Norfolk Gazette And Publick Ledger

When men are selected for office, without any other recommendation than a blind devotion to party, ignorance or vice, and often both will be promoted in preference to wisdom and virtue; of this truth we have unhappily for our country but too many examples during the last twelve years. A striking instance is furnished in the recent trials in Connecticut, which are noticed in another part of this paper.

To find in so many cases, that not in one solitary instance the prosecution should succeed, and to be defeated in so many, proves as Mr. Jefferson would say, defect in the law, or ignorance in the Attorney of the United States. If the defect lies in the first, we fix the blame upon those who passed the law; if in the second, the publick are indebted to Mr. Jefferson for the appointment of a man to an important office, who is unequal to the duties of that office—forgetting as he often did, his own maxim 'is he honest, is he capable.' It is however but candid in us to declare that the probability is, that the defect was in the law as passed by Congress.

Ignorance is no crime, but a misfortune when it is not associated with presumption, which aims at stations, requiring the most mature judgment and wisdom. If the majority of the last Congress had been composed of men of understanding, does any one suppose, the courts would have been under the necessity of pronouncing against the United States in so many cases, as they have done?

What but a consciousness that the prosecutions could not be legally sustained, induced the government to decline directing any, after the revival of the non intercourse by proclamation? Vessels continued to arrive long after the proclamation was declared to be in force, laden with goods prohibited by it, and yet no seizure was made.

Of the opinion entertained of the efficacy of our laws, some idea may be formed from a fact, which we shall state, and for the truth of which we do not hesitate to pledge our veracity—After the Non-Intercourse was revived, the Underwriters in London did for a premium of two and a half per cent. take the risk of seizure by our government of British goods and vessels laden with British goods!

We should in the order of things pass to the continuation of the Non-Intercourse by the late Congress, if we did not believe that the observations, which we have copied into this day's paper, from the American Citizen, would be preferred by our readers, to any remarks of our own.