to have numerous partisans among us, the alien and sedition laws were enacted. But the most volcanic ground of all was yet to be trodden. Money was to be raised, and not a little would suffice. The ordinary revenues were insufficient; and the adherents of the foreign power, already exulted in the antici pated ruin of their adversaries, who vainly flattered themselves with a public confidence, which could not be shaken. With less ability, the intriguers had vastly more cunning than the federalists; and from their better acquaintance with the human heart in its selfishness and littlenessess, they well knew, that a direct and sensible application to the pocket, would be more likely to blow up the prevailing party than any thing else. It has been well said, that a disorderly people will suffer a robbery with more patience than an impost. Under this conviction, the patriots had long sickened at perceiving that the community was satisfied; and that the current expences of government were so easily raised. This was truly provoking. They wished the people to feel, they said. It was not right that they should pay without knowing it; and hence, a furious and persevering clamor against indirect taxation. It was reprobated as hateful and anti-republican in the extreme; it was not to be endured; and, inasmuch as it aimed at deceiving the people (wicked thing!) by cheating them into contributions, which their love of country would always most cheerfully afford, when necessary, it was represented to be unworthy of freemen; and to imply a suspicion both of the virtue and understanding of the community, which, about the same time was voted by the democratic part of congress, to be the most enlightened on the globe, France herself scarcely excepted. All this was vastly fine and highly pleasing, no doubt, to the galleries; a charming material too, for the republican editors to cook up a most savoury dish for their customers. The simple, well meaning federalists were, in their turn pleased also, at finding that their op

ponents were smoothing the way to a measure, that, in the present conjuncture, would be exceedingly eligible for them; and therefore, with no small degree of self-complacency for their supposed address, took the tricksters at their word, and passed a law for a direct tax. Its operation was on houses and Jands; but still keeping in view, the policy of favoring the industrious and frugal at the expense of the luxurious, the farmer paid very little for his property in proportion to the idle gentleman or inhabitant of a city, who gratified himself in the enjoyment of a sumptuous house. In the same spirit, a tax had been laid upon carriages kept for comfort and pleasure; an article which, beyond all others, made manifest the discrimination in behalf of the mouth of labor. Nevertheless, it was the mouth that from the hollow, pretended solicitude of its parasites that it might not be "deprived of the bread that it earned,” was brought to clamor the loudest against taxes which did not effect it, and had, in fact, a tendency to relieve it; another proof of the inconsiderateness of the multitude, and of the superior potency of words to things, and consequently, of the very little chance indeed of honesty and fair dealing in a contest with knavery and hypocrisy, before "the bar of public reason.

This tax on real property, was the fatal blow to federalism in Pennsylvania. The stamp act was, indeed, bad enough, because it was a stamp act that first excited our displeasure with the mother country: The very name of an excise was hateful to freemen :* The alien law, set at nought one of the inherent rights of man, that is, the right of impatriation end expatriation, of coming and going and saying and doing whatever the love of liberty prompted; and the sedition law was still more execrable, since,

It is remarkable, that the federalists seemed really to believe, what, it was evident from the conduct of their opponents, they did not believe, viz. That the people were enlightened. They were persuaded, however, of the efficacy of flattery, and laid it on thickly.

in permitting the truth to be given in evidence in exculpation of a libeller, it gagged the mouths afonc of patriotic liars and calumniators, the only species of partisans whose labors could be efficient in a cause, emphatically that of falsehood. But, though all these sad doings had been carefully impressed upon the sensory of the great Germanic body of Pennsylvania, they had not fully wrought the desired effect. Their pockets had hitherto been spared, and wheat had borne a good price. But now their vulnerable part was touched, and they began to look about them Nor were there wanting "friends of the people" to sympathize in their oppression, and to put them in mind, that it was to avoid the payment of taxes we went to war with Great Britain; that the federalists, therefore, were as tyrannical as she had been, and that this tax upon farms, houses and windows, was but the beginning of a system, which would soon extend to every thing; and that we should have at length a tax upon horses, waggons and ploughs; or as it was expressed in a handbill, circulated in favor of the election of Thomas M'Kean, "a horse tax, a cart tax, a plough tax, &c. &c." The love of pelf was completely roused; and many an honest farmer came to the poll with a countenance of as much anxious determination, as if upon his vote the question was suspended, whether he was to remain the independent man he was, or to sink into a pennyless vassal. Nor is it to be wondered at, that he was thus "perplexed in the extreme," when it is considered, that, although we never bribe, all offices were afloat, and depended for their re-settlement on the issue of the election and the will of the successful candidate.

