the sentence of banishment? Was this filling no office?

But whether you were an officer, or not, or whether you had legally forfeited your American citizenship, what a poor mean-spirited miscreant must you be, to make a complaint that your release was not requested by the President, the man whom you call an apostate, or an imposter! What! old Common Sense, who was at all times" ready to fight "a hundred tories ;" the great Rights of Man, who,

proudly scorned to triumph, or to yield ;" is it this hero, in the cause of French liberty, who boldly defied the gallows of Old England, that now trembles at the thoughts of the French guillotine! To such a pitch of rage and suspi"cion was Robespierre and his committee arrived, "that it seemed as if they feared to leave a man "alive. No man could count upon his life for twenty "bours*. One hundred and sixty-nine prisoners "were taken out of the Luxembourg in one night, " and one hundred and sixty of them guillotined. "In the next list, I have good reason to believe I 66 was included."-Well, and what then? Why should you not be included as well as the thousands you assisted in sentencing to death? What a poor whimpering story is here! After all your boasting of the greatness and dignity of the "democratic floor," you have not discovered a zeal nearly equal to that of Lord Stanhope, one of " that class of equivocal generation, called aristocracy."

"Lord Stanhope. What are all the executions, and what is all the blood, about which we hear "such pitiful tales? The cause of France, is the

This confession is valuable. The democrats will not now deny what I have ever said about French liberty.

"cause of freedom, of mankind. Who would "hesitate to be executed in such a cause? I would "cheerfully be banged in her cause.'

"Lord Abingdon. My lords, his lordship wishes you to hang him. I beseech your lordships to "give the noble peer rope enough, and he will hang himself."

Are you not ashamed, Tom, to be surpassed by a lord? Instead of coming forth from your den, a volunteer martyr in this glorious cause, and crying, Vive la République! with your neck under the national razor, you tremble even now at the thoughts of your danger. Instead of dancing to the music of your republican chains, you pine and peak, and cry for liberty: as if it were possible for a man to want liberty in France!

I cannot help observing here, how harmoniously you chime in with the cant of the enslaved French, and the American democrats. "During the tyranny of Robespierre-the orders of Robespierre-the "cruelty of Robespierre." Just as if the whole mob of tyrants, who passed the bloody decrees, were not as guilty as he who proposed them? But, the rest, or the greatest part of them, are alive, and in power, and Robespierre is dead.

You are obliged, however, to confess that the convention itself refused to release you at the request of some silly Americans: but here again, to avoid offending your despotic masters, you throw the blame on the president, for the time being, and he, poor cut-throat, "has since absconded." If he had been present, you would not have dared even to do this.

The committees, you acknowledge, did order your arrest; but then, as some of them are alive, and even on the throne, you add: "the commit"tees, of which Robespierre was Dictator." Thus, you qualify your tone, kneel, creep, and cringe to

Y 3

those

those who have held you in chains, and brought you to the foot of the scaffold. Nay, you do more. Carnot, one of the five fellows now called the Directory, was a member of these committees, he was Robespierre's right-hand man, the jackal that brought provision for the guillotine. This is he who signs the decree for seizing the vessels of your "beloved America," and this measure, your pen, your poor old double-turned antithesises, are now employed to defend. It is thus that you support the dignity of man," that "dignity compared to which, that of lords, dukes and kings, dwindles "into nothingness.”

If Robespierre were still living, you would be as much his flatterer and slave, as you are the flatterer and slave of Carnot. You were made for a

French republican; the baseness which they have constantly discovered, is in your nature. While the tyrant is alive, he is a god; when dead, he is a devil. An ignominious death, the awful avenger of crimes, and, with other men, the oblivion of injuries, with you unlocks the faculties of reproach, and changes your praises into execrations. You are true carrion-crows: you flutter in flocks, from the presence of the kite; but when he is wounded by the hunter, and lies gasping on the earth, you attack his prostrate carcass, and pick out his eyes, that are closing in death.

Now, Tom, for your attack on the Federal Constitution. On this head, I shall be very concise.You must recollect, if your memory is not as treacherous as your heart, that, in your "Rights of Man," you every where coupled this constitution with that of France, which your book professed to defend; and that you held the Federal Constitution, in particular, up for the imitation of the English.-Let us therefore contrast what

you

you then said of this constitution, with what you

say of it now.

Letter to Gen. Washington.

I declare myself opposed to several matters in the constitution, particularly to the manner in which, what is, called the Executive, is formed, and to the long duration of the Senate; and if I live to return to America, I will use all my endeavours to have them altered.

It was only to the absolute necessity of establishing some federal authority, extending equally over all the states, that an instrument, so inconsistent as the present federal constitution is, obtained a suffrage.

As the federal constitution is a copy, not quite so base as the original, of the form of the British government, an imitation of its vices was naturally to be expelled.

There is a pretty

Rights of Man, Part 2d.

The whole expense of the federal government of America, founded, as I have already said, on the system of representation, and extending over a country, nearly ten times as large as England, is but six hundred thousand dollars, or one hundred and thirty-five thousand pounds ster ling

The government of America, which is wholly on the system of representation, is the only real republic in character, and in practice, that now exists. Its government has no other object, than the public business of the nation, and therefore it is properly a republic.

It is on this system, that the American government is founded. It is representation ingrafted upon democracy. It has fixed the form by a scale parallel in all cases, to the extent of the prin ciple. What Athens was in miniature, America will be in magnitude. The one was the wonder of the ancient world, the other is becoming the admiration and model of the present.

little posey

For

you, Thomas! What a vile wretch must you be! That which was becoming the "admiration and model of the "world," is now "a copy, not quite so base as the original,

"original, of the British government:" and you were exhausting all the hell of sophistry to persuade the English to change their constitution for another, from which the vices of their own were "naturally to be expected."Never, surely never, was a poor demagogue so completely detected. Your letter will do good in this country; but in England, it will be a national blessing. Your sincerity will now be seen to the bottom. Those whom you had the address to deceive, will now blush at their folly: they will see the pit you had prepared for them, and will bless the hand that saved them from destruction. For my own part, what I owe to this performance, in common with every American, and every Englishman, I have particular acknowledgements to make. It has flattered my vanity as a political writer; a species of vanity, which you know, Tom, is none of the weakest,-witness your Second Part of the Rights of Man. I long ago declared, that all who were the enemies" of the British Government, "would be found to be the enemies of the ge"neral Government of America." And no longer since, than the September Censor, which contains your infamous life, I said: "I sincerely believe, "that he (meaning you, Tom,) hated, and that he "still hates the general government of the United "States, as much as the Government of Great Bri"tain. But it was necessary that he should find out something to hold up to the imitation of the "English; no matter what, so that it differed "from what they possessed."

Among the good effects that your letter will have, one is, and that not of the least importance, it will tend to complete the reconciliation between America and Britain. Your intention and that of your employers was quite different; but you have overstepped your mark. When the people of this

country