Norfolk Gazette And Publick Ledger

From the Albany Gazette.

The following sentence is extracted from a publication that appears in the National Intelligencer of the 5th inst., a vehicle of the administration, and bears strong internal evidence of flowing from the pen of President Jefferson.

"It is obvious that the ostensible causes of the measure (the embargo) to wit, the British and French decrees, necessarily limit the duration of the embargo to their continuance, and that consequently, so far as they operate, its removal will be contemporaneous with their abrogation."

Thus we have direct and positive information, through the channel of a paper published under the immediate influence of the executive, that a removal of the all-crippling, palsying, impoverishing embargo, by the operation of which, all ranks, all classes, and all descriptions of our citizens are so grievously oppressed, is made by our government, to depend, not on any consequence or effects however insupportable, that may be experienced by our citizens, but on circumstances and events totally beyond our influence or controul; on the continuance and issue of the strife between France and England; the former striving for the mastery of the world, for universal dominion; the latter for self-preservation, for national existence. This contest may continue, not only for three years as has been predicted by Mr. Macon, on the floor of congress, but possibly for three times three years, or even longer; for as the power of Buonaparte has already increased to a height almost unbounded, so will his exertion be animated and increased by every new disappointment or delay in effecting the accomplishment of his object; and England fighting for her national existence, will make a desperate defence--she will not fall without a long and dreadful struggle--and during all this must we, from all present appearances, continue to groan and suffer under the death-like gripe of President Jefferson's favourite energetic measure, the general embargo--unless a speedy and a radical change takes place in our general representation and measures.

This embargo, it is openly avowed, is intended by our administration to bring England to a state of humiliation; be it so. I feel no disposition to advocate the cause of England in any controversy with my own country, nor will I presume to divine what may be the immediate or eventual effect of this measure on the interests of that country, or whether she will experience less benefit from the possession of all the remaining commerce of the world, than injury from the want of intercourse with us. I shall only take the liberty to ask, how far it is consistent with the dearest interests of the American people, and with the permanent security of American independence and freedom, that the only nation on earth, besides our own, that possesses one particle of freedom in her principles of government, the only nation of any essential weight or respectability that dares to lift up her solitary head in defiance of the universal tyranny of France, should fall a sacrifice, and in that event the only bar to the all destructive grasp of French power and influence be effectually, and for us fatally removed? and leave every free-born American to answer the question.

When President Jefferson was placed in the chair of government, he found this country in a state of freedom and prosperity, such as no nation before had ever enjoyed; at peace with and respected by all the nations of Europe, though with some of them contests had previously arisen, which led to acts of direct warfare on our part; prosperous and happy in all our concerns, foreign as well as domestick, our commerce extended to all parts of the globe, through the enterprizing spirit of our respectable merchants, aided and protected by the fostering hand of a wise, a virtuous and an energetick federal administration, abundant wealth flowed spontaneously into the coffers of the state, and into the purses of the merchant, the farmer, the mechanick, and every class of our citizens--all was freedom--all was prosperity, and President Jefferson himself, in his inaugural speech, was compelled to declare, that he found the affairs of our country "in the full tide of successful experiment."

Supported with uncontrouled power, and in fact, dictatorial authority, and aided with a revenue perpetually increasing, out of which actual increase, he was enabled to discharge some part of the national debt, how has President Jefferson executed his official trust? What account is he prepared to give of his stewardship? In what state and condition is he now about to leave us? to turn his back upon us. In a state of internal discord and distraction among his own partizans, verging rapidly to anarchy and confusion--in a state of hostility and variance with nearly all the nations of Europe; writhing under the lashes of some, under the robberies of others, and under the most contemptuous insults of all, and though he has uniformly made a regular annual boast of having reduced the amount of the national debt, and of possessing an overflowing treasury, produced by the agency of the unprotected and insulted merchants of our country, under a system of finance created and organized by his wise and virtuous predecessors in office--we are left with but one ship of any force or respectability afloat or in commission, or one seaport in any state of defence: confiding for the sole protection and defence of the United States on the seaboard, in 50 or 100 contemptible gun-boats.

And to crown the whole, he has not only effected a rigid permanent embargo on the whole foreign trade, through the channel of which unbounded wealth was flowing in upon us from the four quarters of the globe, but a grievous interdiction of all intercourse by land and by water with every part of the world, not excepting our nearest neighbours, and in many instances between one state in the union and another, under a monopoly of special licences to be granted to particular favourites; declaring, in a circular letter, directed to the several governors of New Orleans, Georgia, Massachusetts and New-Hampshire, in language which cannot be misunderstood, the merchants of our country to be "the most worthless part of society."

Fellow-citizens, view these two pictures, the one of the United States of America, as she was under the federal administrations of Washington and of Adams; the other, as she now is under the democratical administration and absolute controul of President Jefferson--are they not correctly drawn--are they not justly represented--are not all the blessings and benefits which we formerly enjoyed, justly attributable, under the sanction of Divine Providence, to the wise, the energetick and patriotick measures pursued by the former--and are not all the evils and calamities which we are now actually suffering, as justly attributable to the philosophick dreams, the political delusions, the whimsical experiments, and the pusillanimous measures of the latter?

