Gazette Of The United States

For the GAZETTE of the UNITED STATES.

Mr. Fenno,

I have been hitherto a silent observer of the petulance displayed by the writers in the National Gazette, in conducting an opposition to the measures of the general government, and its real friends; but their want of candor and decency has proceeded to such a length, that I must now request a place in your paper for the following remarks:

It appears evident from circumstances, and the general complexion of the publications in the National Gazette, that it is only the tool of a faction, and the prostituted vehicle of party spleen and opposition to the great principles of order, virtue and religion. The virulence and scurrility of the writers are truly characteristic; but I could not have supposed them quite so weak as they appear to be. Do they imagine that their puffing artifice in magnifying their influence on the public mind has escaped detection? Can they suppose that the cry of danger which they have set up, has disturbed the repose of the citizens, who feel their happiness and will not be bullied out of it?

The effrontery of these men is now so brazen, that it glares upon every eye. The charge which they make against others, recoils so strongly upon themselves, that nothing but hackneyed prostitution can prevent them from feeling it. Are they not, for example, the very hirelings which they insinuate that others are? Is not one of them professedly retained in pay under a department of the very government which they oppose? Do they not discover a spirit of intrigue, and that dark designing envy which sickens at superior abilities and fame in others? While the National Gazette is pretended to be republican in its complexion, do not the publications in it uniformly contradict the genuine principles of liberty, by attempting to enforce the opinions of a junto, as those which are to be of decisive authority with the nation, and the wish of the minority as that which is to control the majority? They bellow loudly for the Liberty of the Press; but, examine the National Gazette, and see if any thing in favor of our national government is admitted into it, while nothing against it appears to be refused; and measures evidently calculated for the public good are wilfully misrepresented, as in the case of the post-office law, merely to serve the purposes of party.

It is high time, Mr. Fenno, that the mask were torn from the faces of these professed friends, but real enemies of the United States, that their true features may be seen—they ought to be freely and fairly exposed to the view of the world, that the public may be no longer deceived by the ridiculous affectation of those hypocritical republicans, those pretended advocates for the liberties of the people.

DETECTOR.