will deliver to such French and American owners as shall apply for the same. The minister at war shall likewise deliver to citizen Genet officers’ commissions in blank for several grades (ranks) in the army.”
Now, was your taking part in the war that your sister is carrying on for the good of the human race to be the price of a treaty with her, or was it not?—The President, then, has not only acted consistently with his duty in avoiding it, but consistently also with your sentiments, already decidedly expressed by your approbation of his proclamation of neutrality.
But, say the patriots, we could forgive him for not treating with France, if he had not treated with Great Britain. He treated with her while he refused to treat with our French brethren. But, for this accusation to have any weight with even the friends of France, it ought to be proved that the treaty negotiated with Great Britain bears some resemblance at least to the one proposed by Citizen Genet. Can this be done? Has the President stipulated with Great Britain to suspend your “commercial and political interests in order to befriend the empire of liberty, wherever it can be embraced?” Has he promised that you shall “contribute to the general emancipation of the New World?” Has Great Britain asked you to assist her in the war? Are you to make a “common cause with her?” Has she made your “guarantee of her islands an essential clause in the treaty, and a sine qua non of your free commerce with them?” Where, then, is the likeness between the two treaties? And if there be none, by what sort of patriotic reasoning do they prove that the President, because he had refused to treat with France, ought not to have treated with Great Britain? This, however, appears to be the heaviest charge against him.
“So bold an attack,” says your demagogue Franklin, “upon the palladium of our rights deserves a serious inquiry. However meritorious a motion for such an inquiry might be, if suggested in the Senate, yet it could not be considered in place; for inquiries of this sort belong to the House of Representatives, as the Senate are the constitutional judges to try impeachments. If the grand inquest of the nation, the House of Representatives, will suffer so flagrant a breach of the Constitution to pass unnoticed, we may conclude that virtue and patriotism have abandoned our country.”
Hence you are to conclude, then, that General Washington must be impeached, or virtue and patriotism have abandoned your country.
It is not for an Englishman to determine whether this be true or not; but, if it be true, you will excuse him for saying, The Lord have mercy upon your country!
The only fair way for you to judge of the President’s conduct relative to the treaty negotiated with Great Britain, and the one proposed by France, is, to draw a comparison between your present situation, and the situation in which you would have now been, had he followed a different conduct. As the tree is known by its fruit, so are the measures of the statesman by their effects. Look round you, and observe well the spectacle that the United States present at this moment. Imagine its reverse, and you have an idea of what would have been your situation, had the President yielded to the proposals of citizen Genet, or those of the war party in Congress. The produce of the country would have been at about one-third of its present price, while every imported article would have risen in a like proportion. The farmer must have sold his wheat at four shillings a bushel in place of fourteen, and in place of giving four dollars a yard for cloth, he must have given ten or twelve. Houses and lands, instead of being risen to triple their former value, as they now are, would have fallen to one-third of that value, and must, at the same time, have been taxed to nearly half their rent. In short, you would have been in the same situation as you were in 1777, and without the same means of extricating yourself from it. However, such a situation might, perhaps, be a desirable one to you. Habit does great things. People who were revolution mad, might look back with regret to the epoch just mentioned, and might even view with envy the effects of the French Revolution. If so, it is by no means too late yet; the President has only to refuse his ratification of the treaty with Great Britain, and adopt the measures proposed by the honest and incorruptible friends of the French Republic, and you may soon have your fill of what you desire. If you have wished to enjoy once more the charms of change, and taste the sweets of war and anarchy (for I look upon them as inseparable in this country), then the President may merit an impeachment at your hands; but, if you have desired to live in peace and plenty, while the rest of the world has been ravaged and desolated, to accuse the President now, is to resemble the crew of ungrateful buccaniers, who, having safely arrived in port, cut the throat of their pilot.
A NEW-YEAR’S GIFT TO THE DEMOCRATS;
Or, Observations on a Pamphlet entitled, “A Vindication of Mr. Randolph’s Resignation.”
“For gold defiles by frequent touch;
There’s nothing fouls the hand so much.
But as his paws he strove to scower,
He washed away the chemic power;
And Midas now neglected stands,
With ass’s ears and dirty hands.”
Note by the Editors.—The pamphlet now before us relates to the detection of a corrupt Secretary of State, to whom we have alluded in the Preface, and also in the note preceding the “Little Plain English;” but there is a circumstance connected with it that we must explain to the reader. He will see a constant reference to the “Western Insurrection,” and, as that does not explain itself, we must do it here. Late in 1794, four of the western counties of Pennsylvania broke out into open revolt in consequence of an excise on spirits which was levied within them. It became so alarming that an army was raised to quell it; but Washington’s Government was foiled in its attempts to raise the militia for the purpose. They would not come out. Mifflin, the Governor of Pennsylvania, and Dallas, his Secretary, were thought to be supine in their duties; but it remained for the discovery on which “the New Year’s Gift” is a commentary to show precisely why they were so. The insurrection was quelled without fighting; but, at the outbreak of it, the secretary of state, Randolph, made overtures to the French Minister, which amounted to a treasonable conspiracy to overthrow the Government; it involved others as well as himself, and it was discovered by one of those miracles which bring treachery to light, and was made known to Washington on the 11th August 1795. The discovery was made just in the heat of the conflict of parties concerning the British Treaty. It gave a blow to the French party, and great strength to the President and the friends of England, and, indeed, the adoption of the Treaty was attributed to this affair. Randolph retired instantly on the discovery, but was suffered to go unpunished into retirement. The “New-Year’s Gift” is an answer to a pamphlet in which he attempted a vindication of himself. It is so clear and convincing an exposure of fallacies, and is so good a picture of the difficulties which surrounded Washington’s Government; it is so clear a proof that its author was not, as is represented by foolish and malignant men, an insane “Royalist, libelling the Federal Government and its founders,” but, rather, that he supported that Government and upheld its founders against a band of traitors; this is so clear, that we place it in our Selections. At the time of writing it, Mr. Cobbett was still unknown, but he says (Pore. vol. 4, p. 122), “Bradford (his publisher) told me he had read some pages of the ‘New Year’s Gift’ to two of the Senators, who were mightily pleased with it and laughed heartily; and he related a conversation that had taken place between him and Mr. Wolcot, the present Secretary of the Treasury, who assured him, that some of the officers of Government did intend to write an answer to Randolph’s Vindication, but that my New-Year’s Gift had done its business so completely that nothing further was necessary. He added that they were all exceedingly delighted with my productions.” In our note to “Plain English,” we said that Randolph was suggested to the President for the Secretaryship by Jefferson. This we gather from the Anas, in the fourth volume of the Life of Jefferson, p. 506, where he gives a conversation between the President and himself, upon his retiring from the office of Secretary, in these
