The New Hampshire Gazette

THE "Letter to a Federalist," of which we have a few remaining copies for sale, is the production of a gentleman of this town. We beg leave to recommend it to all the friends of freedom and their country, whatever may be their political sentiments. The following handsome and just notice of it is from the pen of an able writer, taken from the Chronicle of February 18.

THE political world has been favoured within a few days, with a new and interesting performance, entitled "A Letter to a Federalist, in reply to some of the popular objections to the motives and tendency of the Measures of the Present Administration." The visible object of this publication is to allure all those persons to truth and wholesome freedom, who have wandered from Republicanism, by the impulse of error and not from hatred to the principle of popular liberty. It is an invocation to mutual charity, among all persons who really wish to maintain the independence and political happiness of the United States, proving, with resistless candour, that had the measures of Mr. Adams' government become permanent, we should have been inevitably cast into the abyss of despotism, whatever might have been the motives of many who so fatally strengthened those measures by their approbation.

The moderation of the sentiments, and the spirit of good manners, which runs through the whole of this persuasive Letter, is highly creditable to the writer. We are satisfied that many estimable citizens have been led away from the support of the genuine principles of the great Federal Compact, by the arts of sinister men, who had toryism in their hearts, and monarchy in their heads. To such misguided men the Author delivers himself in the following train of unaffected patriotism and philanthropy— "You will, I hope, forgive me, if in attempting to tell you why I am attached personally and politically to the present Rulers of our happy country, I should at any time speak with too much warmth of the late administration, many of whose measures would have been unworthy of the oldest and most corrupt governments of Europe. In two short years they would have inflicted on us evils that ages of wars, internal and external, of profligacy and extravagance, public and private, of bigotry and ambition, have by their united force accumulated on the wretched subjects of the Old World. An independent man was to be overloaded with debts, a freeman to be imprisoned and enslaved, a poor and once perhaps oppressed, now happy stranger, to hold his existence among us at the will of our First Servant, and the citizen to be governed and controlled by the bayonet and sabre of the disciplined refuse of mankind."

— "Reflect, says this unanswerable writer to his federal friend, the conduct of our present administration. Where is the resemblance? (adverting to the governing conduct of France, on the miseries of which so many specious and delusive arguments have been raised by the federalists against a democratic constitution. No, sir, that government has ever been founded on war, on the tyranny of the rulers, on ambition, and on the desire of extensive conquests, and of the renown of military glory. Ours, on peace, on the mild and calm doctrines of authority almost paternal, on universal liberty, and on an abhorrence of every increase of territory even from the poor, weak, unlettered savage, but by the fair equivalent of open, honorable purchase" "Here stands the sacred Throne of peace, freedom and virtue inviolate and unabused: and so I trust it will ever remain, whilst our rulers shall be republican, and our people worthy to live under the mild and genial dominion of a commonwealth founded on the principles of civil liberty and equal rights."

The remaining parts of this inspiring pamphlet, are conceived and enforced in a similar style of benevolence. The allegations are all impressed by the finger of truth, yet so sheathed by the kindest desires for the well being, even of a political sceptic, that all honest men, of all parties, must concur in their approval of the Author. With the Republicans, it will be treasured up as a manual of generous policy and, with all lovers of their country, among the federalists, as a charming instance, where the resolution to defend a point of right and virtue with firmness, was mixed with a suavity that sweetened the draught of instruction. If this example of gentlemanly resistance to obnoxious principles, should tend to allay that fury of language, and bitterness of impulse, which is so disgraceful and so unavailing to the Anglo-federal writers, we shall hail its appearance as being equally propitious to public virtue and private manners.

The most interesting occurrence of the present times in the United States, is the trial of Judge Chase. His plea is before the public, printed in a pamphlet.