Gazette Of The United States, & Philadelphia Daily Advertiser

From the VIRGINIA GAZETTE, &c.
No. VII.
A DEVELOPMENT OF THE CAUSES OF THE DISTURBANCES BETWEEN THE AMERICAN AND FRENCH REPUBLICS.
Addressed to the Citizens of America.

MY FELLOW-CITIZENS,

IN the preceding passages of the same letter, from Mr. Jefferson to M. Mazzei, we see the same opinion and misrepresentation of the difference of sentiment between the people and the government of America repeated, in still stronger terms; and the same hint for the French to profit by that diversity of sentiment, held out in much higher colours, of the same figurative kind for which its author is so remarkable, than in the parts just touched upon.

"I should give you a fever," continues this celebrated letter-writer, "If I should name the apostates who have embraced these heresies; men who were Solomons in council and Samsons in combat, but whose hair has been cut off by the whore of England."

Here is not only the same declaration of the division of our country, but a positive averment that even those who had formerly been distinguished for their wisdom and prowess in the defence of it, were now rendered too weak and suspected by their attachment to Great-Britain, to be feared by those who choose to attack us. Who these Solomons in council and Samsons in combat were, is too obvious to need an explanation. "They would wrest from us," however, it seems, notwithstanding this Samsonic diminution of their strength, "that liberty which we have obtained by so much labour and peril; but we shall preserve it. Our mass of weight and riches is so powerful, that we have nothing to fear from any attempt against us by force. It is sufficient that we guard ourselves, and that we break the Lilliputian ties by which they have bound us, in the first slumbers which succeeded our labours."

Can it be imagined that these sentiments ever flowed from the pen of an American? And yet, that they did, I have not the smallest question nor myself; and doubt not but that I shall prove it to the fullest satisfaction of every one who will be at the trouble of reading these papers before I have finished. It begins already to be admitted; and the excuse prepared to be offered for this strange and unaccountable attachment to France, at the expense of our own country, is, the old story of the never-to-be satisfied debt of gratitude to that nation. Indeed the last sentence in the letter itself pronounces its own apology. "It suffices," says the letter, "that we arrest the progress of that system of ingratitude and injustice towards France, from which they would alienate us, to bring us under British influence."

It becomes necessary, in order to find out how far this is a sufficient apology for such conduct, to make some short enquiry into this subject; which is rendered the more easy and contracted by what has been already said by others, whose arguments I shall endeavor to avoid as far as possible.

It has been rendered manifest by public documents from the French themselves * that they never thought of rendering us any assistance at all, until they had supposed our independence was pretty well established by ourselves; and in the conclusion of the war it has been proved by the same authority. that the independence of America was not their object when they rendered us that assistance; but that they endeavored, all in their power, to thwart us in that desirable object. And in the secret papers of Louis the XVI. published by order of the convention after his death, it appears from the reasonings of that prince's two + counsellors, Turgot & de Vergennes, that it was the policy of that court, by rendering us assistance, thereby to prolong the war between Great-Britain and this country, as far as it could, in order to exhaust and weaken both, with a view of reducing the resources of her ancient and dreadful enemy, Great-Britain, both at home and abroad, as low as possible. To this history of their motives in assisting us, I will add one other piece of testimony, which appears to have been overlooked, and which will not, it is presumed, be called in question by any American; it is the testimony of Dr. Franklin, one of our ministers employed in the whole of our negociations at Paris, on the subjects of the revolution, our independence, &c. That well remembered American, in a letter to governor Pownall, I a member of the British parliament, friendly to America, declares, that one of the conditions required by France, as a consideration for her entering into a treaty of alliance with America, was, that we should become tributary to them; and, therefore, that all * See Mr. Pickering's letter to Mr. Pinckney in Paris.
See Mr. Harper's address to his constituents, which I would recommend to the perusal of all Americans.
See Pownall's speech in Brit. Parl. 1777, in which Franklin's letter is cited.
propects of negociating were at an end; and, that then was the time, if ever, for Great-Britain again to secure the colonies to herself, upon terms favorable and honorable to both countries.

This was still the same system of Turgot and Vergennes, of reducing the powers and resources of Great Britain, improved, by an attempt to draw a considerable part of those powers and resources into their own hands.

