Gazette Of The United States, & Philadelphia Daily Advertiser

The Gazette.

PHILADELPHIA

Wednesday Evening, February

FELLOW-CITIZENS!

The hour of danger is come; a false security deceives and destroys you—our country is struggling in the deadly gripe of disorder and rapine, and the contest is doubtful. Our government and laws totter under the unremitting exertions of ruffians panting for tumult, plunder and bloodshed, who strain every muscle and torture every means to tumble them into the dust. As they pass you in the streets they eye you as the future devoted victims of their fury; and, in hellish anticipation, view your property as already their own. Rouse then, fellow citizens, the robber is at your door; the man of blood prowls round your dwelling; shake off that indolence which in an hour like this, is treason. Arouse from that supineness which may be the forerunner of death. Your country demands your aid against a determined, incorrigible faction, driven on by foreign intrigue, and the grasping hopes of plunder, to overturn your government erected by the hands of wisdom and patriotism, on the bones of departed, slaughtered heroes, and cemented with their blood. Give not up the noble, the sacred fabric without a struggle to preserve it, nor shrink like cowards in the moment of difficulty and danger. Your independence was not thus achieved, and deserves a better support. Can you doubt the views or the principles of these people, when with violence, with clubs and with words, they hunt the friends of government from place to place, break up their meetings even at the expense of blood, and deny you even the right of communicating your sentiments to each other: when the ruins of your country and government shall rattle about your ears; when you shall be thrown in the dust at the feet of a thousand Robespierres; when unbridled lust and rapine shall burst into your houses, and wrest your wives and property from your impotent gripe; when our land shall become a second desolated France, swimming in its best blood, then, too late, will you curse the indolence and false security that betrayed you; and your children too, shall curse you when they begin to feel the wretchedness and misery to which you have most basely reduced them. Friends of government! Power and strength are your own; these hell hounds cannot stand before you; you can never fall but by your own inactivity. Come forward then, as one man, bending every thought, every hope, every exertion to one great object; imitate your enemies in their activity, perseverance and unanimity, and you are yet safe.

FORESIGHT.