Gazette Of The United States, & Philadelphia Daily Advertiser

TO THE PEOPLE.

A WORD TO THE WISE.

The object of the last address under this proverbial signature was to warn you against the perversion of good maxims for bad purposes, and, as if the writer had been inspired by prophetic spirit, the subjection of Switzerland has since illustrated his doctrine.

Any nation that makes peace its great object for the sake of increasing its wealth, must at some time or other, fall a prey to a rapacious conqueror. Look at Switzerland and behold the proof! What has become of the spirit of William Tell? Who now will dare to walk erect before an ensign of despotism, set up by a band of atrocious villains, in a soil soaked with the blood of women and children? It was once said of the Swiss that their best produce was “Man and Steel, the Soldier and his Sword:” but mistaking the want of motive for war in other nations, for the effect of their independent character, they dwindled into a set of mere mercenaries. They for a long time have been found scattered over Europe in three appropriate professions. 1st. Hirelings for military parade. 2d. Doorkeepers to the great: and 3d. Usurers.

The Swiss guards usually surround the palaces of kings and on a certain 10th of August, they were massacred like sheep in Paris, without exciting one sentiment of resentment in their degraded nation. The love of peace, or rather the fear of losing their wealth by war, absorbed every other idea and imposed a shameful silence.

“Parlez au Servise,” used to be seen over the entrance of every Hotel in Paris, and that the honor of being a porter might be characteristic of the nation, they wore a badge which designated this humiliating privilege.

A great part, perhaps the greater part, of the money lenders in Europe are Swiss; in this business they give way to none, not even to Jews; they worship wealth as their summum bonum, and “point d'argent point de Suisse” has become a proverb universally received. Avarice indispensably creates fear, for a spirit of accumulation begets a dread of loss and every miser must be a coward.

While the Swiss had more honor than wealth no nation wished to trouble them; on one hand there was a patriotic spirit to be conquered, on the other there was no money to be gained; but when avarice became the deity, and peace the sacrifice of the altar, when they became rich by becoming submissive, a double motive was generated: little or no opposition was to be feared, and great gain was to be acquired; this could not fail to attract the attention of the “great republic”; for this my friends is the very essence of all that actuates the detestable tyrants of France, and this alone has decreed the fate of Switzerland.

It may not be proper to exult in the misfortunes, even of the unworthy, but it is certainly proper to contemplate in their ruin, the point to which a disgraceful peace will infallibly lead us; and you ought to make the national spirit of Switzerland a negative example forever.

When you hear men preach about peace, with caution listen to them, when they talk of peace at any price remember the late dispatches from our envoys. When you hear them extol your worst enemy, (the French) and abuse your own government, think of the wretches who have ruined Holland; and when you hear them cry out “stop the wheels of government” call them Swiss, tell them to go home, and not disgrace America by calling it their country,

In calculating the value of peace take the great scale and not the small one of a few years. War will be found economical, whenever peace is disgraceful. At this moment it would be economical to go to war even if every shilling in the country were to be spent in support of it; for if you are to buy peace the price has no other limits than abject slavery and extreme poverty: & when like fire war should cease for want of fuel, your peace will continue only with your wretchedness: for as soon as you have acquired anything to lose, upon the common principles of combustion, war will break out again. On the other hand war will have its period if honorably supported and this is the only way of gaining a peace, which by keeping up a military spirit may become permanent.

The French are formidable in Europe by their artillery and their horse; the first, thank God, they can't well transport hither, and while we continue an undivided people we could match them in the other even if they had the utmost facility in navigation. Be but firm, united and prepared for war, and peace is certain; but weak, dilatory or contradictory measures will as certainly invite the enemy hither: their success in Europe, notwithstanding their military prowess, is more the effect of the divisions their diplomatic skill had excited than what their valor won by fair conquest. Let us my friends profit by the example, join hands and exclaim with one accord: We will have peace with honor, or war with energy

A WORD TO THE WISE.