tines. They talk about their nautical discoveries, why had they not sent us, then, a model of their drowning-boats, by which fifty women and children were sent to the bottom at a time? They might also have obliged us with an essay on the method of making bread, without taking the bran out of the flour; and how well pleased must the Congress have been with a treatise on legislative boxing!* But, as the French have all the honour of these discoveries, so, I suppose, they mean to have all the profit too; and God punish the villain that would wish to rob them of it, I say. The Convention, in this communication, resemble Jack in the Tale of a Tub: Flay, pull, tear all off," say they, I let not a single stitch of the livery of that d-d rogue, John Bull, remain." The Congress, however, have thought proper to imitate the phlegmatic good-nature of Brother Martin. "Steady, boys, steady," said they one to another; "those fellows, there, are got keel uppermost, and they want to see us in the same plight." I would have given a trifle for a view of the senators when they received this ten-ounces-to-the-pound proposal; the gravity of a senator surpasses what I conceived of it, if they did not run a risk of bursting their sides. The notice they have taken of it will, I hope, prevent like invitations for the future; and convince the French that our Congress is not an assembly

"Where quicks and quirks, in dull debates,

I do not know whether the French are irritated at our sang froid, or at our consulting our interests with other nations, or how it is, but certainly they begin to show their good-will to us in a very odd manner. Their depredations on our commerce have already surpassed those of the English. One captain writes, "I have been robbed by them; they have broken open my trunks, and took my all." Another says: "They have called me a damned Anglo-American, beat me, and thrown me into prison." Another says: They have kept me here these four months; they do what they please with my cargo; and the Lord knows what will become of me!" Another petitions the sans culotte general, and concludes with, "your petitioner shall ever pray !"—And is this all? Do they now talk of these things with the humility of slaves? No, execrations! Have they emptied their galls on the English? Is there not one curse, one poor spiteful curse, left for the sans culottes ? Ye Gods! how men are sometimes ice and sometimes fire! When the English took our vessels, what patriot bosom did not burn with rage? There was nothing talked of but vengeance, war, and confiscation.† Where is now all this republican ardour," where are all those young men who " burnt for an opportunity to defend the liberty, rights, and property of their country?" Where are all those courageous captains who entered into an association to oblige the

*See Dunlap's Gazette of May 8th 1795, for an account of a bruising match in the National Convention.

+ Attempts were made to show that England committed such depredations on the Americans at sea as called for war, and a report was called for by the French party; it was given to the President by the Secretary of State, in October, 1796, and showed that very few had been committed by English vessels, but a great number by the French. Porc. vol. 6, p. 230.-ED.

government to declare war? Are they dead? do they sleep? or are they gone with their chief, Barney, to fight, like Swisses, for the French Convention? Last year, about this time, nothing was to be heard but their malicious left-handed complaints; a rough word or a wry look was thought sufficient to rouse the whole Union to revenge the insults they received on the high seas. They now seem as insensible to every insult as the images at the head of their vessels; submit to their fate with Christian resignation, with, "Lord have mercy upon us," and, "your petitioners will ever pray!"

If any one wants to be convinced that the democratic outcry about the British depredations was intended to plunge us into war and misery, let him look at their conduct at the present moment. An Envoy* Extraordinary was sent to England to demand restitution, which has not only been granted, but a long wished-for commercial treaty has also been negotiated. One would think that this would satisfy all parties; one would think that this would even shut the mouths of the democrats; - but no; this is all wrong, and they are beginning to tear the treaty to pieces, before they know any thing about it; they have condemned the whole, before they know any single article of it. They were eternally abusing Mr. Pitt, because he kept aloof in the business; and, now he has complied, they say that no such thing should ever have been thought of. "What!" say they, "make a treaty with Great Britain !"—And why not, wiseacres? Who would you make a treaty with, but those with whom you trade ? You are afraid of giving umbrage to France, eh? Is this language worthy an independent nation? What is France to us, that our destiny is to be linked to hers? that we are not to thrive because she is a bankrupt? She has no articles of utility to sell us, nor will she have wherewith to pay us for what she buys. Great Britain, on the contrary, is a readymoney customer; what she furnishes us is, in general, of the first necessity, for which she gives us, besides, a long credit; hundreds and thousands of fortunes are made in this country upon the bare credit given by the merchants of Great Britain.

Think not, reader, whatever advantages we are about to derive from the treaty with Great Britain, that I wish to see such a marked partiality shown for that nation, as has hitherto appeared for the French; such meannesses may be overlooked in those despicable states that are content to roll as the satellites of others, in a Batavia or Geneva, but in us it never can. No; let us forget that it is owing to Great Britain that this country is not now an uninhabited desert; that the land we possess was purchased

When Mr. Jay came to England, he was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and the French party laid hold of the circumstance to excite hatred against the President. According to the constitution (Article I. Sec. 3.), the Chief Justice must preside at the impeachment of a President, and thus, it was said, "the President has violated the constitution, for, the Chief Justice being away, no impeachment can be had." Jay himself was abused in these terms: "Notice is hereby given, that, if the treaty entered into by that d-d arch traitor "J-n J-y with the British tyrant should be ratified, a petition will be presented "to the next General Assembly of Virginia at their next session, praying that the "said State may recede from the Union, and be left under the government and pro"tection of one hundred thousand free and independent Virginians."

