make you free. You shall not, say the people. But I will! says the Doctor. By——, say the people, you shall not! “And when Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his ass, and arose, and got him home to his house, to his city, and put his household in order, and hanged himself, and died, and was buried in the sepulchre of his father.”
I now beg the reader’s company, in a slight review of the addresses delivered to the Doctor by the several patriotic societies at New York. Ref 013
It is no more than justice to say of these addresses, in the lump, that they are distinguished for a certain barrenness of thought and vulgarity of style, which, were we not in possession of the Doctor’s answer, might be thought inimitable. If the parties were less known, one might be tempted to think that the addressers were dull by concert; and that, by way of retaliation, the Doctor was resolved to be as dull as they. At least, if this was their design, nobody will deny but they have succeeded to admiration.
“The Governments of the old world,” say the Democratic Society, “are most of them now basely combined to prevent the establishment of liberty in France, and to effect the total destruction of the rights of man.”
What! The rights of man yet? I thought that liberty and equality, the rights of man, and all that kind of political cant, had long been proved to be the grossest imposition. Are there people in this country, and people who pretend to possess a superior degree of sagacity too, who are dolts enough to talk about French liberty, after what passes under their eyes every day? Is not every Frenchman in the United States obliged to go to a justice of the peace every two or three months, to have a certificate of residence? And must he not have this certificate sworn to, and signed by four inhabitants besides the magistrate? And must he not pay for this too? And if he fails in any part of this slavish ceremony, or goes into Canada or Florida, is he not marked out for the guillotine? An Englishman may come when he will, stay as long as he pleases, go where he will, and return when he will to his own country, without finding any law of proscription or confiscation issued against him or his property. Which has the most liberty?
I thought no one would dun our ears with French liberty, after the decree which obliges every merchant, under the pain of the guillotine, to make a declaration of all his property in foreign countries, and to give up his right and title of such property to the Convention; and not only to make a declaration of his own, but of his neighbours’ property also, under the same penalty! It has long been customary to express a detestation of the tyranny and cruelty of the Inquisition: but the Inquisition, in the height of its severity, was never half so tyrannical as this decree. This is the boasted “Gallic liberty.” Let us hear their own definition of this liberty. “Liberty,” says Barrere, in his report to the National Convention, on the 3rd of January 1794, “Liberty, my dear fellow citizens, is a privileged and general creditor: not only has she a right to our property and persons, but to our talents and courage, and even to our thoughts!” Oh, liberty! what a metamorphosis hast thou undergone in the hands of these political jugglers!
If this be liberty, may God in his mercy continue me the most abject slave! If this be liberty, who will say that the English did not do well in rejecting the Doctor’s plan for making them free? The democrats of New York accuse the allies of being combined to prevent the establishment of liberty in France, and to destroy the rights of man; when it is notorious that the French themselves have banished the very idea of the thing from amongst them; that is to say, if they ever had an idea of it. Nay, the author of the Rights of Man, Ref 014 and the authoress of the Rights of Women, are at this moment starving in a dirty dungeon, not a hundred paces from the sanctum sanctorum of liberty and equality; and the poor unfortunate goddess herself is guillotined! Ref 015 So much for liberty and the rights of man.
The Tammany Society comes forward in boasting of their “venerable ancestors,” and, says the Doctor in his answer, “Happy would our venerable ancestors have been to have found, &c.” What! were they the Doctor’s ancestors too? I suppose he means in a figurative sense. But certainly, gentlemen, you made a faux pas in talking about your ancestors at all. It is always a tender subject, and ought to be particularly avoided by a body of men “who disdain the shackles of tradition.”
You say that in the United States “there exists a sentiment of free and candid inquiry, which disdains the shackles of tradition, preparing a rich harvest of improvement, and the glorious triumph of truth.” Knowing the religious, or rather irreligious principles of the person to whom this sentence was addressed, it is easy to divine its meaning. But, without flattery, your zeal surpasses that of the Doctor himself: he disdains revelation only; the authority of Moses, David, and a parcel of folks that nobody knows; but you disdain what your fathers have told you: which is the more surprising, as, at the same time, you boast of your “venerable ancestors.” People should always endeavour to be consistent, at least when interest does not interfere. However, suppose the shackles of revelation and tradition both completely shaken off, and the infidel Unitarian system established in their stead, what good would the country derive from it? This is certainly worth inquiry, because a thing that will do no good, can be good for nothing. The people of these States are, in general, industrious, sober, honest, humane, charitable, and sincere; dutiful children, and tender parents. This is the character of the people, and who will pretend to say that the Gospel, the belief of which has chiefly contributed to their acquiring of this amiable character, ought to be exchanged for the atheistical or deistical doctrines of a Monvel Ref 016 or a Priestley? For my part, I can see nothing to induce us to try the experiment; no, not even “the rich harvest of improvement, and the glorious triumph of truth,” that you say it promises. We know the truth already; we want no improvement in religious knowledge; all we want is, to practise better what we know; and it is not likely that our practice would be improved by disdaining the theory.
You allow that a public and sincere spirit of toleration exists among us. What more is wanted? If you were to effect a general disdain of the shackles of tradition, perhaps the “rich harvest” would be a corruption of manners, discord, persecution, and blood. The same causes generally produce the same effects: to see and be terrified at those effects, we have only to turn our eyes to that distracted country, where it must be allowed, even by yourselves, the shackles of tradition are sufficiently disdained.
Doctor Priestley professes to wish for nothing but toleration, liberty of conscience. But let us contrast these moderate and disinterested professions with what he has advanced in some of his latest publications. I have already taken notice of the assertion in his letters to the students of Hackney, “that the established church must fall.” In his address to the Jews (whom, by-the by, he seems to wish to form a coalition with), he says, “all the persecutions of the Jews have arisen from Trinitarian, that is to say, idolatrous Christians.” Idolatrous Christians! It is the first time, I believe, these two words were ever joined together. Is this the language of a man who wanted only toleration, in a country where the established church, and the most part of the Dissenters also, are professedly Trinitarians? He will undoubtedly say, that the people of this country are idolaters too, for there is not one out of a hundred at most, who does not firmly believe in the doctrine of the Trinity.
Such a man complains of persecution with a very ill grace. But suppose he had been persecuted for a mere matter of opinion; it would be only receiving the measure he has meted to others. Has he not approved of the unmerciful persecution of the unfortunate and worthy part of the French clergy? men as far surpassing him in piety and utility as in suffering. They did not want to coin a new religion; they wanted only to be permitted to enjoy, without interruption, the one they had been educated in, and that they had sworn, in the most solemn manner, to continue in to the end of their lives. The Doctor says, in his address to the Methodists, “You will judge whether I have not reason and Scripture on my side. You will at least be convinced, that I have so persuaded myself: and you cannot but respect a real lover of truth, and a desire to bring others into it, even in the man who is unfortunately in an error.” Does not this man blush at approving of the base, cowardly, and bloody persecutions that have been carried on against
