Portland Gazette, And Maine Advertiser

Duke of Cadore, our Rulers and the Palsy.

The public have now been some weeks on tiptoe to gain a peep at the dignified resentment which it was hoped our government would display in return for Napoleon's infamous letter to our minister, through his Duke of Cadore.—The reader must bear in mind (for he cannot forget it if he would) that the tyrant politely informs, Mr. Armstrong that the American government is without energy, without honor, and without character, and the nation have not equal spirit with the colony of Jamaica. The compliment, it is true, appeared somewhat rank, and many honest folks were credulous enough to suppose that Our Rulers would take it fairly by the horns, and declare it to be, at least, " an insult by implication" No such thing. The proud attitude of an honorable man was never maintained by the obsequious tool of a despot. The only symptom of either resistance or displeasure, which shews the least official tincture, are some puny paragraphs that have dragged their slow length through the governmental gazette. But lest those should weaken the Corsican's declaration that our government is without character, they were immediately followed, in the same print, by a very labored effort to shew that Great Britain was the original aggressor on neutral rights; and ergo from France is no insult at all. This deduction is undoubtedly conclusive. Still we cannot but admire at the philosophy, or rather malady, which has directed the destinies of this nation for ten years past. Whenever an insult, even by implication, comes in the genteel whispers of a zephyr from Old England, why then sure, all the testy humors of our rulers are in a flutter, their crest is erect, their wrath in a blaze, and British messengers of peace are discarded with contempt. But let insults & injuries of tenfold magnitude be inflicted and repeated and multiplied and heaped upon us to infinity, by the monster who drives the chariot of desolation through the earth, and it is all submitted to with patience, with composure, with the meekest resignation. We cannot help thinking our national administration has long been, and still is, like a man in the palsy. An affront, whether great or small, if it comes from an English finger, touches the nicest fibres and most irritable nerves of those exquisitely sensible gentry; whilst a Frenchman may bolt the whole energy of his clenched fist, into the very bowels of the nation ; and lo ! nothing but a palsied mass, a shapeless ductility of listless matter, is presented to welcome the thrust.—Con. Herald