Gazette Of The United States, & Daily Advertiser

"My dear," says an American gentleman of rank and respectability now in Europe, "to see once more all my good friends in America, is strong beyond expression, but otherwise I cannot say that I look with satisfaction to the prospect of a speedy residence in my native country. I see so much party bitterness and rancour, such a boiling of foul and malignant passions, apparently growing worse from day to day there, that I cannot feel a strong desire to live in the midst of it, and should prefer waiting, until a calmer temper and more moderation in party spirit, should promise a greater degree of tranquility.—

This is perhaps what Mr. Jefferson calls preferring the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.—It may be so;—genuine liberty is one of the dearest objects on this earth to me; but it is that liberty, which I can enjoy myself, and allow others to enjoy in the same degree.—But the liberty of insulting with impunity every thing that is entitled to the veneration of mankind; the liberty of turning the very basest passions of the human heart into public virtues; the liberty of becoming a PANDER TO THE IGNORANCE AND MALIGNITY OF THE POPULACE; of writing or speaking elegies upon murderers, and lampoons upon virtue; the liberty of abusing private friendship by undue solicitation for public office, and, upon failure of success, of betraying and libelling that friendship itself—

No! I am not yet Philosopher enough to love such liberty as this, and though I see specimens of it in abundance come from America, I rejoice to see, that at least, it is not of native American growth."