The New Hampshire Gazette And General Advertiser

Mess. PRINTERS.

If the following ADDRESS to the LADIES merits your approbation, please to publish it.

LADIES.

Permit one to address you, who has a true, undissembled regard for your happiness and welfare, who feels the highest esteem, entertains the greatest honor; and is impressed with the most profound respect, for those of your sex who are amiable and worthy; most readily would he exert his utmost ability to promote your pleasures, advance your felicity, increase your consequence, or give lustre to your dignity. Were the inmost recesses of his heart exposed to view, you would see it impressed with the most lively sentiments of love for female excellence. There is not a more ingenious asserter of your honor, a more watchful guardian of your virtue, nor a soul fired with greater indignation or filled with more sovereign contempt for those little sordid wretches, who insusceptible to one delicate, refined sentiment, enveloped in gross passion, callous to the touch of humanity, without compunction can rob the innocent credulous fair of her honor, and expose her to remediless wretchedness.

Beware how you give credit to professions -- words do not constitute friendship -- be cautious how you yield to importunities -- many want sincerity, and only propose a temporary gratification, by insinuating themselves into your heart: If they have a sincere regard, and feel a true affection: if their views are direct, if their intentions are honorable, to me, certain it is, if influenced by such motives, nothing can possibly be proposed that can injure or disgrace. I have no conception of that sort of affection, no idea of that kind of regard; which has the most distant tendency even in the smallest degree to injure the female; honor or happiness -- true love is ever assiduous to raise and exalt, not degrade its object -- modern love, modern affection, are too refined for my dull perception, too exalted for my gross comprehension -- a Good God! is it possible: any can view with a less jealous eye, pay a less strict attention to the reputation, happiness, and dignity of the mistresses of their affections than their own? Is there a lady who can yield to the importunities, grant the greatest possible favor to a lover, on a vague promise of so uncertain a contingency as marriage? Can he be so dead to the feelings of honor, so lost to the sense of shame? Can he so far forget her dignity, as to be a dependent on his mercy; by thus exposing herself to the hazard of inevitable ruin? Can she be insensible she stands on the precipice of destruction, in the most eminent danger to be plunged in the abyss of wretchedness, and overwhelmed in the sea of infamy; from which nothing can preserve her but her lover's generosity? He is generous; he performs every engagement -- it is a risk equally as infamous as dangerous; but marriage is the panacea -- can that restore your honor, give back your reputation, place you fair in the opinion of the world, and expunge every remain of disgrace? by no means -- but if it could, confess I must, many uneasy apprehensions should I suffer, lest the shame incurred under so many dangerous circumstances, however well concealed for the present, would some future day appear sprouting on my brow in full luxuriance --- first children, then marriage, seems to be the prevailing mode of the present day --- the first intelligence we have of a modern address. Miss is enceinte -- does the frequency of these instances diminish the scandal? Not in the least, but should they be multiplied, it will render it difficult to determine whether there are more --- s in or out of stews, but is not exaggerated, truth misrepresented? no, no, it is a melancholy truth too notorious to be controverted or denied. I write it with confusion. I write it with grief. I have travelled in the broad road of fact.

Oh ye virtuous! ye chaste! (the number of whom is not inconsiderable, I am confident; for I cannot censure all without distinction for the lapses of some: tho' charity with a sigh must confess they are too many) on you it is incumbent by your conduct and example, to evidence your abhorrence and disapprobation of such behavior; these instances serve to shew in striking, in glaring colours, how extremely dangerous it is to female honor, to deviate in the least from the right line of propriety: the lady who departs from it in the smallest degree to grant one favor, can never know where to stop, or what to refuse. She dethrones reason, and awakens passion; prudence is off her guard, the soul melted to love, the fitness of the opportunity: the pressing importunity and honorable allegations, render her ruin almost inevitable.

Are you sensible of a preference given in your favor? it is an honor done, and the highest compliment paid your merit, when apparent it proceeds from unquestionable sincerity. And must not the generous, noble, benevolent mind, feel some sense of obligation? does it not merit every civility, the greatest politeness: even when you cannot give your approbation? is there a gentle bosom which can add scorn or insult to refusal? forgive me, if I never can entertain favorable sentiments of that heart, tho it possesses many good qualities, it is certainly defective in point of generosity, it degrades it in my esteem.

By the delicacy of your nature, the feeble texture of your frame, in every stage of life: you stand in need of some faithful friend, to guard from insult, some kind benefactor, to secure from the threatening hand of necessity and distress ~ some kindred soul is essential to happiness --- Nature whose operations are never vain has created a counterpart, she has formed a mind sensible of a reciprocal, mutual dependence for relief from anxiety --- that is equally indebted to a companion, to participate felicity --- of which destitute, the good, generous and feeling heart, must ever sigh; which haughty science and vaunting philosophy are utterly incapable to supply.

Are you singled out as the object of particular attention, be not guided by unreasonable prejudice in your determination. Caprice is the characteristic of little souls --- be not hasty in your decision --- rashness is a sure mark of folly --- let reason give a sanction to your passion; then unabated pleasure uninterrupted joy, will be the consequence of your choice. Seek not to multiply particular admirers, nor return attention with foolish insensibility and indifference. Coquette and Prude are really detestable appellations: but not less odious in idea than in language; either presents us an unfavorable, unnatural picture of the heart: Have you a fair prospect of happiness in the addresses of a person worthy your approbation; true friendship by a forward indiscreet zeal to promote, is liable to defeat its own best intentions, and too generally creates disgust, where it endeavored to raise esteem. Busy scandal has some important intelligence to communicate, crafty detraction, many observations, many reflections, to make these employ their malignant eloquence to persuade, lend their officious advice to assist you in determining an event, as important as any in your life, and by which your future ease and tranquillity is most affected; you arrive at the knowledge of every thing but truth, and what it most imports you to be informed, a list of every vice, every failing that can materially affect your tranquility, of that you will remain in ignorance --- friendship too fearful to offend is silent; envy with a pleasing prospect of gratification is mute --- let the scales be equally poised, and suffer the greater weight to incline the balance. Examine with strict and minute attention, it matters not from what source you derive intelligence, provided only it be just: think and determine for yourself, be not prevailed on to imbibe others prejudices, nor adopt their partialities, but decide on merit according as inclination guided by reason shall direct a match of mere love is a mere piece of folly --- it is the chimera of juvenile fancy; the sallies of a heated imagination. make a beautiful figure in poetic description, entertains and delights, when painted on the page of romance --- but is no favorable index to permanent felicity; mere passion is of short duration, and must subside unless founded in reason, supported by prudence and discretion --- all have their peculiarities, all their failings, none are exempt.

AMATOR.