Norfolk Gazette And Publick Ledger

From the New-York American Citizen.

To RUFUS KING, Esq.

SIR,

From your silence on the subject of my letter of the 4th inst.* I presume that I am not to be honoured with a reply. Perhaps this may be owing to my temerity in addressing him, whom Mr. Coleman calls "the first man in the country." Of the height to which your friends exalt or wish to exalt you, I confess I was not aware when I rashly ventured to question the propriety of some part of your past conduct. I thought that, in this country, you had many equals; and I protest I imagined that Mr. Jefferson, for instance, was your superior. You will, sir, however, I hope, excuse my ignorance in this respect, and attribute it to the circumstance of my being an alien, and of course not yet sufficiently acquainted with the local politicks of this country.

Though you, sir, have not honoured me with your notice, I have been abundantly honoured by your friends; and yet, extraordinary as it may appear, I mean to pay little attention to their assiduities, but to envelope myself in dignity like your own. As far as they have attempted to attack my character, I shall leave it to be defended by others, or rather to defend itself. Not that I affect to be insensible to the value of publick opinion; but in truth, sir, in the present pressure of professional business, I have not time to do justice both to you and to myself: and I think it of infinitely more importance to the community, in the existing crisis, to make known what you are than what I am. You are the candidate for publick favour, and your conduct is the proper subject of publick inquiry. Permit me, however, sir, before I enter upon that interesting topick, to make a few general observations touching myself. Mr. Coleman has brought forward some extracts from the reports of the secret committee in Ireland—I think—it more than probable that he was not himself in possession of these documents—from whom then did he receive them? There is no person in this country more likely to have them, than the gentleman who was at the time, the resident minister at London—When you handed them to him, perhaps your memory might have served you to state, that as soon as those reports appeared in the prints of the day, Dr. M'Neven, Mr. O'Connor, and myself, at that time state prisoners, by an advertisement to which we subscribed our names, protested against the falsehood and inaccuracy of those reports; for which act we were remitted to close custody in our rooms for upwards of three months, and a proposal was made in the Irish house of Commons by Mr. M'Naghten, an Orangeman, to take us out and hang us without trial! You might also, perhaps, have recollected (for it has been published) that while we were in that situation, other state calumnies accidentally reached the ears of one of our fellow sufferers in another prison, who wrote a letter to the editor of the Courier in London for the purpose of contradicting them, and inclosed a copy of his letter to lord Castlereagh. Upon this Mr. Secretary Cook was sent to inform him, that if he published the contradiction he should be hanged; to that he replied that he was ready to meet the event; upon which Mr. Cook told him that since he was indifferent about his own life, he must know that if he persevered, the whole system of Courts Martial, massacre and horror should be renewed throughout the country. By that menace he was effectually restrained. Had you thought of mentioning those things, you might have jocularly added, that though these statements might serve some present party purposes, it was rather more unfair to judge of us by the calumnies of the Irish government than it would be to judge of Mr. Jefferson and his friends by the editorial articles in the Evening Post. The weapons you are using have been tried in Ireland among my friends and my enemies, where every thing was minutely known, and they failed of effect. If I had ever done any thing mean or dishonourable, if I had abandoned or compromised my character, my country or my cause, I should not be esteemed and beloved in Ireland as I am proud to know I am: I should not enjoy the affection and respect of my republican countrymen in America, as you, sir, and your friends confess I do. It would not be in the power of one who had departed from the line of his duty in theirs and his common country, by simply expressing to them his sentiments of you, to do you such an essential injury as I am accused of having committed.

Another charge made against me, is that I am an alien, interfering in the politics of this country. Be it so for a moment, and let me ask why is it that I am an alien in this my adopted country at this day? Because, in consequence of your interference, I was prevented from coming to it in 1798, and from being naturalized upwards of three years ago. Supposing then that I should refrain from intermeddling with politics in every other case; where you are concerned I feel myself authorised to exercise the rights of a citizen as far as by law I may; for you know it is an established rule of equity and good sense, that no man shall be benefited by his own wrong. But how do I come forward? Not as a citizen, but as a witness. Allow me to ask you if I possessed a knowledge of facts which could prove Mr. Jefferson guilty of a robbery or a cheat, and unfit to be trusted with power, would you think me culpable if, notwithstanding my alienage, I made them known to the public, to prevent their being deceived and misled? And shall I not be permitted, because in consequence of your very misconduct I am not a citizen, to testify to facts which will prove you unfit to be entrusted in this country with any kind of delegated power? Whether Peter Porcupine or Mr. Carpenter ever went through the forms of naturalization* I know not—but perhaps they might both be safely considered as aliens, and yet I have never heard any of your friends censure their interference in the politicks of America. I do not mention those gentlemen as my models, nor propose their example as my vindication, but I wish to shew the pliability of those principles which are to be erected into a barrier against me.

