The Enquirer

COMMUNICATION, TO THE EDITOR.

In your paper some time since, I saw a paragraph which seemed to me to have rather a frowning aspect on men born in other countries. You think that too much of our literary labours is in the hands of these men. It is a fortunate circumstance for America, that science and knowledge cannot be monopolized, and that the natives of this country may perfect themselves in learning as soon as they please. The people of America have done much in that way for the time, but they have yet much to do, and I doubt not they will make as rapid advances in literary, as they have done in political science.

There are three sorts of people who come here from the British dominions, viz. English, Scotch, and Irish. Of the two first, at least 15 out of 20, are decided enemies of your country and government, and who either openly or covertly, would do every thing in their power to overturn your present political systems. Altho' P. Porcupine is gone, yet I have no doubt there are other persons in his way, either in the actual pay of the British ministry, or who have such expectations, who are labouring all they can to disgrace, to embarrass, and to overturn your republican system of government.

Of the Irish, 15 out of 20, or perhaps a still greater proportion of them, are warm and determined friends of republican America: and although they sometimes show their zeal in rather a too boisterous a way, yet, methinks, their intentions should be an excuse for their intemperance.

Another distinction ought to be made. Those emigrants who came to these states before the year 1790 or '93, were generally persons of the lowest grades, who came here merely for gain in whatever manner, or by whatever means they could obtain it. Since that period, a number of men of learning and science, and certainly men of principle, who had seen better days, have forsaken their native countries to participate of American liberty. Such men, I presume, should be treated with respect and kindness.—To my knowledge, many of them are uniform friends to your present government, and have made great sacrifices in order to share in its blessings. These men, by experience, can and do appreciate the just and inestimable value of liberty, because they have either seen or felt the pain and penalties of despotic power.

But I did not take up the pen merely to write on this subject, or to quarrel with your opinion—it was to make some observations on the propriety, or rather the necessity of establishing a well-conducted Annual Register.

I think it would require three (certainly two) persons to arrange and put in fit order the principal parts of a respectable Annual Register, so as to deserve public approbation, and proper to keep a place in a gentleman's library—one for the historical, one for the congressional, and another for the literary department—besides an editor, or overseer, of the printing-office, with more taste and leisure than falls generally to the lot of common printers. All those men ought to be persons of very general knowledge, and cool discriminating judgment. When I speak of such a work, I have my eye on that excellent compilation, the very Annual Register published in London.

I shall only add, that a work of this kind is imperiously called for, and if executed by men of cool judgment, and judicious friends to the liberty of America, it might be of very general good, and counteract any insidious publications of the hirelings or adherents to kingly power and influence.