But I will not rest the discharge of this great debt of gratitude entirely on the motives which induced France to enter into an alliance with us; but will admit, that, let the motives have been what they would, we are indebted for all the real benefits which their assistance afforded us: and that, although France might have conceived herself at the time of entering into that alliance, that our independence was in a great measure secured by our own exertions; yet, it is a fact to be acknowledged, that we were, long after that, reduced to a very critical and almost desperate point with respect to the real establishment of that independence; and, finally, that her assistance at York-Town in Virginia, aided very much in the completion of our revolution. Yet, I cannot agree, that a total surrender of that independence, even if they have bestowed it on us, ought to be made the return for those services. If we are so much indebted in gratitude, that nothing but a surrender of the thing for which we are thus indebted, can satisfy the demand, then is the obligation destroyed by the very nature of the demand itself; there being no consideration left on the part of America; and it being a principle in all fair dealing, that there is no real obligation where there is no consideration. The vast amount of the debt being an acknowledgment of the great value of the thing for which we are thus indebted, is a sufficient confession of itself, of the vast injury also, which would be done us by the payment which is demanded; or, that a total surrender of our independence, is the only return that would satisfy our generous allies for the services they have rendered, the wretched state of slavery and beggary to which they have reduced the Dutch and Belgians for similar services, too loudly proclaims. These deluded people, particularly the Dutch, confiding in their professions of friendship and good-will for their welfare, suffered, nay, invited them to take possession of their country, overturn their government, pull down their dykes, convert their ships to their own warlike purposes, and destroy the independence of their trade; by which one of the most frugal and money-making people in Europe, were reduced to nought; and all for what? To give them an independent government in French choosing, under which, they had to submit to the oppressions of their armies, and furnish them with supplies of provisions and actual money, by way of requisition, to the amount of at least fifty-five millions of dollars: While the Belgians were actually put under military government, and plundered of two hundred and fifty millions of dollars (under pretence of destroying the clergy) and made to furnish their armies with provisions at the point of the bayonet; and this too, all under the express professions of setting them free, and making them independent and happy. What have we to expect from an entire submission to their demands on the score of discharging our great debt of gratitude, who, from their own acknowledgments through Turgot and Vergennes, were only assisted with a view of prolonging the war, to destroy us and Great-Britain together: And what are we indebted, when the demand for that assistance actually turns out to be that very destruction which they thus contemplated and desired when the service was afforded.

Where there is an intention of doing good, there is no obligation due, even if that intention fails in its desired end; but if we are to be indebted for a favor done, where there was no intention of doing any, then certainly should we be released, when that, which we considered a favor at first, is attempted to be turned into an injury in the end. Thus, although the motives for rendering a service have little or nothing to do with the obligation due for that service, yet the end to which that service goes, has something to do with the obligation itself. If, for instance, an individual renders me a service, and just as that service is about to have its most valuable effect, that individual steps in and claims all its benefits to himself to my utter ruin—where is the benefit to me, where the great obligation I am under to him? To turn this familiar and plain state of the case, from private life, into the great and important national dispute between France and America, I will just make a short statement of some of the most important points on which this great debt of gratitude rests; which I will illustrate with a few examples as familiar and plain in the political way.

France, it will be acknowledged, rendered us eminent service at the siege of York; for which, whatever might have been her motives or opinions respecting the progress we had made in the revolution towards our independence when she entered into the alliance, we are much indebted: but then, it must be acknowledged too, that there was another point of our revolution, prior to both the siege of York and the alliance too, to which great consideration should be had, as productive, or at least highly essential, in producing both these great events. Every body remembers to what a low ebb we were reduced in December 1776, and January 1777, long before the treaty of alliance was formed. The times of our soldiers expiring, every comfort, every necessary and every inducement wanting to entice them to re-inlist, America had to face at least twenty thousand prime British troops, with about two thousand five hundred undisciplined, worn out, naked and heartless men, when that celebrated and never-to-be-forgotten turn was given to the war, by the affairs of Trenton and Princeton, which are to be considered as the two neighboring Thermopylae of America. Allowing the French every possible credit for their assistance at York, without regard to their motives for entering into the alliance, as I have already done, what let me ask, would those services have availed us in 1781, had we been conquered, at this critical period of the war, in 1776? Prior to the battle of Trenton, which may justly be styled the pivot on which the fate of the American revolution turned, the French had shewn no great decision in our favor, and never, till after the capture of Burgoyne (which, however low we might have been reduced after, until the decisive blow at York, helped to lay the foundation of that final success) was her friendship at all active: In the first of these memorable events, which is justly to be considered a kind of supernatural intervention in our favor, at that awful and alarming crisis, we can be at no loss in pointing out the great and principal agent. In the latter, we have to form a melancholy claim in the holy book of gratitude, when we reflect that an Arnold was a most important instrument; for who has ever thought of gratitude to him for those services, which he afterwards attempted to turn to such a wretched conclusion? And who can think with patience of gratitude to France, when she demands all, and more too than we ever gained by her alliance for the favor? The moment she assumed a claim like this, she abandoned the true ground on which our gratitude was founded, and left us more indebted to her, than she herself is to Dumourier for his passed services. It is the end, not the beginning of actions, which establishes their character; and France herself, since she has become a republic, has carried into actual practice this principle, much farther than any other nation in the universe.

