The Virginia Gazette

To the PUBLISHER of the GENERAL ADVERTISER.

SIR,

SEVERAL essays have been published in your General Advertiser, and in other newspapers, calculated to prove the superior excellence of our independence to that of our subordination to Great Britain; but as the lion told the man who hewed him the statue of a human figure with that of a lion at his feet, that men were the only statuaries, and that if lions understood the art of carving images they would represent the man prostrate before the lion, so I may venture to say that all those essays are the compositions of warm whigs, who are intoxicated with the imaginary charms of democracy, and that were the friends of government to handle the subject they could easily shew its superiority to all our present republican and levelling systems. This task I have undertaken, in a firm reliance of being allowed that freedom of sentiment to which, according to our professed ideas of liberty, every man seems to be clearly entitled. I shall therefore, without any apprehensions of exposing myself to a legal prosecution, and with the greatest decorum and impartiality, proceed to particularize some eminent advantages peculiar to the old government, of which we are most lamentably deprived by our independency and republicanism.

The most violent whig will not presume to deny that we have contracted an enormous debt by the present war; and though we are very able to pay it (which our short-sighted politicians urge as an argument to alleviate the affliction) it is that very ability of ours which, in my opinion, enhances the misfortune; for as we are able to pay the debt, I am under great apprehensions that we really shall pay it. But in this respect Great Britain has evidently the advantage, because, being utterly incapable of discharging her national arrears, it is certain she never will discharge them; and indeed her incapacity annihilates her obligation, it being an undisputed maxim in law that no one is obliged to impossibilities. What renders her situation still more fortunate, and in which she differs from all other debtors in the world, is, that she continues to have credit after being universally known to be insolvent. But who will trust America after she becomes bankrupt? Not even his Most-Christian Majesty himself. Would it not therefore have been infinitely better for us to have remained in subjection to a nation that can equip the most formidable fleets and armies on credit, and prosecute endless wars in every part of the globe, not only without any cash of her own, but without the least intention of repaying what she borrows from others for that purpose? The argument is conclusive.

Again, the Congress, notwithstanding our present exalted opinion of that respectable body, may, in process of time, betray their trust, and sacrifice our liberties. But in this perfidious manner the House of Commons cannot serve their constituents, because the people selling their voices to the members on their election, the latter undoubtedly may, without the imputation of corruption, dispose of theirs to the Ministry, to reimburse themselves the expenditure; and the matter being thus understood by both parties, bribery in the representative cannot be considered as a violation of his duty. And as to their sacrificing the liberties of the people, it is manifest from the electors repeatedly chusing the most obsequious instruments of Administration, that they really intend them to be thus obsequious; and that having to themselves the precious privilege of calling their King a fool, and his mother a w—e (a privilege peculiar to Englishmen) the Parliament may justly dispose of the remainder of their rights and liberties as they please. And indeed I cannot see how any people can have greater liberty than that of freely resigning all liberty whatsoever. It is therefore evident that the people of England can never be betrayed by Parliament, nor wrongfully abridged of their liberty, except only by an express statute against libelling his Majesty and his mother, which, in consideration of the resignation aforesaid, is not like to be ever passed. We, on the contrary, shall have reason to complain of a breach of trust whenever our delegates in Congress act in derogation of our rights, or deviate, how minutely soever, from the path of rectitude and integrity, which, from the imperfections incident to human nature, are undoubtedly possible events.

That the vulgar should be flattered by our muggletonian tatterdemalion governments, is not to be wondered at, considering into what importance those whimsical ragamuffin constitutions have elevated the heretofore despicable and insignificant mobility. But I am astonished that men of fashion and spirit should prefer our hotchpotch Oliverian oligarchical anarchies, to the beautiful, the constitutional, the jure-divino, and the Heaven-descended monarchy of Britain. For pray how are the better sort, amidst our universal levellism, to get into offices? During the halcyon days of royalty and loyalty, if a Gentleman was only blessed with a handsome wife or daughter, or would take the trouble of informing the Ministry of the disaffection of the colonies, suggesting at the same time the most proper measures for reducing them to parliamentary submission (the inexhaustible source of all peace and felicity) he was instantly rewarded with some lucrative appointment, his own disqualifications, and the maledictions of the rabble notwithstanding—

