Virginia Argus

VIRGINIA ARGUS.
Richmond,
Wednesday, November 16, 1814.

One good effect of the financial measures of Mr. Secretary Dallas will, in all probability be, the putting down the tribe of stock-jobbers; not the real money-lenders, but those who peddled stocks, hawked them about from town to town, from bank to bank, till the government paper, like the notes of an insolvent were actually shaved in the market. It was the misfortune of the late secretary, Mr. Campbell, who was, in truth, a very upright man, to be surrounded and assailed by that sort of vermin; and not being acquainted with the crooked habits in which they delight to burrow, he in some degree, fell a victim to their knavery. Mr. Dallas, like a spiteful fencer, puts himself, at the commencement, en garde, keeps the peddling fraternity at a distance; and they, according to their nature begin to grumble and scold. They are men of no principle. They turn every thing into commodity, and make a trade of politics. Cui bono? Their own pockets, to be sure. A precious personage of this description—and one who passes for a flaming democrat too, slily slipped into the Federal Republican the other day, in the shape of four or five columns of type, under the signature of "Publius." Mr. Hanson little suspected the author; and advertised in a note extraordinary, that he should be glad to be acquainted with so excellent a writer as "Publius!" The manoeuvre was capital, all round! You might at once guess the excellence of the writer by the vein of Hanson's praise. The president and the members of his cabinet were awkwardly abused and there was a long list of public calamities, present & to come, got up, in the style of a shopkeepers' price-current. It is thus that the press becomes the instrument of the vilest passions, and subservient to the most profligate men. We forbear to name the individual; but if we did, we would start him as the devil did when touched by the spear of Ithuriel.

The prospect in the East is somewhat cheered by the Resolution manifested in the States of Vermont and New-Hampshire not to unite in the wicked project of Massachusetts, to dismember the union and kindle the flames of civil war. What must now be the mortification and disappointment of those high priests of Rebellion and Faction to find in the firmness and patriotism of a powerful part of New England, a death blow to their malignant and diabolical designs. May not Quincy, Otis, Blake and others individually exclaim like the dark and revengeful Zanga

"Death to my towering hopes
My long lov'd labor'd scheme at once is blasted."

As it is seldom that we condescend to notice the nauseating filth and venom that the Federal prints of the "Boston stamp" are continually vomiting forth, it was only within a short time past that we cast an eye on the essays of "Pacificus" which appeared in the Boston Daily Advertiser and afterwards republished in the New York Examiner. These essays are written with the professed and avowed design of vindicating the terms proposed by the British Commissioners at Ghent as the basis of a negociation with this country, and in a spirit of the most unblushing effrontery and impudence, maintains that to have acceded to such terms would not have been inconsistent with the honor and interest of this nation. If in this extraordinary age we had not ceased to wonder at any thing, our astonishment and indignation might be strongly excited indeed at this base and abominable attempt made to degrade the character of our country & to espouse openly the cause of our inveterate, insolent and perfidious enemy. But when we recollect that the Boston prints have assailed with systematic malignity, every claim or assertion of right advanced by our own Government and as uniformly supported the arbitrary pretensions of Britain. We shall on this occasion repress our feelings and chain down if we can those bursts of honest indignation which rise within us at such infamous principles. We may perhaps on a future occasion analyze the grounds on which this peace-loving Essayist has taken to defend the Cause of our most holy mother, the "Bulwark of our Religion" the "defender of our faith" and "the shield of afflicted humanity"