The Freeman's Journal, Or, New Hampshire Gazette

Stat pro ratione voluntas.

My Friends and Countrymen,

I would beg leave to ask you a few important questions; are we engaged in an unnatural civil war or not? have we a powerful enemy to contend with or not? Is there a necessity of supporting an army in defence of our rights or not? If you answer me in the affirmative, I will ask further how is the most likely way to end this expensive war, how are we the most likely to carry on our opposition to tyrannical measures, and how are our armies to be paid and supported? Your answer will of course be-by the credit and strength of the country, and what is the credit of the country but the current money emitted upon public faith? and do we support its credit agreeable to our solemn engagement with government or not? and here let conscience, let honor, let the fate of our country speak: & they will tell you, that you are the most impolitic people under the canopy of heaven, you are lost to your own interest, you are blind and infatuated, and in short without the special intervention of an overruling providence you are undone; you had better never have engaged in the contest, but tamely submitted to the arbitrary measures of the British ministry, and have been hewers of wood such immense sums, exposed your necks to the halter and now to turn your own executioners my good heavens! what preposterous conduct is this? a brave people submitting to the yoke of tyranny, and in the blaze of day, voluntarily seeking their own destruction -I know every one says, its a shame to depreciate the money so, and acknowledge that we are undoing ourselves, and yet, mirabile dictu, no one lends a hand to begin the necessary work of reformation; we are in the same state with the Jews of old, when there was woe: if they did good, not a jot one; forlorn state indeed! Is there no virtue yet remaining with any of you? --

ienNune fartina fdem guerat vix irverit urqu m. ---

Why are we cutting off the very bough that supports us? what can we substitute in the stead of that money which is emitted by the representatives of our Own choosing, and for which out own estates are pledged in security--there never was a more inconsistent conduct in any people than ours: you think you are enriching yourselves, by your extravagant demands but you are grossly mistaken, every thing quadrates with your extortion but the soldiers wages: the loss of fifty such garrisons as Ticonderoga would not affect the cause in their consequences so much as our wilful and abominable Practices; You throw the whole Camp into consternation, and God only knows, whether they might not resent your defection, with a Vengeance too dreadful to be conceived of. much less to tell: then for heaven's sake, for posterity's sake, for the sake of all that is near and dear to us, desist, and let us strive to prevent the dreadful catastrophe that awaits us; what a shameful history will be that of America, if it should be recorded, that after bravely withstanding the torrent of oppression from the British nation, and its mercenary foreign auxiliaries, he at last fell a sacrifice to the unbounded avarice of his own sons: this is parricide with a witness! at which they may even now blush and be ashamed to think that theirs may be even the possibility of such a record; as an American I feel this reflection, it comes gratingly from my Pen, but I cannot refrain. I see destruction too near not to warn my countrymen of their impending danger; we may yet ward off the fatal blow, and I charitably hope we shall, but I am sure it will not be by our own strength for if we should be lost to ourselves we are inevitably undone, we have not virtue enough to withstand temptations. If I did not perceive an overruling providence graciously favouring our arms, even in despite of ourselves,-I should be discouraged, and think our cause lost. And here I may pertinently address myself to my friends in the country: It is to you that I appeal, as it is from you that I expect redress; tu eris mibi magnus Appollo: You shall be the advisers of my country; heaven has blessed you with a fruitful season, the earth has yielded you her increase and all nature teems for you. Your farms, your dairies, your herds and flocks enable you to begin the general and wish'd for Reformation; don't leave it to the merchants to begin, it is not in their power, the stagnation of commerce will soon prevent their doing hurt to the currency. the tradesmen all depend upon you, and they must be governed by you: the true cause of the depreciation of the currency is the great plenty of it I grant, but yet if you gave it a free circulation, by taking it for your provisions at a reasonable rate, you will eventually change the face of our affairs, and in a little time have the money mostly amongst yourselves, and this money will certainly be redeemed with silver. When commerce flourished the merchant then engrossed the circulating cash, but that being stopped, the country has now their opportunity, and it is you alone my friends, that can save us, under God: every day's experience informs you that you may have what you ask for your provisions and the poor must give it. this obliges them to raise upon their labour, but yet not in proportion, imported articles are not to be thought on, the exceeding risque of the enemy puts it out of the power of the merchant to import, but if he should be so lucky as to get his vessel in safe, he then asks a great price for his merchandise, and perhaps more than our hurt how- ever he is not certain but the next voyage ruins him; it is not so with you, you have still your farms, you make your own cyder, you raise your provisions & fix your flocks yield you their fleeces, many of you make your own sugar, and I am credibly informed many of you make your own molasses out of corn-stalks, and in another year you may make your own rum, with these productions you can easily grapple with the times, and if you were to enter into solemn covenants to take the money freely and to support its credit, you'll save your estates; you have all of you more or less by yourselves or your sons been in the wars, in defence of your country, and for this your estates are forfeited.& you are declared REBELS by the enemy--what will your estates be worth to you if they succeeda why nothing, for the more you have, the more unlikely you are to escape they want your estates to distribute amongst their own clan, who have long since expected to have reaped where they did not sow; I have heard some say the country people are as cruel as the grave & would get ten times the value of their produce this year, though it did not cost them more than it did last year and such like ill natured expressions, but this is not the language with the considerate men, they think the country produce costs more than it did, because labour has risen by the scarcity of men; however you are the judges of what is reasonable & by you we must be governed, therefore let your moderation be known unto all men. and if in any thing you have done amiss, do no more, and let that be the determination of us all, but especially let us support the credit of the paper money, & may a gallows as high as Haman's be the reward to him who dares to give more than six shillings in paper currency for a silver dollar. I hope to see our legislature doing their part in the plan of reformation, and as the people complain there is too great a plenty of money. they may easily make it scarcer by laying on a good heavy tax, by which they will ease some of these complainants, of their burdens of money, and by lessening the quantity on hand they will make the remainder the more valuable, such an expedient will alter the tone of some, but I would have the tax exacted and punctually paid; and as some northern states, have ungenerously broke the union by refusing our money, let us with equal contempt refuse theirs, we need not fear the continental currency, that will soon be emitted on a basis that will make it the study of every one, to secure it. and if we did not treat it so contemptuously by offering a difference between that and silver, we should soon experience its intrinsic value: have a little patience, and you will find a material difference in the face of our public affairs, if you don't mar the public councils, by your perverseness & ( and if I may be allowed ) I will add, by your own insensibility.

INDEPENDENS.