It has for many years past been a consoling reflection to the sincere and rational friends of freedom, and of our happy republican institutions, that amidst the persecution, the violence, and all the depravity of democracy, every city, county and town in our union contained many virtuous, discreet and well-informed citizens who kept out of that destructive vortex, whose minds were invulnerable to its impressions, and who would always be in readiness, whenever its madness had arisen to a pitch destructive to all order and peaceable government, and verging to a state of confusion, then to step forward and offer their agency to their deluded fellow-citizens to effect a re-establishment of order and harmony, and a maintenance of republican freedom; that this alarming period is fast approaching, no one can doubt that a dread of its evils being so corrected is sensibly felt by the partizans of democracy is evident, from the malignant abuse, the foul and unfounded slander against federal principles and views which are daily repeated and ushered to the publick through the channel of the democratick presses.

That federalists are enemies to the principles of free government, they are tories, they are aristocrats, they are monarchists, that they wish to form a treaty of alliance offensive, and defensive with Great-Britain, to return again to a state of colonialism, that had they retained the reins of government, they would long since have changed our republican institutions to that of a monarchy, and were they to recover their standing and influence, they would do the same now--are items in the fiendlike catalogue.

That slanders like these have for a series of years past been introduced into free circulation throughout this state and the United States, by many profligate unprincipled characters, who are agents and tools to the demon of democracy, is too well known: that they are still appearing from day to day in many of the democratick prints is notorious, and that they should be sincerely believed by many, very many honest and well meaning, though uninformed American citizens, is, from the zeal and activity of such agents, perhaps unavoidable, but that one rational man can be found, who has had the opportunity of understanding the principles, and knowing the proceedings of either of the federal administrations of the United States, and of this state, and of their supporters generally, who will candidly declare that he does believe them to be founded in truth, I cannot conceive to be possible. No, the man who presumes to declare them as truths, must deserve either to be pitied for egregious ignorance, or censured for his atrocious depravity, for they are basely unjust, false and unfounded.

Was George Washington in principle a monarchist, an aristocrat, a tory, or a British adherent? If he was, then might federalists with some plausibility be so called; for the principles of that great and good man, who is so justly styled the father of his country, and friend of mankind, are what the federalists have rigidly and faithfully maintained. and while they stand ready to unite in a manly hostility to the aggressions of England equally to those of France, they view both, as well as all other foreign nations with an equal eye; their only partiality centers in their native country, whose internal freedom and foreign rights they stand ready to shed their best blood to maintain: their great source of mortification and regret is, the degraded state to which the foreign and domestick concerns of that country is reduced by the destructive measures of a delusive, pusillanimous, popularity seeking administration, that can proscribe and persecute its most virtuous and patriotick citizens, while it is meanly skulking and shrinking from the frowns of foreign despots--An administration that can wreak its vengeance on the heads of the best citizens of our own country, while it can view the outrageous depredations, confiscations, robberies and insults of foreign nations for a series of years, with a calm, philosophick indifference--An administration that can avow, as one of its permanent ruling principles, to leave our whole foreign trade, amounting annually to the enormous sum of eighty millions of dollars, conducted by upwards of sixty thousand brave American seamen, totally unprotected and exposed to the ravages and insults of every petty piccaroon privateer that sails the ocean, while that trade is known to bring into the national treasury each year upwards of fifteen millions of dollars, and to be a vital principle of national prosperity and respectability--An administration, the whole course and tenor of whose measures, have tended not to harmonize and conciliate party spirit, but to work discord and confusion in the minds of the citizens of the country, generally, and finally to serious ideas of a separation of the union.

That the federal constitution or form of government of the United States, was framed and established by the federalists, under the fostering care of Washington, and in direct hostility to all the violence and misrepresentation of democracy, is well known--Is, or is not that establishment purely republican? Is there any one act or proceeding of any federal administration in this state or in the United States, that is not in rigid conformity to the principles of that institution, or that evinces, in the most distant manner, a deviation from the most pure and unequivocal principles of republicanism and the publick good? If there is, let it be not generally glanced at, in the language of slander and declamation, but publicly and explicitly pointed out. Did any act or proceeding of any description of an anti-republican tendency take place under the administration of Washington or Adams in the government of the United States, or of governour Jay in this state? If there did, let it be fairly stated to the publick in plain and unequivocal language. Is there any essential act of the administration under probation of us that did not receive the avowed approbation of Washington? If there is, let it be particularly pointed out. Can any fact be stated, or even with circumstance be mentioned or suggested (I don't ask for proofs, a plausibility suggested to candour) that federalists either individually or by any of their administrations in government, have planned, contrived, or suggested, the most distant idea of subverting our republican institutions, of changing them to monarchy, or of forming any improper connexion with England, or with any other foreign nation? If there can, I only ask to have it fairly and explicitly communicated to the publick with all its attendant circumstances. But I don't hesitate confidently to assert, that no such charges can be justly established. no such fact can be fairly stated; that federal principles are the only true principles by which republican freedom can be maintained and perpetuated, and are in strict conformity to the letter and spirit of the constitution of the United States: and that every charge against their purity and correctness, is founded in the most base falsehood, the most foul and atrocious slander, and should be promptly and indignantly repelled.

Federalists may pass over partial slanders and misrepresentations with an indignant contempt, as flowing too generally from beings constitutionally depraved, and without deigning to reply or retort, though the means may be abundant and objects ready at hand, but they will not continue to permit to pass unnoticed slanders against the purity of their publick principles; they are a patrimonial inheritance from their deceased political father and friend, and should be held by them as a sacred trust.

A FEDERALIST.

OF THE WASHINGTON SCHOOL.