"P.S. As it is the wish of the people of the said State, to enter into a treaty of "amity, commerce, and navigation with any other State or States of the present "Union, who are averse to returning again under the galling yoke of Great Bri"tain, the Printers of the (at present) United States are requested to publish the "above notification." (Porc. vol. 2, 275.) Papers of this description were put forth

from the aborigines with the money of an Englishman;* that his hands traced the streets on which we walk. Let us forget from whom we are descended, and persuade our children that we are the sons of the gods, or the accidental offspring of the elements; † let us forget the scalping knives of the French, to which we were thirty years exposed; but let us never forget that we are not Frenchmen.

A LITTLE PLAIN ENGLISH,

Addressed to the People of the United States, on the Treaty, and on the Conduct of the President relative thereto, in answer to "the Letters of Franklin."

NOTE BY THE EDITORS.-In our selections from the "Bone to Gnaw," the reader has seen that its author's object was, to deter the people of America from seeking an alliance with France. In this pamphlet it was his object to reconcile them to the Treaty of Amity and Commerce with England, which was conditionally ratified on the 24th June, 1795, by the President WASHINGTON. The Federalists were in favour of a treaty with England, and the Antifederalists wanted a treaty with France: WASHINGTON was of the former party; but his Secretary of State (JEFFERSON) was of the latter party. The French, through their Minister, GENET, had made a proposal that France and America should join against England, and that America should cease all commercial transactions with her. In accordance with this, JEFFERSON made a report on commerce to Congress in the fall of 1793, recommending the "burdening with duties, or excluding, such foreign manufactures as we take in the greatest quantity; for such duties, having the effect of indirect encouragement to domestic manufactures of the same kind, may induce the manufacturer to come himself into these States." He was thus, as far as his office would allow him, thwarting the views of the President, but he was answered by a member of Congress, who showed the folly of such a system, and who showed, too, JEFFERSON'S inconsistency, by quoting his Notes on Virginia, which contain this passage: "While we have land to labour, then, let us never "wish to see our citizens occupied, at a work-bench, or twirling the distaff. Carpenters, masons, smiths, are wanting in husbandry: but, for the general opera"tion of manufactures, let our workshops remain in Europe. It is better to carry "provisions and materials to workmen there, than bring them to the provisions "and materials, and with them their manners and principles."-Notes on V. Query XIX. The report was evidently aimed at England; and, to make this clear, MADISON, Jefferson's bosom friend, in January 1794, moved a string of resolutions, proposing to follow it up, by imposing a higher scale of duties on leather, hard-ware, cottons, wool, and other articles, which were those then imported from England. The resolutions were negatived; but they were more than suspected to be JEFFERSON'S, and, in the intercepted dispatch from the

from the Democratic Societies all over the United States. The one that we have cited was from a society at Richmond, Virginia, but those from the societies of Baltimore, Philadelphia, &c.. were equally violent against the treaty. A meeting at Pittsburg, on the 1st April 1795, declared themselves weary of the tardiness of the Congress in not going to war with England, and, that they were "almost ready to wish for a state of revolution, and the guillotine of France for "a short space, in order to punish the miscreants who enervate and disgrace "the Government."-ED.

* WILLIAM PENN.-ED.

In the war of 1756 which ended in the English taking Canada from the French, the latter employed the Indians, who committed great cruelty in scalping the English prisoners of war.-FRANKLIN'S GAZETTE, 25th August 1757., HIST. OF UNITED STATES, p. 176.-SMOLLETT, Hist. of Eng., vol. 3, p. 534.-ED.

