The New Hampshire Gazette And General Advertiser

The ORIGIN and PROPERTIES of the CAP of LIBERTY.

The ancient Romans generally went with their heads bare, and in rainy or cold weather covered them with the corners of their toga, or robe. Caesar, their first Emperor, having a bald head, covered it with laurels. Indeed, the ancients, when either old or infirm, indulged themselves with wearing a cap. As age was then memorable, so caps became marks of honor. As none could be then deemed honorable who were not free, the cap, by degrees, became the badge of freedom ; and when a slave was made a free man, he had a cap given to him, which he was permitted to wear in public.

The Pileus, or Cap of Liberty, is quite simple in its form, common in its texture, and of a whitish colour. It is in the form of a sugar loaf, broad at the bottom, ending like a cone. This prefigures that freedom stands on the broad basis of humanity : and it runs up to a pyramid, the emblem of eternity, to show it ought to last for ever. It is simple, for liberty is, in itself the most shining ornament of man. It hath no gilded trappings, which too often mark the livery of despotism. It is made of wool, to signify that liberty is the birthright of the shepherd as well as of the Senator ; and that although shepherds may lawfully shear the sheep they protect, they ought not to skin them, that being the employment of the butcher. Last, the Cap of Liberty is whitish, the native colour of the wool undied: This demonstrates that it should be natural without deceiving gloss, unspotted by faction, and unstained by tyranny.