The success of a good trick, is only a theme for mirth among those who have talents for the business of electioneering. Low cunning, indeed, such as is moulded into the buffoon characters, we see in novels and upon the stage, your Sancho Panzas, To. by Lumpkins, &c. passes current for extreme cle

verness, among the bulk of our rural statesmen These are of the class of Mr. Jefferson's chosen people, however; and though, when in their place, their petty rogueries are very harmless and diverting; yet, when agog for office, with the extensive means of mischief they possess, in their sovereign capacity, they may, nevertheless, be fully competent to the ruin of a nation. The name of Washington, as already observed, was always usurped by this species of good republicans; and so deplorable was the stupidity of a certain portion of the most enlightened people upon earth, that the following fabrication was not too monstrous for their intellectual gullets. John Adams, it was stated, was about to unite his house to that of his majesty of Britain, either by marrying one of his sons to one of the king's daughters, or one of his daughters to one of the king's sons, (I forget which,) but the consequence was, that the bridegroom was to be king of America :-That general Washington had heard of this, as well as of the other anti-republican conduct of the president, at which, he was, of course, most grievously displeased :-That, therefore, he went to talk to Mr. Adams upon the subject, and by way of being more persuasive by appearing gay, good humored and friendly, he dressed himself in a suit of white, and discoursed with him very mildly; but neither his dress nor his arguments were of any avail. Then he waited upon him a second time, and in order to render his remonstrance more solemn and impressive, he put on a suit of black, and set before Mr. Adams the heinousness of his proceedings; but to as little purpose as before. He, at length,

paid him a third and last visit, in which he appeared in full regimentals, when finding the president still deaf to good counsel, he drew his sword, declaring, he would never sheath it, until Mr. Adams had relinquished his wicked designs; and so left him a sworn enemy. During the circulation of this ingenious romance, not ill adapted to the capacities it

was designed for, and having all the marks of vera, city derivable from circumstantial minuteness; the letter from general Washington, announcing his acceptance of the command of the provisional army, and his approbation of the measures pursuing, was also circulating in the federal prints. But this signified nothing, as they never reached the persons to be deluded by the story; and even if they had reached them, the letter would immediately have been knocked down as a federal lie. Such, be it again observed, is the bar of public reason.

The consequence of these united efforts of patriotism and invention, was another insurrection. The sedition which began in the county of Northampton, ran in a vein through the counties of Berks and Dauphin, spreading the infection by means of liberty poles, successively rising in grand colonnade from the banks of the Delaware to those of Susquehanna Mr. Adanis had now to set to work, to quell this second effervesence of liberty; and it proved a matter of no great difficulty, when force was applied. Poor Fries, like the whiskey insurgents, was, for a time, left in the lurch; but finally sent "a colonelling," by good governor M'Kean. The object of the tu mult, however, was perhaps fully obtained; and had Fries been hanged, it would have been deemed but a very small sacrifice. It enlisted the feelings and resentments of a populous district on the side of democracy; and by the spirit of turbulence and discontent it scattered abroad in the state, it helped to prepare the way for the coming in of Mr. M'Kean, as its governor; and thence, by the "momentum of Pennsylvania politics," (noticed by Mr.Dallas,)to pave the way for the accession of Mr. Jefferson to the presidency. It gave occasion too, for a useful nickname on the administration of Mr. Adams, which, with a sardonic grin, not unworthy the taunting malignity of demons, was, by the recent shouters for the mountain party of Robespierre, denominated, A reign of terror, now become a truly adious thing...