French Minister, FAUCHET, alluded to in the preface to this work as bringing to light the treachery of Randolph, he says that they were JEFFERSON'S. The dispute between the English and French parties had now (1794) become, not warm, but hot; the depredations of English privateers and cruisers on the vessels of Americans, were made the stalking-horse of the friends of France; and, on the 27th March, 1794, Mr. DAYTON moved a resolution, that "all debts due from citizens of the United States, to the subjects of the king of Great Britain should be sequestered." It was carried by the Lower House, but rejected by the Senate; and now, JEFFERSON, finding himself in a cabinet to which he was so much opposed, and against which he was even working, retired to his estate in Virginia; but, before doing so, he recommended Randolph to WASHINGTON as his successor (see Jefferson's Life, vol. 4, p. 506). WASHINGTON attempted to stem the tide, by desiring his new Secretary to lay before Congress a report of the depredations committed by England, France, Spain and Holland, on American commerce, and, though it appeared that France had committed the greatest, still the French party moved onward; the President was abused as a traitor to his country, and a Mr. CLARKE moved a resolution in the Lower House for suspending all commerce with England. While the resolution was debating, WASHINGTON, by advice of the Senate, sent JAY (Chief Justice) off to England to negotiate this famous treaty. The Lower House passed CLARKE's resolution, but the Senate rejected it; the storm thickened-but enough of this has been seen in the "Bone to Gnaw." When the treaty arrived in America, the friends of France fell upon it and its makers, and we now see that JEFFERSON, in retirement, launched his execrations on it in letters to his correspondents in one he thas invokes MADISON'S pen to put down the writers on the English side"for God's sake take up your pen, and give a fundamental reply to Curtius and Camillus" (Life and Correspondence, vol. 3, p. 322); and, in a letter to RUTLEDGE, he says, "I join you in thinking the Treaty an execrable thing. I "trust the popular branch of our legislature will disapprove of it, and thus rid us of this infamous act, which is really nothing more than a treaty of alliance "between England and the Anglomen of this country" (Life &c. vol. 3, p. 323). The following pamphlet, then, is an answer to one supposed to be written by Mr. DALLAS, Secretary of the State of Pennsylvania, but published under the assumed name of Franklin. It is a defence of the treaty, of Mr. JAY, and of the President. It is one of the best in the works of "Porcupine," and, therefore, as well as that it shows the objects that the writer had in view, we place it in these selections, observing, that it was on account of writings in this manner and at so critical a juncture, that Mr. WINDHAM, some years after (Debate 5th Aug. 1803), said in the House of Commons, in answer to an attack on Mr. COBBETT by Mr. SHERIDAN: "Before I had the pleasure to know him personally, I admired the conduct which he pursued through a most trying crisis in America; where, by his own unaided exertions, he rendered his country services that entitle him to a statue of gold."

A TREATY of amity, commerce, and navigation, with Great Britain, is a thing which has been so long and so ardently desired on your part, and so often solicited by your government, that one cannot help being astonished that even the democratic, or French, faction should have the temerity to raise a cry against it, now it is brought so near a conclusion. It is true this perverse faction is extremely contemptible, as to the property they possess, and the real weight they have in the community; and their dissatisfaction, which is sure to accompany every measure of the Federal Government, is a pretty certain sign of the general approbation of those who may be properly called the people: but it must be acknowledged at the same time, that they have for partisans almost the whole of that description of persons, who, among us royalists, are generally designated by the name of mob.

The letters of Franklin are a string of philippics against Great Britain and the executive of the United States. They do not form a regular series, in which the subject is treated in continuation: the first seems to be the overflowings of passion bordering on insanity, and each succeeding

F

one the fruit of a relapse. To follow the author step by step through such a jumble, would be to produce the same kind of disgust in you as I myself have experienced; I shall therefore deviate from the order, or rather disorder, which Franklin has found it convenient to employ, and endeavour to bring the subject before you in a less complicated point of view.

The censure of Franklin has three principal objects; the treating with Great Britain at all, the terms of the treaty, and the conduct of the President relative to the negotiation.

1. He asserts, that to form a commercial treaty with Great Britain is a step, at once unnecessary, impolitic, dangerous and dishonourable.

II. That, if forming a treaty with Great Britain were consistent with sound policy, the terms of the present treaty are disadvantageous, humiliating and disgraceful to the United States.

III. That supposing the terms of the treaty to be what every good American ought to approve, yet the conduct of the President, relative to the negotiation and promulgation of it, has been highly improper, and even monarchical, and for which he deserves to be impeached.

If Franklin has made out any one of these assertions; if he has proved, that to treat with Great Britain is unnecessary, impolitic, dangerous and dishonourable, that the terms of the present treaty are disadvantageous, humiliating and disgraceful, or that the President has pursued a conduct in the negotiation for which he deserves to be impeached, you will all do well to join the remonstrating throng, that are now hunting the President to his retreat at Mount Vernon; but if he has proved none of these; if all that he has said on the subject be mere cavilling and abuse, scolding, reviling, and execrating; if he be every where detected of misrepresentation, inconsistency, and flat contradiction; if, in short, it appears, that his ultimate object is to stir up the unwary to an indecent and even violent opposition against the Federal Government, then, if you consult your own interests, you will be upon your guard, and weigh well the consequences, before you determine on such an opposition.

I. Franklin asserts, that to form a commercial treaty with Great Britain is a step, at once unnecessary, impolitic, dangerous and dishonourable. 1. It is unnecessary, because "commercial treaties are an artificial means to obtain a natural end. They are the swathing bands of commerce, that impede the free operations of nature." This will not detain us long; it is one of those chimerical notions that so well characterize the Parisian school. Nobody but a set of philosophical politicians ever imagined the plan of opening all the ports in the world to all the vessels in the world, "of interweaving and confounding the "interests of all nations, of forming the inhabitants of the earth into "one vast republic, of rendering the whole family of mankind enlightened, free and happy." When this plan shall be put in execution with success, I will allow that commercial treaties are unnecessary, but, till then, I must contend for the contrary.

"The two countries," says Franklin, "if necessary in their products to each other, will seek an intercourse.' This is all I wanted him to admit, to prove that an exchange of commodities between our countries is necessary; for that they have sought an intercourse with each other, and that they do now seek that intercourse more than ever, is most certain; so much so with respect to this country, that about one-half of her exports are now made to Great Britain and her dominions. But, says he, "this exchange ought to be left to itself; for the commerce