerce which will probably be extensive, but which will be the most corrupt that can possibly be imagined. England will be supplied indirectly through Portugal, with cotton, and we shall pay the additional expences in the manufactures, which we shall inevitably receive in return, through Canada. Of course, our most solemn oaths, will be a mere formulary of words; and the frequent repetition of falsehood will at last make us believe it of no importance. This pretended panacea for the diseases of the political body, will be universal in its operation; but the malady will not be removed.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

Mr. Madison's address on taking the oath of office seems to us replete with misrepresentation and cant, Among the proofs of what he denominates the unrivalled growth of our faculties and resources,' which distinguished this country, until lately, he enumerates the progress of manufactures and useful arts;' than which no assertion can be more erroneous. There is, perhaps, no country so little distinguished for manufactures as this; and the circumstance of the general illsuccess of all manufacturing schemes is a proof of our great prosperity in other respects. Placed as this nation has been in a situation so singularly advantageous, as to enjoy all the advantages of war, without any of its evils; we owe all our prosperity to our distance from the scenes of warfare; and to the contempt with which we were for a long time viewed by the belligerent powers. 'The benign influence of our republican institutions,' as Mr. Madison so affectedly styles them, has had nothing to do in producing the effect. It was in the nature of things, that our commercial spirit should promote the prosperity which the peculiar state of our foreign affairs invited us to enjoy. The hos tility to that enjoyment was first promulgated by Mr. Jefferson; and Mr. Madison, in his famous resolutions in 1794, seconded the endeav-,Qur. 1

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors][merged small]

Mr. Madison then makes the following assertion; it has been the true glory of the United States to cultivate peace by observing justice, and to entitle themselves to the respect of the nations at war by fulfilling their neutral obligations, with the most scrupulous impartiality. If there be truth or candor in the world, the truth of these assertions will not be questioned. Posterity will at length do justice, to them10237 5 We generally doubt the sincerity of an observation, where such an evident, wish appears that it may seem to be true, This question of partiality is undoubtedly Mr. Madison's sore place, and he hopes to salve it over, or wrap it up i in an appeal to the candor and truth of the world. We do believe him, notwithstanding all this parade, to have been always decidedly partial to the interests of France, and in as great a degree hostile to the views of Great-Britain.oper) 26 vsub zid

His arguments on the question of impressment were evidently dictated by such hostility; for it is clear that the claim of the British in searching a foreign merchant vessel for deserters, is in its nature equally just, with the undoubted right of searching a neutral vessel for contraband goods. The reasoning in both cases will equally apply. The exceptions taken by Mr. Madison to the course the Br British have pursued, are applicable exclusively to the practice of that nation, and do not affect the right at all. The long pamphlets, which he has written expressly for the purpose of making British hostility evident, where there was never any intended; the apparent insincerity of the negociations on the British treaty, by Messrs. Munroe and Pinckney, who followed his instructions; and more recently his correspondence with Mr. Rose, on the Chesapeak disaster, afford ample evidence of his willingness to irritate, and unwillingness to heal the wound inflicted on us by Great-Britain. His conduct in regard to France is equally instructive of his partiality. His suppressed correspondence with General Armstrong, as disgraceful to his honour as it is pernicious in its tendency, would not leave us any doubts upon the subject, even if we were otherwise unsatisfied. His abject fear of the French emperour, his tone of supplication, and his invariable style of communicating his sentiments form a contrast with his deportment towards Great-Britain, as striking as it is instructive. Indeed it was not until the Federalists made some very severe strictures on the conduct of the administration, particularly as respected their foreign partialities, and until this opinion began to gain circulation, that we heard any thing from government about French hostility; and d we believe the Berlin decree would have been silently acquiesced in,or only formally noticed,if such bold truths had not administration

been told by the Federalists. Then indeed, the tone of the truths had not

at home began to change; and France was coupled with England in our state papers. But in France what Napoleon's impression of our hostility was, can be collected from General Armstrong's letter to Mr. Madison, in which he expresses his belief that our measures will never

« PreviousContinue »