The Rhode Island American, And General Advertiser

Political

THE BOSTON REBEL.

VALEDICTORY

TO HIS EXCELLENCY

ELBRIDGE GERRY,

Esq.

May it please your Excellency,

I take my leave of your Excellency. The facility, and abundance of matter which your Excellency's speech afforded, without the smallest labour--the consciousness that the virtuous and good part of society would read with approbation and avidity an exposure of principles, which no man, before your Excellency, since the revolution, has had the hardihood to advance; the reflection, that I was defending the conduct of some of the most virtuous and upright men in society, men whom your Excellency, knowing them personally, or you could not thus have praised them, has declared to be persons of "talents, property, influence and high offices," has rendered my employment not only so easy, but so grateful to me, that your Excellency may be assured that I quit it with as much pain and reluctance as you can possibly feel upon the occasion.

Upon a review of my labours, your Excellency will perceive with as much pleasure as the recollection of it can yield in a grateful breast, that I have established, by the most abundant proof and arguments, the following propositions:

1stly. That your Excellency, in undertaking to denounce the peaceable assemblage in the town of Boston, who met on the purpose of opposing your election and of promoting that of a wiser and better man, has stepped out of your province, has placed yourself upon a level with private citizens, and invited them to a combat, highly derogatory to the elevated station to which your Excellency, from a misrepresentation of your true character has been advanced by a deluded people.

2dly. That your Excellency, with a view to recommend yourself to the Executive of the United States, and perhaps to propitiate the "supereminent Emperor" of France, who has lately denounced all assemblages of the people, and all expressions of their opinions upon publick affairs, has imitated, the example of the Royal Governours under the old colonial system, who were, in consequence of the high Church and Tory doctrine, "compelled to spend the residue of their mournful days in foreign climes." It would be an irreparable loss to the violent and sanguinary part of society, if your Excellency, stung with remorse at your attempts to destroy the liberty of the citizen, should feel yourself obliged to imitate their example.

3dly. That your Excellency has been guilty of many aberrations from the truth. Feeling as I do for the dignity and honour of the State, I should not have exhibited this trait of your speech to a censorious world, if you had not made charges against the town of Boston utterly without truth. It cannot be considered even by the most charitable, that any body of men ought to submit to unfounded charges when they had the most ample means of repelling them. In charging the three-thousand electors of Boston with having been "lavish in their encomiums upon Great Britain," you meant to insinuate what in the present state of parties is considered a great crime, that they were the devoted partisans of one foreign nation. Now as they did not praise Great-Britain at all, whatever other crimes your Excellency may charge them with, you stand convicted of exercising your inventive talents in order to render them obnoxious.

4thly. Your Excellency has been proved to have displayed the meanest hypocrisy in bewailing the unhappy prevalence of party spirit, and in appealing to the Almighty that he would be pleased to allay its fervour, while you have endeavoured, by every artifice, and even misrepresentation, to whet it to the keenest edge. You have, in crocodile tears, bewailed the horrours of civil war, while your spirit and your recommendations have tended to excite and produce it, unless you, vainly hoped, that the terrours which you held up to one large mass of the community would induce them to submit to the lawless and unbridled rage of the small majority obtained by an abuse of the right of suffrage. You affected to wish to reclaim your opponents by appeals to their reason, and to avoid "ruffling even their tempers" while you adopted a language which left them only to choose between the character of convicted culprits, or an indignant spirit of disdain, and proud defence against unmerited calumnies.

5thly. You have represented the French decrees as absolutely repealed when it is notoriously untrue. You have represented the obligation of the President to accept the Emperor's empty and perfidious declaration as equal to an actual cessation of hostilities indispensable. You have done more than the basest sycophants in America. You have declared that the Emperor would have had JUST cause of war against us all the President had not accepted his frolic as equal to an actual restoration of our property unjustly surprised.

6thly. You have intimated that France has done, "if not every thing," a great deal towards the work of justice. You know that so far from doing every thing, she had done nothing, but to increase the Catalogue of her wrongs, and to add insult to injustice. In the very proposal of repealing her decrees, which she never meant to perform, she reproaches Congress with having re-traced their steps. She asserts her right to retaliate our Non-Intercourse and to retain our property on the pretext of reprisal. The minister at our Court, Mr. Turreau added, "that her future measures would be governed by our conduct by the measures which we should continue to adopt against the common enemy." So insulting were these suggestions that even our "impartial and upright cabinet," for about three weeks, started at them, and seemed to be awaking from their long slumber of submission. Your Excellency knows, that they suspended for some weeks that fatal blow to our trade which the Boston "Rebels" censured, and allured their citizens to new enterprises by the appearance of an intention to return to a state of impartiality and justice. The Secretary of State told Mr. Turreau, that so long as "France continued her municipal edicts, the blockade of Great-Britain against France was as indifferent to us, as the blockade of the Caspian sea." Yet, strange to relate, these municipal laws still continue, and we, in three weeks after, came into the whole views of France.

7thly Your Excellency declared that while France had done, "if not every thing," yet something, Great-Britain had refused to revoke her Orders and had not done any thing to relieve trade. I have proved, that Great-Britain far from refusing, has again promised to revoke her Orders, and has also done a great deal, has set the example of justice to her enemy, by withdrawing her Orders from Russia, Denmark, Prussia, Hamburg, Holland, Spain, Portugal, and Italy. Where then is your Excellency's truth or accuracy?

8thly Your Excellency asserted, that the government of the United States had "with unrivalled ability contended for national and individual rights." I have shown, that they have not contended at all and instances of failure of success. I cannot form any idea of any species of unrivalled ability which is altogether fruitless and ineffectual that it undertakes unless your Excellency intended as irony, and that their unrivalled consisted in doing nothing.

9thly. Your Excellency praised the administration for having warded off their enemies by every possible means that the blows have not been warded off at all, but have fallen with full force and I have moreover shown that the measures they did adopt were calculated to invite a repetition of their blows, by animosity towards one, and by injustice towards the other. Their last measure will (I tell your Excellency) terminate in blows of a more serious nature. And so your Excellency understands it. For in your speech, and in a subsequent message, you make it evident that you think a British war inevitable, and with a view of preparing the publick mind for the horrour of that event, you wish to inflame its evils by stirring up one citizen against another. This leads me to notice a separate message of your Excellency about the Eastern Insurgents or Squatters. You, who are so alive to a peaceable assemblage of citizens, in the metropolis, do not hesitate to bestow undeserved and shameless praise on a class of men, some of whom, or men situated like them brother trespassers, have been in arms against the laws, and have murdered and mutilated peaceable citizens seeking their just rights under the laws of the land. You tell these men, in effect, that they formerly shed their blood for their country, and that you are glad they are rewarded for their insurrection, because their country will soon want them, inured as they are to blood, because a war is expected and there are secret agents of the nation with whom we are to have the contest, engaged in dividing the people. In other words, "Gentlemen, I know you are poor; I know you are used to blood. We expect a British war. Prepare yourselves to levy the Federalists, who are British agents." The man who does not understand this language is wholly blind. That your Excellency's humane and moderate views may never be accomplished, and that all good men may defend their rights, whenever the prayer of your Excellency's friend.

A BOSTON "REBEL."