As a witness then, sir, I come forward to testify not to my countrymen, but to the electors of this city, to the whole of the United States, if you should ever aspire to govern them, and I now present you with my evidence.

In the summer of 1798, after the attempt of the people of Ireland for their emancipation had been completely defeated—after every armed body had been dispersed or had surrendered, except a few men that had taken refuge in the mountains of Wicklow; while military tribunals, house burnings, shootings, torture and every kind of devastation were desolating and overwhelming the defenceless inhabitants, some of the state prisoners then in confinement entered into a negociation with the Irish ministers, for effecting a general amnesty—and as an inducement offered, among other things not necessary to the examination of your conduct, to emigrate to such country as might be agreed upon between them and the government. When I consented to this offer, for one, (and it was the case with the great majority) I solemnly declare that I was perfectly apprised that there were no legal grounds discovered upon which to proceed against me. I further knew that the crown solicitor had in answer to the enquiries of my friends informed them there was no intention of preferring a bill of indictment against me. So much on the personal considerations by which I might have been actuated—and now, sir, to return.

The offer was accepted, the bloody system was stopped for a time, and was not renewed until after your interference, and after the English ministry had resolved openly to break its faith with us. On our part we performed our stipulations with the most punctual fidelity, but in such a manner as to preserve to us the warmest approbation of our friends and to excite the greatest dissatisfaction in our enemies. Government soon perceived that on that score of interest it had calculated boldly and gained nothing by the contract. It was after letting us go at large to develope and detect the representations and calumnies that were studiously set afloat, and had therefore I am convinced determined to violate its engagements by keeping us prisoners as long as possible. How was this to be done? In the commencement of our negociation, lord Castlereagh declared as a reason for our acceding to government's possessing a negative on our choice, that it had no worse place in view for our emigration than the U. S. of America.—We had made our election to go there, and solicited him to have our agreement carried into effect. In that difficulty, you, sir afforded very effectual assistance to the faithlessness of the British cabinet.—

On the 16th of September, Mr. Marsden, then under secretary, came to inform us that Mr. King had remonstrated against our being permitted to emigrate to America. This astonished us all, and doctor M'Nevin very plainly said, that he considered this excuse as a mere trick between Mr. King and the British government. This, Mr. Marsden denied, and on being pressed to know what Mr. King could have for preventing us, who avowed republicans, he significantly answered "perhaps Mr. King does not desire to have republicans in America." Your interference was then, sir, made the pretext of detaining us for years in custody, by which very extensive and useful plans of settlement within those states were broken up. The misfortunes which you brought upon the objects of your persecution, were incalculable. Almost all of us wasted four of the best years of our lives in prison. As to me, I should have brought along with me my father and his family, including a brother, whose name perhaps even you will not read without emotions of sympathy and respect.—Others, nearly connected with me, would have come partners in my emigration. But all have been torn from me. I have been forever deprived from saving a brother, from receiving the dying blessings of a father, mother and sister, and from soothing their last agonies by my cares; and this, sir, by your unwarrantable and unfeeling interference.

Your friends, when they accuse me of want of moderation in my conduct towards you, are wonderfully mistaken. They did not reflect, or know, that I have never spoken of you without suppressing (as I do now) personal feelings that rise up within me, and swell my heart with indignation and resentment. But I mean to confine myself to an examination of your conduct, as far as it is of public importance.

The step you took was unauthorised by your own government. Our agreement with that of Ireland was entered into on the 29th of July—Your prohibition was notified to us on the 16th of September; deduct 7 days for the two communications between Dublin and London, and you had precisely 42 days, in the calms of summer, for transmitting your intelligence to America and receiving an answer. As you had no order then, what was the motive of your unauthorised act? I cannot positively say, but I will tell you my conviction. The British ministry had resolved to detain us prisoners contrary to their plighted honour; and you, sir, I fear, lent your ministerial character to enable them to commit an act of perfidy, which they would not otherwise have dared to perpetrate—Whether our conduct in Ireland was right, or wrong, you have no justification for yours. The constitution and laws of this country gave you no power to require of the British government that it should violate its faith and withdraw from us its consent to the place we had fixed upon for our voluntary emigration. Neither the President nor you were warranted to prevent our touching these shores; though the former might, under the Alien Act, have afterwards sent us away if he had reason to think we were plotting any thing against the United States. I have heard something about the law of nations; but you, I presume, are too well acquainted with that law not to know that it has no bearing on this subject. Our emigration was voluntary, and the English government had in point of justice no more to do with it than to signify that there was no objection to the place of residence we had chosen.

