Rhode Island Republican

For the REPUBLICAN.

"If Though peril should abound
As thick as thought can make them, and appear
In forms more horrid;—yet our duty,
As doth a rock against the chiding flood,
Would the approach of this wild river break,
And stand unshaken!"
SHAKESPEARE.

To the Freemen of the State of Rhode-Island.

You have succeeded in placing at the head of our popular Government, a man whose sentiments are congenial with our Republican Constitution, who, having been raised to that high seat of power to which he supports the most legitimate claim, is willing to meet the storm of adverse and conflicting opinions, with no other support than the rectitude of his measures, and scorns to call to his aid the system of terror, or silence, by fine and imprisonment; whose conduct so well accords with those beautiful sentiments which all know how to admire, few how to express, "that political opponents may remain monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it."

A man whose talents as a lawgiver and a fine writer is the admiration of the polite world.

If you wish, Fellow-Citizens, for a continuation of the empire of honesty and reason, which will finally banish forever from the world that tremendous Scourge to society, War, in which, under the plausible guise of national honor and safety; but in truth to gratify private passion and avarice; your sons must be butchered in the field, or suffer a more painful and lingering death in a hospital, on some distant shore. Do you mean to support an administration who in choosing ministers of reconciliation with foreign nations, will make choice of characters well esteemed by the powers to whom they are sent, and whose work of peace will therefore be half accomplished as soon as began? who wish that the harvest of industry should be reaped by the hand that toils, and that the high seats of honor and power should be filled by temperance, honesty and talents alone?

Then you will at the approaching Election, choose for your Representatives the known and avowed friends of Thomas Jefferson, and the majority of our national government.

The English party, the friends of war, the enemies of Republics, are very active in discharging their filth, in lies and misrepresentation; one of the grossest of which is concerning the judiciary system. The truth is, on the last days of Adams administration, they pulled down, and rebuilt the courts that existed under Washington, & added sixteen more judges, in order, by this new corps of chosen feds, to entail upon the country an authority about to expire in Congress. These new recruits were to receive large sums of public money yearly, for little or no other service, than a quarterly sermon to grand juries about Jacobins, Atheists, Talleyrand, Buonaparte, and foreign influence. The present administration, much to their credit, have cleared away this superfluous number of judges, and restored the plan of courts as they were under President Washington, which is a saving of about Fifty Thousand dollars annually. This disbanding of the 16 new judges, has been bewailed in the federal papers, as the assassination and massacre of the Constitution!

There is, also, much lamentation about the repeal of the internal taxes. We are told the feds profess great tenderness for the Poor, and for bohea tea. It should be observed that this tenderness did not appear until the administration was changed. Mr. Jefferson is convinced that the taxes at present are more than sufficient for the public expenses, and very justly began the reduction with those taxes where so much was lost on the way between the man who pays and the public treasury. In collecting the internal taxes, the collector takes a percentage or nineteen cents from every dollar; and on that upon bohea tea, four cents only is taken for collecting a dollar. The internal taxes were made for no other purpose than to strengthen the government as administered by John Adams; and the government did not want the money any more than a horse needed two tails. This has been said openly and often by their own federal tax gatherers. In the fullness of their power and gaiety of heart, at a convivial meeting, one of their toasts was, "May Federalism be mounted astride upon Antifederalism—whip and spur." But we have placed our riders on the ground; and, God willing, we will keep them there.

The internal tax was made to strengthen government, says the federal collector; that is, to nip money from the pockets of republicans into the pockets of feds. The abolition of the internal taxes will be injurious to those who have ridden and wish to ride their fellow men, and to none other.

The trial of Fenner and Dorrance, is another disappointment and cause of lamentation. They have published a book about it, and circulate them gratis, with many thanks to him who will take and read one. This book, or pamphlet, has been declared by David Howell, Esq. in open court, to be the most abominable collection of lies ever published. The truth is, Gov. Fenner has presided in this state about twelve years with a reputation for dispatching business, equal to, if not better than any man before him. But when aristocracy and royalty dropped the mask, and showed, that under the specious names of good order and energetic government, they meant to assimilate and make us like Ireland, a sister kingdom, dependant on Great Britain, he withdrew from their politics, and declared for Jefferson. From that moment he became very immoral and wicked in the sight of feds.

Federalism had been defeated in the continent, by the choice of President and Vice-President: Defeated in the state, by the choice of a republican assembly. They were determined to make a third stand and trial, at Providence Bridge, Dorrance vs. Fenner. There too, like their good brother the Duke of York, they have been defeated.

The feds, who know nothing of religion, but as a cloak to crimes, complain of republicans as being infidels. All the world are infidels. Those devout feds at Constantinople are infidels. At Rome they are heretics. Whether Mr. Jefferson and his friends, believe with the Trinitarians, in three Gods, or with the Church of Rome in transubstantiation; and that when we eat bread and drink wine, we swallow a component part of divinity, is no public concern. The law requires no religious test. And whatever Mr. Jefferson may believe of futurity, and a being infinitely powerful, wise, and just, his writings and his actions proclaim to the world that he means to live as though there were such.

The feds affect to call themselves federal republicans, but they proclaim themselves disciples of the old School. I leave to the curious to determine how a disciple of the old school can be a christian or republican. Fellow-Citizens, you will probably be visited with the same old string of lies so often told and refuted before; and perhaps some new alarms about the distresses of our country, arising from a glut of meat and flour. But a very short remark, is sufficient to answer all their objections. Under Mr. Adams, we had the liberty to praise, but not to blame his government. But under Jefferson we have the liberty to praise and blame too. And when the enemies of the present administration shall show it blameworthy, we will think of a change, and not till then.

INQUISITOR.

* The duke of Marlborough took Sixty thousand pounds sterling a year, as perquisites, and was charged in parliament with leading his army to battle merely to cause a great number of officers to be killed, that he might receive the fees for signing new commissions.