Gazette Of The United States, & Philadelphia Daily Advertiser

SPECIMEN.

From the AURORA.

The following is translated from the Patriote Francais, a French newspaper published in Charleston, S. C. By giving it a place in your impartial paper, you will oblige many of your subscribers.

June 8.

Z.

CHARLESTON, May 19.
There is not a person in Charleston who has not been a witness to the activity and ardor which the French citizens exerted in giving the most prompt succours in the last conflagration: The newspapers of this country have paid them, in that respect, the just tribute of eulogium. Every one has heard also of the generous act of that brave mariner of the same nation, who, the day after the fire went up to a man, who did not know him again, to return him four thousand pounds, which had been confided to him at the moment when the fire was making the greatest ravages. Nevertheless there have been Americans unjust enough to throw on the French the most odious suspicions. There is yet in the United States a leaven of royalism of which the first legislators of America have been very wrong in not ridding their country. That inveterate class incessantly work in the dark, and will end by fettering America anew, and by rivetting forever their chains, if they remain supine; there is no intrigue but what these put in motion; no calumny, no atrocity, but what they invent to impose on the credulous and timid class of the people which is always afraid of losing.

It is thus that we are made to pass for people to be feared; it is thus that a personal dispute, which took place the day before yesterday, has been taken up to make of it a national quarrel.

What does it import to those Leopards, who always advert to their origin, to spill the blood of their fellow citizens and that of an allied people, provided they can serve the tyrant who keeps them in pay.

Americans!

you know not the French; they never strike a coward's blow; they are at peace with you; they are in your country, they will respect your laws and will submit to them without murmuring, If they were your enemies they would shew themselves to you face to face without paying attention to numbers, for the French never count their enemies but after having vanquished them.

Why will you reduce us to the necessity of speaking of ourselves? Why will you force us to bring to your recollection our generosity and your ingratitude? Why oblige us to make you remember that you are but a people of yesterday, that without the aid of the French you would yet be an English colony, after having been punished as rebels?

Recollect the situation of America at the Epoch to when De Grasse arrived in the Bay of Chesapeake—remember York Town; how many thousands of Frenchmen have spilt their blood to assist you in gaining your liberty? What generosity has not France, since the beginning of her revolution shown towards you.

Nevertheless, what have you done since the beginning of the actual war as an acknowledgment for all that? When you thought us crushed by the number of our enemies, you have not known us.

What has been the conduct of the captains of your merchantmen in our colonies? who have spread in our Islands so many bad half joes?

Do not your banks yet overrun with gold and silver ingots arising from the melting of the plate and jewels of the unfortunate inhabitants of St. Domingo?

Has there not been found at the last affair of Leogane, numbers of Americans among the dead, enemies of France? and yet we have been silent.

Have you treated us better in your own country; while you were forbidding us all purchase of arms and ammunition of war, you were permitting the English to have an enclosure at Norfolk, and to buy in Virginia horses to assist in carrying on the war against us in the colonies, contrary to the faith of treaties; our prizes on the enemy have been arrested by your tribunals, and the amount has not yet been paid to the crews.

Your pilots have run our vessels aground.

The new treaty which we proposed has been rejected under trifling pretexts. When the slaves who waged war against us were beaten, you sent an ambassador to Paris, but at the same time Jay arriving at London; and you know for what purpose and yet we have said nothing.

You boast of having afforded us a hospitable reception! Great efforts! we bring into a new country a population of several thousands of persons of all ages and sexes; we bring you the residue of wealth we were able to save from the flames, and what is more, our industry, our arms, our arts, our manufactures, and you reproach us with it.

We bring into your ports the immense riches which we take from the enemy and it is mostly you who profit by it.

Since we are among you the circulation of specie has doubled. Your cultivators sell their produce better; your proprietors in town have tripled the rents of their houses; your lands are better cleared, and you reproach us with it.

Have we not also given you the first lessons in the fine arts? before us who were your artists in painting, sculpture, music, dancing, &c. &c. perhaps we may one day even teach you how to enjoy unadulterated liberty, for you cannot be looked upon as a people perfectly free, as long as you show more ardor to defend your pecuniary interests than your Independence, as long as England and the petty kings of Africa shall abuse you with impunity, as long as you shall be kneeling and that you shall tremble before the earthen statue which you have erected with your hands; as long as you shall be unjust towards your allies and insensible to the fairest of virtues GRATITUDE.

French Republicans! Let not, however, your sentiments pass the limits of silent indignation.--Continue to respect the laws of the country you live in; answer to calumny by an irreproachable conduct, by new acts of generosity, by new virtues -and recollect Montesquieu's motto: Il est grand et beau de faire des ingrats; It is noble to make ingrates.