National Gazette

For the NATIONAL GAZETTE,

To the CITIZENS of the United States, and those of N. York in particular.

THE accounts which we have received of the insults offered to the officers of the French frigate L'Ambassade, and of the contumelious language made use of rejecting our gallant ally, by the minions of despotism, who are living on the vitals of our citizens, and receiving the profits of the hard earned money of our soldiers, is not only alarming to the friends of freedom, but a grand insult to the people of America. It must, however, be highly gratifying to the French nation to observe the attachment of our citizens to their former friends, by espousing their cause, and raising the cap of liberty in the Tontine Coffee house, which was the very spot where the previous insult had been offered. I hope that the same spirit will continue, and that the citizens of New York will never see the friends of the United States insulted, and that they will make those British subjects, at present among them, know their places, and be contented if they are allowed to remain among us, without intermeddling in the affairs of our country, or attempting to raise prejudices against the cause of liberty in France.

Their nation is immersed in debt, even the interest of which they are unable to pay; their citizens are the most abject slaves on earth, although taught to believe that they are the only people who enjoy true liberty. The nation begins to discover, however, that their liberty is of the same species with that in Turkey, and consequently hate to see any other nation happy while they themselves are enslaved, impoverished, and miserable.

Let them talk as they will, let them boast of their success, and of the victories they gain over the French, facts speak louder than words: while therefore we see their merchants and bankers failing, and their manufacturers, by thousands, thrown out of employ, who are the great support of the nation, we may form a proper idea of the misery, and of the dreadful state in which they are at present involved.

When they will be extricated, God only knows—but let them know their places, while here; and if they do not, let them remember that many of the patriots of 1776 are still alive, and that the sons of others, who have paid the debt of nature, still live, and will make them know and mind their duty who are yet ignorant of it, and neglect to pay the proper respect to a country which they once wished to enslave, but which in despite of them is now free, and able to assert its freedom in the face of the Universe.

AN AMERICAN.

Philad. June 29, 1793.