Another circumstance which compels us to believe a collusive league between you, in your capacity of resident minister from America, and the cabinet of St. James's, is the very extravagant and unwarrantable nature of your remonstrance, which had the ministry been sincere towards us, they could not possibly have overlooked. If they had intended to observe their compact, you, sir, would have been very quickly made to feel the futility of your ill-timed application. You would have been taught that it was a matter of mere private arrangement between government and us, with which you had no more to do than the minister of Denmark, Sweden, Portugal, or any other neutral power. What inference ought fairly to be made from the facts I have stated, every man must decide for himself. On me, they have forced a conviction, which, if you can shake it, I shall much more gladly forego than I state it here, that in the instance alluded to, you degraded the dignity and independence of the country you represented, you abandoned the principles of its government and its policy, and you became the tool of a foreign state, to give it a colourable pretext for the commission of a crime. If so, is it fit that you should hereafter be entrusted with any kind of delegated authority? What motives you may have had for that conduct, if in truth it was voluntary, I do not undertake to say. Mr. Marsden whether you wished for republicans I shrewdly suspect he spoke what you thought of your politics. It cannot be said that you were yourself deceived by the very calumnies of which I have complained, since you had them from the original source. I sincerely wish I could believe that you did not observe this argument.

The extracts of the reports of the committee of the house of commons of Ireland, by an advertisement in prison, signed by our names, of September—it must have been the 7th or 8th—your remonstrance since I have been made on or before the 12th; for it was communicated to us on the 16th. The effect produced by our advertisement was electrical the debate which it caused on the very evening of its appearance, in the Irish house of commons, was most remarkable. As you doubtless read the newspapers of the day, these facts could not have been unknown to you. Why then should you be deceived by misrepresentations which we have recently contradicted under circumstances so extraordinary? Mr. King, did you enter so deeply into the revolution of your country as to implicate yourself in the issues of its fortunes? From the attachment of your political friends, I presume you were a distinguished leader in those events—if not, you had certainly read their history—you remember the calumnies which had been thrown out by British agents against the most illustrious and venerable patriots of America? Did you bear in mind the treatment which had been given in South Carolina to gen. Gadsden, or gen. Rutherford, col. Isaacs, and a number of others, who had surrendered to that very lord Cornwallis, with whom, through his ministers, we negotiated; and that those distinguished characters were, in violation of their capitulation and the rights of parole, sent to St. Augustine, as we were afterward sent to Fort George? How then is it possible that you could have been a dupe to the misrepresentations of the British government?

These remarks I address with all becoming respect to "the first man in the country"—yet in fact, sir, I do not clearly see in what consists your superiority over myself. It is true you have been a resident minister at the court of St. James's; and if what I have read in the public prints be true, and if you are apprised of my near relationship and family connexion with the late sir John Temple,* you must acknowledge that your interference as a resident minister at the court of St. James's, against my being permitted to emigrate to America, is a very curious instance of the caprice of fortune. But let that pass. To what extent I ought to yield to you for talents and information, is not for me to decide. In no other respect, however, do I feel your excessive superiority. My private conduct and character are, I hope, as fair as yours—and even in those matters which I consider as trivial, but upon which aristocratic pride is accustomed to stamp a value, I should not be inclined to shrink from competition. My birth certainly will not humble me by the comparison; my paternal fortune was probably much greater than yours; the consideration in which the name I bear was held in my country, was as great as yours is likely ever to be, before I had any opportunity of contributing to its celebrity. As to the amount of what I have been able to save from the wreck of calamity, it is unknown to you or to your friends; but two things I will tell you—I never was indebted, either in the country from which I came, nor in any other in which I have lived, to any man, further than the necessary credit or the current expenses of a family; and am not so circumstanced that I should tremble "for my subsistence," at the threatened displeasure of your friends.* So much for the past and the present—now for the future. Circumstances which cannot be controuled, have decided that my name must be embodied into history. From the manner in which even my political adversaries and some of my cotemporary historians, unequivocally hostile to my principles, already speak of me, I have the consolation of reflecting, that when the falsehoods of the day are withered and rotten, I shall be respected and esteemed. You, sir, will probably be forgotten, when I shall be remembered with honour, or, if peradventure, your name should descend to posterity, perhaps you will be known only as the recorded instrument of part of my persecutions, sufferings, and misfortunes.

I am, sir, &c.

THOS. ADDIS EMMET.

* It is said that on Monday evening last, certain federal gentlemen held a private meeting, at which they agreed to withdraw or cause to be withdrawn from Mr. Emmet federal professional business put into his hands, and, as in the glorious times of '98, to combine to do him all the pecuniary injury in their power!

EDITOR.

* Porcupine was not naturalized, and I understand that Mr. Carpenter is not.

CITIZEN.

* Mr. King, when a lad, was a servant to and wore the livery of sir John Temple, the near relative of Mr. Emmet. I assert this fact on the authority of a respectable gentleman in this city.

EDITOR.