But how is a Gentleman of family, who is always entitled to a fortune, to be promoted to a post of profit, or station of eminence, in these times of insubordination and fifth monarchynism? Why he must deport himself like a man of virtue and honour (which abridges him of a thousand innocent liberties) and devote as much time to the discharge of his office as would in almost any other employment yield him ten times the amount of his emoluments. He must, moreover, pretend to be a patriot, and to love his country, when we know there are no such things in nature, and he must consequently be a hypocrite, and act under perpetual restraint, or he is detected, and discarded with infamy. Besides, it is not only the smallness of our salaries, and the necessity of having an adequate degree of merit to get into office (a condition never exacted by the generosity of Monarchs) but the comparative scarcity of offices themselves, that must make every man of laudable ambition eternally regret our revolt from the mother country: For the present governments being manufactured by the populace, who have worked themselves into a persuasion, of I know not what, of public weal and public virtue, and the interest of one's country, it has been ridiculously imagined that there ought to be no more offices in a state than are absolutely requisite for what these deluded creatures call the benefit of the commonweal. Under the old constitution, on the contrary,

whenever the crown was graciously disposed to oblige a Gentleman (and the royal coffers at the happy juncture of princely munificence happened to shew rather too much of their bottoms) an office was instantly invented for the purpose, and both land and water, earth and sea, should be ransacked, but his Majesty would create a surveyor of woods, and a founder of cesspools. Thus every humble suitor, who had a proper introduction, was always sure of being genteelly provided for, without either consulting a mob, or losing any time about the wild chimera of public utility.

The article of religion is another thing in which the British constitution has manifestly the advantage of ours; for notwithstanding our boasted generosity on that momentous subject, and all our pompous declarations of leaving every one to chuse his own religion, our politicians of distinction are now obliged, in order to coincide with the popular prejudice, to give some presumptive evidence of their being neither atheists nor deists; whereas in England, and indeed in America, before our unhappy defection, the belief of christianity, as a qualification for any offices, was entirely out of the question; nor did any public personage or gentleman of fashion think himself under the least obligation to give any proof even of his faith in the existence of a Deity, except only that of profanely swearing by his name. Nay, amidst all our parade of catholicism, it is well known that not a lady in the land, let her be as whiggish as the Congress itself, can now enjoy the liberty of conscience, of wearing an innocent head-dress of three feet in altitude, without falling under the suspicion of being disaffected to independency, or perhaps exciting surmises still more indelicate and uncharitable.

Nor can it be denied that many truly conscientious persons have been roughly handled for only conveying intelligence to the British troops, and others for supplying them with a trifle of provisions (according to scriptural precept of feeding our enemies) though they made the most solemn professions of their peaceable neutrality, and even of their friendly disposition to the United States, which is, beyond all question, downright persecution for conscience sake.

We have irretrievably lost, by our fatal revolt, another important advantage, I mean the late useful and uninterrupted influx of the English gallantry, and all the politeness of the Court of London. While we received our Governors and other principal officers immediately from the fountain head of high life and polished manners, it was impossible for us to degenerate into our primitive clownishness and rusticity. But those being now unfortunately excluded, we shall gradually re-immerse into plain hospitality and downright honest sincerity, than which nothing can be more insipid to a man of breeding and politeness. Alas! how often shall we recal to mind those jovial and delicious hours when our bucks experienced the inimitable conviviality, and our belles the not to be told of endearments of a Dunmore and Sparks.! And with respect to that unnecessary and rebellious innovation in the ancient and constitutional colour of the British military uniform, which Congress have wantonly transformed into all the multifarious discolourations of Joseph's coat, I protest, were I a woman, I should instantly turn tory in revenge of the dismal prospect of our not having by next Christmas a single red coat on the continent.

Our printers, I am confident, will universally join me in my lamentation over our unfortunate secession. These Gentlemen, in conformity to the principles of our civil establishments (probably indeed coincident with their own, but that renders foreign restraint not the least arbitrary or unjust) are cruelly restricted to plain truth and decency; while their brother craftsmen in the enemy's lines, with the whole typographical fraternity in the constitutional island, are generously permitted to range uncontrolled through the boundless fields of imagination, and to exert all the powers of inventive genius in embellishing their publications with the marvellous, which has ever been deemed a capital beauty in composition, and affects in the mind in the most agreeable manner by its unexpected surprize and novelty.

Thus have I endeavoured to point out the most essential defects in our republican governments, and have, in my humble opinion, offered sufficient reasons to induce every dispassionate American to wish for a speedy reconciliation with the parent state, consistent with that union of force, on which the safety of our common religion and liberty depends.

I ought, however, candidly to acknowledge, that many gentlemen are of opinion that we have gained one very material advantage over Great Britain by our separation from her, I mean that no persons employed by the states are mistrusted for imitating her example in peculation, and defrauding their country in any the departments committed to their management, and that all continental property is husbanded with the greatest oeconomy. But this, without any predilection for old England, I shrewdly suspect wants confirmation.

HORTENTIUS.