Alexandria Gazette, Commercial And Political

To the Editor of the Gazette.

Mr. SNOWDEN,

When I wrote my last letter, (see Monday's Gazette), I had not—indeed I could not have, read the account which I suppose you have seen in the Baltimore Federal Republican, of the dashing nuptials of "our gallant, gay Lothario," Mr. Ambassador Russell. That singular affair however comes so expressly in point as an illustration of the truth of my assertions in that letter, viz. that "in luxury, extravagance, ostentation, and all the solid sensuality as well as the fanciful frippery which distinguishes the old country, we do not lag far behind London on the day that George the Third was lost in his present mist of insanity," that a reader careless of dates might suppose I had it in my eye. But, I really had not; and as a proof that I had not, I will say that if I had had that incident before me, I should have gone much further, and approached much nearer to truth, by saying that we do not at all lag behind the court of Carlton house at this day, or that of Versailles in the "palmy" days of Louis the 16th, and his queen Marie Antoinette. Is there any one so ignorant of the history of nations, so little versed in the nature of our species, as to contemplate the headlong progress of society in this country in the vanities & sensual indulgences of the old world, and yet believe it possible that we can remain a Republic or long retain our Liberties? Impossible.—To my certain knowledge, the fond-extravagance and overweening display of gaudery which prevails among our opulent folks and is as awkwardly practised by their half-bankrupt imitators, is noted by all foreigners with that sneer they ever have at our service, and that exultation which those who envy our prosperity may be supposed to feel at so flattering a promise of its downfall.

"It makes us traduc'd, & tax'd of other nations;
They clepe us upstarts, & with swinish phrase
Soil our addition."

God forbid that the freedom of private will, so long as it is innocuous to the public, should ever be exposed to restriction! Though I shall ever agree with the wise old gentleman of antiquity that "Turpe senilis amor," yet I have no idea of publicly censuring an old gentleman, even though he had as many children and as many years on his head as King Priam, for prevailing, if he can, on youth and beauty to make joint stock partnership with decrepitude and age—for dangling a doll at the head of his crutch, and committing the frolic or the outrage, call it which you will, of matrimony: but when I see a grave, old republican statesman, but for a short time transplanted from the very soil of simplicity, rigid frugality and stiff, cold prudence, (Rhode Island) into the very hotbed of luxury, sensuality, extravagance and vicious coxcombry, and coming back infected & reeking with its stenches to disseminate all the exotic vices of that country in our yet wholesome soil, I cannot help regarding it as an augury to be deprecated, & forboding the most baneful at once, and ridiculous consequences from it to our republican simpletons, who, sooth to say, are as bewitched with the charms of "high life and high-lived company, with pictures, taste, Shakespeare, and the musical glasses," as Lady Caroline (Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs herself). Rely upon it, Mr. Snowden, we shall have our ladies now all bedizened "A la Turque"—Alexandria, Georgetown and Washington will be so many Constantinoples in miniature, and our great cities will be so beset with Sultanas, that our honest Jonathans of the country when they come to market will be apt to suppose that some necromancer had thrown a net over Turkey, enmeshed the seraglios; and emptied the contents of them into the simple, virtuous Republic of the United States: or else that the dog-star had struck the theatre with its fiery tail, enfrenzied the players while they were in the act of exhibiting a Turkish pantomime, and sent them parading the streets to the diversion of the populace. Adieu to the old graceful feminine dress; ten negro wenches will disdain the petticoat, and our sober tradesmen's and mechanics' wives will flit along the streets in frock, trowsers and boots. Oh, how I like to hear our street and grog-house declaimers inveighing against the vanity and folly of unhappy European princes, who being born under canopies of state, and swaddled in purple and fine linen, are trained to those fooleries, while they themselves take the first occasion that offers to throw off the parsimony, the simplicity and the sanctity in which they had been reared, and in their riper years to stoop to vices more pernicious, and to follies more mean.

Mr. Editor, my principles are so truly republican (i.e. what republican ought to be) that I could wish our intercourse with Europe were closed and that above all, in that most susceptible part, our diplomatic connections, care should be taken to select those who are least capable of taking the infection of European fashionable manners: Little is it suspected what fatal conductors men in their rank may become of all that is dangerous to our habits, institutions and morals. I own that I have as much fear of ours in the moral world, as Burke had of the British ambassadors in the political.—"These ambassadors (says he) may easily return as good courtiers as they went; but can they ever return from that degrading residence [Robespierre's court] loyal and faithful subjects, or with a true attachment to the constitution, religion or laws of their country? There is great danger that they who enter smiling into that Prophontion cave will come out of it sad and serious conspirators; and such will continue as long as they live.—They will become true conductors of contagion to every country which has the misfortune to send them to the source of that electricity. At best they will become totally indifferent to good and evil, to one institution or another. This species of indifference is but too generally distinguishable in those who have been much employed in foreign Courts; but in the present case, the evil must be aggravated without measure; for they go from their own country, not with the pride of the old character; and what they see in their new place of residence can have no effect in raising them to the level of true dignity, or of chaste self estimation.

CURIO.