who consider how these remonstrances were obtained, ever looked upon them as a reason of any weight: but, whatever attention they might merit before the discovery made by the intercepted letter, they merited none at all afterwards; for, there was, and there is, all the reason in the world to believe, that they originated from the same all-powerful cause as did the suggestions, difficulties, and delays of the Vindicator. He would fain persuade us, indeed, that no money-overtures ever passed between him and citizen Fauchet, after the little affair of the flour-merchants; but the method he takes of doing this is rather calculated to produce admiration at his effrontery, than conviction of his repentance. Addressing himself to the President he says—
“Do you believe, Sir, that if money was pursued by the Secretary of State, he would have been rebuffed by an answer, which implied no refusal; and would not have renewed the proposition: which, however, Mr. Fauchet confesses, he never heard of again?”
I do not know what the President might believe of the Secretary of State; but one would imagine that even such a rebuff as the Vindicator met with would have prevented any man from returning to the charge; however, I shall not contradict him here, as he must understand these things better than I, or, perhaps, any other man living.
After this, it is diverting to hear citizen Fauchet solemnly declare [in his certificate, mind that], “that the morals of his nation, and the candour of his government, severely forbid the use of money in any circumstances, which could not be publicly avowed.”
Consummate impudence! The morals of a nation that do not now so much as know the meaning of the word! The morals of a nation that, one day in the year, have hemp for their God! And the candour of his government, too! A pretty sort of candour, truly, to profess the tenderest affection for the President and Congress, while they were preparing to blow them all up. While they were endeavouring to foster a nest of conspirators, who would have sent them all to the guillotine, like the magistrates of Geneva, or swung them up in the embraces of their elastic god: From the morals and candour of such people, God defend us!
When citizen Fauchet informed the Convention of the great bargains that were offered him here, when they found at what a low rate “the consciences of the pretended patrons of America” were selling off, it would be to contradict every maxim of trade, to suppose that the purity of their principles, and the morals of their nation, would prevent them from enabling him to make a purchase; and particularly at the important moment, when the Treaty with Great Britain was to be ratified or rejected. There was, indeed, one difficulty; and that was, the Treasury of the Convention was nearly as empty as father Joseph’s purse, or the pouch of his mendicant pilgrim. And, as to assignats, besides their being a tell-tale currency, they never would, as we have no guillotine in the country, have been convertible into food and raiment; so that, of course, they would have been as despicable and despised waste paper, as the Aurora of Philadelphia, the Argus of New-York, or Chronicle of Boston. This difficulty, however, formidable as it was, appeared as nothing in competition with the object in view. We may well suppose that their indefatigable financiers would make a last effort; would give the nation another squeeze, to come at the means of defeating the Treaty. They have a greater variety of imposts than Mr. Hamilton or even Mr. Pitt; and in a pressing occasion like the one before us, they had only to set the national razor Ref 058 at work for two or three days, upon the heads of the bankers and merchants, to collect the sum required: or, if these should be grown scarce, a drowning of four or five thousand women might bring them in ear-bobs and other trinkets Ref 059 sufficient to stir up fifty town-meetings, and to cause two-thirds of the Federal Senators to be roasted in effigy.
Let any one look at the conduct of the leaders in this opposition to the treaty, and believe, if he can, that they were not actuated by some powerful motive which they dared not openly to avow. They began to emit their anathemas against it, long before it was even laid before the Senate. Mr. Randolph protests, that he never divulged its contents to any one. How he came to imagine this unasked-for declaration necessary in his Vindication, I know not; but this I know, that almost every article of it was attacked in the democratic papers, immediately after it was received by the President, and that too with such a confidence of its being what it has since appeared to be, that it requires something more than the protestation of Mr. Randolph, to persuade me that it was not divulged before its appearance from Mr. Bache’s press.
And who has forgotten the diligence of the opposers, the moment the treaty was published? Did they give it time to circulate? Did they let it come before the people as public acts in general do, and leave them to form a fair and unprejudiced opinion on it? On the contrary, was not every spring put in motion to prepossess them; to fix in their minds a hatred to the measure, that truth would not be able to remove? How can we account for individuals quitting their homes, neglecting their business, and sacrificing to appearance, their interests, to carry this instrument to the extremities of the Union, and there form combinations against it in order to intimidate the President from a ratification?
Will any one believe, then, that the President, with this on his mind, stood in need of British influence to determine on a ratification? What other determination could he possibly take? Was he, though he saw the pit open before his eyes, to plunge headlong into it? Was he, after having discovered the conspiracy, tamely to yield to its machinations, and assist in the ruin of his country? There was but one course for him to pursue to make the Government respected, and blast all the hopes of the conspirators, and that was to ratify the Treaty. By this act he preserved to us the inestimable blessings of peace, gave stability to the Constitution, not only for one, but for many sessions, by a legal and manly exercise of the powers it has vested in him, convinced the French that the interests of the Union are not to be sacrificed to her vengeance and caprice, and showed to the whole world, that we wish to live in friendship with all nations, but that we are determined to be the slaves of none. And yet this act, Mr. Randolph would persuade us, was the work of a British faction!
Thus has the Vindicator failed in all his attempts. On the article of corruption, of which we before doubted, we now doubt no longer; and as to his indirect accusation against the President, it only serves to show that one who, with unblushing front, can ask a bribe, will never be ashamed to publish his ingratitude and apostacy.
REMARKS ON THE BLUNDERBUSS.
Note by the Editors.—The “Remarks on the Blunderbuss,” is a paper contained in the sixth number of the “Political Censor,” and it consists of an answer to a long string of accusations against the President and Government of America by the French Minister Adet, in consequence of the Treaty with England. It closes that affair. We have seen that the French ministers, Genet and Fauchet, attempted to enlist America on the side of France by divers means, and we have seen how they failed. We here see that their successor, Adet, attempted to move some internal strife by way of punishment to Washington’s Government for the course which it pursued with regard to the Treaty. Adet published his notes, in the American newspapers as a kind of appeal to the people; and Mr. Cobbett collected them in the fifth number of the “Political Censor,” giving them the title of the “Gros Mousqueton Diplomatique;” or, “Diplomatic Blunderbuss;” to which he prefixed the following Preface.
PREFACE.
When we see an unprincipled, shameless bully, “A dog in forehead, and in heart a deer,” who endeavours, by means of a big look, a threatening aspect, and a thundering voice, to terrify peaceable men into a compliance with what he has neither a right to demand, nor power nor courage to enforce, and who, at the same time, acts in such a bungling, stupid manner, as to excite ridicule and contempt in place of fear; when we see such a gasconading, impudent bluff as this (and that we do every day), we call him a Blunderbuss. But, the reader will not, I hope, have conceived me so devoid of all decency and prudence, as to imagine, even for a moment, that it is in this degrading sense that the name of Blunderbuss has been given to the invaluable collection which I here present
