Portland Gazette, And Maine Advertiser

FOR THE GAZETTE.

No. III

The experience of the past affords an instructive lecture on the dangerous influence of demagogues, who skilfully operate on the passions and credulity of the multitude, when it is not vigorously opposed by power and unwearied efforts, to spread the truth, and impress cautiously on the minds of the people the importance of examining critically the motives and ends of those who are making so ardent professions of zeal for their welfare, and devotion to the cause of what they term liberty.

From reflection on the past too, we may be enabled to judge more truly of the tendency of the present measures and future designs of the jacobins who have usurped and so long maintained, a preponderating influence in our councils, and over the minds of a large portion of our fellow citizens. We have seen some of the arts by which they have so far succeeded, and if we attentively trace their steps, we may develope the latent spirit and ulterior actions, and direct to which their intrigues are tending, in season possibly to avoid, if we are wise to ours, the deception to which they would subject us.

In a long pull, by aid of vociferous clamor, allusional perversion of facts, to persuade the people into a belief that the federalists are secretly aiming to bring their country to the feet of Great Britain. these lovers of republican liberty and equality have not hesitated to identify their cause with hatred to that nation, and friendship to France, right or wrong ; but, as the conduct of France has been so much more flagitious than any thing which they can alledge on the part of Great Britain, that they have, in some instances, cunningly pretended (though with a very ill grace, and a most stone sangfroid) to join in the execrations which every thing to the noblest in mankind spontaneously bestows on the outrageous usurpations of the Grand Pacificator ;" and to console themselves for the mortification they undergo, in being obliged to pass even the slightest censure on the conduct of their dear friend " Napoleon the Great," "Protector of the liberty of the Seas, Champion of neutral rights … Guarantor of the Empire of the Incas," as well as to promote their main design, they redouble their utmost against Great Britain, and are now directing all their energies to excite the passions of the people to a war spirit with that power. Well knowing that in their exertions to stigmatize the federalists as partizans of Great Britain and enemies to their own country, they have so far pledged their own credit, and risked their hopes of success on her hostility to the United States, that, should it by any means happen, in spite of their exertions to prevent it, that a treaty on a fair and honorable basis, should be negociated, and the President, notwithstanding the denunciations of the war faction, should have the fortitude to ratify it ; should it happen that Great Britain, by the offer of an honourable reparation for the injuries we have suffered, should convince our government and the world, that the impediments she has thrown in the way of our commerce have been caused rather by the unusually critical and dangerous situation in which she has been placed, than by a deliberate and malicious design to destroy our prosperity and provoke us to a war, then, their falsehood and baseness will become apparent even to the eye of incredulity itself: the furious outcry they have raised will be but the din of confusion to their own ears ; the flames of war, which they are endeavoring to kindle, will scorch only their own popularity : and, mortified and ashamed they will be obliged to "hide their diminished heads" until they have leisure to recover from their disappointment, and fresh events give them opportunity to manufacture new lies and misrepresentations, and engender new plots to recover the influence they will have lost. But, should they succeed in inflaming the minds of the people to such a degree of madness that nothing but war, just or unjust, with all its horrors, will satisfy them, should they so far intimidate the government that it will not dare to accede to any reasonable terms of accommodation; or, (which will produce the same effect) should Great Britain refuse to compromise on terms which will admit that this nation may with impunity become a partner in disguise in the war against her, and that the commerce of her inveterate enemy may be protected under the American flag, while she must be at the expence and hazard of protecting her own ; then their intrigues will have accomplished their darling object, and their triumph will be complete. Multitudes who judge only from exterior appearances, and do not give themselves the trouble to trace events to their remote causes, will unwarily yield a tacit assent to the fallacious reasoning which will be drawn from the circumstances into which the nation is thus forced. Power, absolute, despotic power, will become firmly riveted in the hands of the friends of Bonapartist liberty : Democratic tyranny will stride in sovereign majesty over the land : Proscription and intolerance will be the order of the day, and woe to him who dares refuse to fall down and worship the golden image.

That this will be the consequence, should they finally succeed in their designs, we shall be convinced, if we reflect on their conduct when events seemed to have placed the power of the nation securely in the hands of our jacobins. Who has forgotten the outrageous attempt made last winter to place the liberty and property of the federalists at the mercy of every petty minion of the faction, in the shape of a deputy custom house officer? Who does not know that, under the form of a supplementary law to protect our ships and seamen from capture, power was given to thousands of subaltern tyrants to plunder with impunity any one whom they might choose to designate, in the true French revolutionary cant, as "suspected of being a suspicious person"?

But, it is not only to the men who have wielded the power of the national government, that we are to look for proofs of that intolerant spirit which would crush to the earth, every man who should have the hardihood to maintain an opinion different from that of the ruling faction. In my next I shall notice the intended "digestion" of affairs, by a set of would-be tyrants nearer home.

KATAHDIN.