Gazette Of The United States, & Philadelphia Daily Advertiser

To QUINBUS FLESTRIN.

TO you, Sir, as a republican, I address myself. If you should smart under the truth of my observations, or conceive your dignity lessened by the address of a common citizen, appropriate a few moments in the morning while the brain is neither obscured by the fumes of nectar, nor agitated by the storms of passion, to reflect on the cause of this address. Consider yourself as the political Goliath who has thrown the gauntlet before your opponents--consider me as the humble David, who in the face of extra-official declamation, and unawed by official authority, have ventured to take it up. Although I cannot calculate on the assistance of an Almighty arm to direct the weapon to the front of assurance, I will endeavor to console myself with the idea that the arm of a mortal is competent to the purpose.

The declamations of youth, and the malevolence of party are marked as the effusions of ignorance and of spleen, and even in a political famine are scarcely seized by the retailers of slander; but when even the ravings of a mad man or the less intelligible jargon of an enraged jacobin talk forth in the world covered with the mantle of authority, however gained, they attract, if they do not deserve the attention of the public.

In the plenitude of your authority and the overflowings of your mercy, you have deigned to offer to your opponents a choice of titles. Though I should feel myself honored by either of them when offered by you, you will use me, I trust, to retain that of a Free Citizen, that I may, according to the democratic doctrine give a little advice to my servant. And here Sir, ere I proceed, suffer me to regret that the doctrine of liberty and equality, however pleasing in theory, cannot in the present instance, be literally reduced to practice. Congratulate yourself that though theoretically you are my servant, you are not so in reality.

What, Sir, is the meaning of your answer to the republican address? Why step out of the common track pursued on these occasions? Why not accommodate your answer to the address? Was it that you might deceive your friends, and give your opponents an opportunity to exult in their penetration? If, in fact, your former acts do not prevent them from appropriating to themselves that merit--Does it mean any thing, Sir, or what does it mean? What "coalition" is this, whose weapons are slander, that in the frantic delirium of democratic intemperance you talk of? What are those "abominable lies," they have started? Name one that your opponents may yet see a remnant of hope in the gloom that surrounds them--

Name one that Pennsylvania may yet hold up her head among her sister States. I fear, Sir, you have placed before us a phantom that will ever elude our anxious grasp.

Who are those whom you have designated as tories, traitors &c.--What do you know of the principles or the sentiments of those men you have so wantonly abused? In the recesses of your chamber or at your midnight clubs, where the names of Washington and of Adams have been mangled by the hungry satellites of faction, and where virtue is but a name--in these places you have gained your information--in these places you have been taught to make a liberal use of those hackneyed terms, and marked the men on whom to bestow them. You dare not say your information has been obtained by a personal acquaintance with them--You dare not say this, Sir. Those men you know would start at your entrance into their houses as at a spectre--would consider their threshold polluted by your steps. On what ground then, have you thus dared to sully the characters of those men by the poisonous blast of democracy? What is your object in bringing into view the officers of the federal government? Do you consider it as a reproach to them to have been found in opposition to your election? If you do not mean this, why say it is "strange that they joined in the coalition" against you. Yes, Sir, this is your meaning. Neither the quibbles of law, nor the insolence of democracy can construe your expressions differently--You are well versed in both, and both will fail you at a different construction. On what ground then, Sir, I again ask, have you thus abandoned the small remnant of decency you might have been supposed to possess; Do you expect to find a shelter from the attacks of injured virtue and integrity in your age--in your authority--in the influence of your royal connections, or in the general contempt in which you are held? These may shield you from public justice or private chastisement, but they not, they shall not from the resentment of 20,000 free citizens. Sixty-five years should have taught you prudence; should have obliterated from your bosom the mean passions of envy and detraction. Sixty-five years should have shewn you the hazard of offending a respectable body of freemen. With one foot tottering on the brink of eternity, and with a reputation not free from reproach, you should have cautiously parted with those of your neighbours. The constitution secures the right of freedom of sentiment and freedom of election. In stigmatizing as "traitors" the freemen who opposed your election, you have shewn your enmity to the constitution you have sworn to support. In supposing the success of your election to be the only safeguard of the constitution, you have shewn your vanity to be equal to your presumption.

If, Sir, your vanity has led you to believe yourself infallible, and induced you to scorn the assistance of nearly half of your fellow citizens in the support of your administration, it should at least have taught you, that they were beneath your censure but the time may come when you will think differently. When the storm of public indignation bursts on your head--when the shoulders of the people who now support you sink beneath the burthen, when the voice of justice is heard, you will look to those you have insulted in your prosperity. Deserted by your friends, and despised by your foes, you may repent your folly. On every side you will see the sad monuments of your administration, and you may think yourself well rewarded, if you are permitted to retire to that obscurity from whence you sprung.

You may there, Sir, reflect on the days of your life. Republican addresses will no more greet your ears, nor will your eyes be gratified by the humility of your sycophants, or the burning torches of a bull feast. You will then learn to respect the freedom of election.

I speak to you, Sir, as a citizen as one of those whose voice was against your election. If you are offended by my language, consider, that you have ranked me among old tories, traitors, and apostate whigs. Reflect Sir, that you have commenced the attack, and that though I feel myself bound, to obey the constituted authorities. I will not be insulted with impunity even by a governor elect.

A FREE VOTER.