The Marquis de la Fayette, it is well known, was amongst the first in that country who put a hand to the real work of revolution. He was the first to propose the annihilation of titles—the first actual step towards Republicanism and Equality—in which he made an eminent personal sacrifice himself; for which he has been rewarded, not indeed in this unbounded measure of gratitude by France, which She would have America shew towards her, but with the chains (not indeed of the goddess of French liberty for being her enemy) but in those of neighbouring tyrants for being theirs. And how! by the accident of war which takes from one party a servant, whose detention and final destruction is of consequence to the success of the other? No! But by the hatred which those have for him, who, considering and knowing him to be the real foe to tyranny, have seized upon the opportunity of his being abandoned by those who pretended to be the Friends to liberty (even when from that circumstance he could be of no service or injury to either) to torment him with impunity?—Americans! here let the lips in silence be forever closed, and the eye of gratitude which travels into Europe in search of objects, be forever shut, lest it should return bathed in tears from the loathsome prison, where this great and distinguished friend of American liberty lies breathing his last for want of a single breath, or heavenly respiration of real liberty, with reproaches to the heart!

Whatever* cause the French may have to abandon him, America has none, until he attempts to turn those services which he has undoubtedly rendered us, to our injury; then, and then only shall he be relieved from our obligations to him; and then too ought we to be released from our obligations to any individual, or even nation of individuals.— The French themselves, it is a fact, have carried the practice of this principle much further than any other nation; for they have not only withdrawn their gratitude from those, who, after rendering them service, have endeavoured to turn that service against them; but it is well known, that they have executed several of their generals who had rendered them splendid services, for the want of a continued success even in their battles. And by what other principle have those advocates for this unbounded gratitude to France themselves been governed, who have been endeavouring so long to alienate our affections from a certain meritorious American, if it is not that that they have conceived that he was about to turn the influence of those eminent services he has rendered against his country? It is that influence which individuals or nations either obtain by their services that renders them dangerous to those they have benefitted:— And upon that principle I will admit, that if general Washington had at the end of the late war, have written to a subject of a petty Dukedom, bordering on, and subservient to Great Britain, "that our political situation was prodigiously changed; that instead of that noble love for liberty and republicanism, an Anglo-monarchico-aristocratic party had arisen;" in short, that the "principal body of our citizens, all our proprietors of lands, and the mass of men of talents, were opposed to our government," and that those * At the commencement of the revolution in 1789, the heads of the three parties in France (viz. 1st. friends to the ancient monarchy, 2d friends to a limited monarchy, 3d for a republican government) had a meeting at the house of Mr. Jefferson, then the American ambassador—at which, after an able discussion of several hours, the medium, viz. a limited monarchy, was decided on, as the degree to which the revolution was to go, and which degree all parties pledged themselves to each other to support. The Marquis was considered the head of that party; and rubo, having accepted the command of the army, and taken an oath to support the constitution of a limited monarchy, thus agreed upon at the aforesaid meeting, in which he had acted a conspicuous part and to which the King himself had consented, was only acting in conformity with those sacred obligations and agreements, when he was driven off. This was the cause of their complaints—this the true history of their justice towards him—a history which will not be denied by Mr. Jefferson himself.
who were in its favour, as some weak. and not to be dreaded; and that letter thus written, had been sent immediately by the person to whom it was addressed, and published in London, for the purpose of spiriting up the people of that country to make a fresh attack upon us, I should consider that Washington infinitely more execrable than the detestable Arnold: for the treason of that general only went to the surrender of a small part of our army, but the defection contained in such a letter, would be calculated to invite to the conquest of all America.

AMERICANUS.