The Virginia Gazette

NORTH CAROLINA, November 27, 1769.

Mr. RIND,

Your residence for some months past being in the southern part of this province, to which your Gazettes are irregularly sent, is the reason why I have not sooner taken notice of a late political writer, who masks himself under the assumed name of Americanus; this prodigy of erudition, whoe'er he is, has laid your readers under such extravagant contributions of ridicule, and imposed upon them such an enormous load of stupidity and dulness, that decency and ingenuity despair of eradicating the impressions of insignificance imprinted on their minds, by the splenetic effusions of this author's brain—The first of these pieces furnishes that came into the world, presented itself in such a strut of importance, that a drachm of penetration will instantly discover it to be the offspring of one of those scribbling politicians who write instead of pray, for their daily bread. Thus, we find the first efforts of his pen employed in a vindication of the great defaulter, and in averting the infamy that threatened him, on being openly charged with violating the duties of his office, of abusing the confidence of his Sovereign, who had so highly ranked him, and of embezzling the national treasure. Interesting as this charge is to the noble Lord, on whom it was fixed, and as justly as it appears to have been founded, yet it has been his peculiar misfortune to remain without an advocate till this despicable writer stepped forth; and, to the utter ruin of that Nobleman's character, undertook to defend him. Unfortunately for him, his conduct has been represented in such incoherent and unnatural colouring, that he is universally believed to be guilty, in verification of that memorable line of Mr. Pope's, that nothing blackens like the ink of fools.

I should have been under a real concern to see such a pen drawn in the cause of the injured Americans, for fear of seeing the fair and unblemished portrait of constitutional liberty, defaced and polluted by such a feeble, incorrect, and disingenuous defender. As often as the Parliamentary tenets in the late disputes have been wounded by the shafts of their own adherents, they have never so effectually felt the tortures of zealous nonsense, as since this writer commenced ministerialist. I should take upon myself to examine these extraordinary productions, sentiment by sentiment, every one of which would have proved to be repugnant, either to reason, decency, or truth, had I not found it already done to my hand in a sensible and polite piece, wrote by AMERICANUS VERUS: This Gentleman has so obviously refuted every assertion of the few that deserved to be noticed, and so minutely traced them to that source of mud (to use one of his words) where they were originally engendered, that it would be an insult upon common sense to suppose the most ignorant of your readers, proselyted by the ministerial doctrine of this garret politician.

This writer (for I cannot force my pen into the appellation of Gentleman) like a fishwife at a gin-shop, is determined however to have the last word, frisks again upon the literary theatre of your press, prostitutes the sacred page of the immortal BICKERSTAFF, converts his pure, judicious satires to the currilous purposes of Grub street abuse, and after venting the fumes of his taplab on me, brandishes his pen, tempers it in his own ink, inspires himself with a draught of his generous liquor, which I suppose is Scotch ale, and, with the assurance of being universally acknowledged victor in the combat, informs Mr. Americanus Verus, that he is to expect no mercy, for that he is resolved not to let him get off, without yielding up his imaginary triumph. Laughest thou not Verus to see this flashing political fribble ransacking his amber-filled pericranium for a little shrewdness, to shirt at thee, and endeavouring to confute thy serious and manly reasoning with the smoke of argumentation? By all the powers of nature thou dost laugh, and by the same powers I laugh with thee!

To examine this wretched production, paragraph by paragraph, would be treating it with an undeserved distinction: I shall therefore content myself with making some general remarks, and consign it to the oblivion that awaits it. The principal design of both these pieces is to stigmatize the Lord Mayor and the Liverymen of London for accusing Lord Holland of corruption, however justifiable they might be, by the records of the Exchequer, where the Paymasters accounts ought to be annually liquidated. The mode of petitioning too is condemned by our author, in the most virulent manner, and the whole continent of America implicitly called a contemptible mob, an unruly populace, void of honour, probity or reason. Assertions, dictated by the flattering prospect of court-favour, and pointed by the warm glowings of honorary rewards, or lucrative establishments, however recommended by the elegance of language, or inge-
Continuity of reasoning, never fail to give disgust: low
insupportable then, must be the mortification which a
mind must feel, on seeing ill nature and stupidity
coupled together in every sentence, going hand in
hand through every column, beckoning to raillery,
and exciting to contempt.

Americanus then offers some reflections to the pub-
lic on the nature of patriotism, which he divides into
antient and modern: The latter he describes as a
kind of political frenzy, that seizes on the passions of
the lower class of people in all city corporations,
transporting them to acts of outrage and violence,
from which he infers, by the plainest implication,
that the present race of patriots are of that particular
class, estranged from honour and loyalty. That there
are mechanics in all large boroughs, who are destitute
of principles, moderate and uninflamed, no one will
deny. Such, perhaps, were the porter mob, Wat
Tyler's, and the shoe saints of Rome. But, can the
fury of such abandoned miscreants, a set of illiterate
peasants, intoxicated with rage, be applied by any kind
of comparison, to the conduct of petitioners against
the violation of charters,—against conferring seats
in Parliament on persons never elected,—against the
imposition of taxes for revenue purposes, on two or
three millions of subjects, totally destitute of either
an actual or virtual representation,—against the trial
of American treasons before a high commissioned court,
to be for that single purpose erected,—and against a
number of illegal encroachments already delineated
by the inimitable Farmer's Letters, and other inge-
ious tracts, too numerous to recount. If such a con-
test as this, between the assertors of constitutional
rights, and the Ministers of venality and corruption,
tried and examined on the fixed and unvarying or-
dinances of the antient and established monarchy ;
—
on one side, the supreme and unlimited jurisdiction
of the British Parliament, supported by an army of
court pamphleteers, under a pecuniary patronage,
arranging plausibilities, and disguising facts ;—on the
other, defended by the promptitude of conviction,
and arguments drawn from common right, the laws
of nature, and innumerable precedents; a contention,
sanctified by the concurrence of all the subjects of
England on the part of America, except the herd of
placemen and band of pensioners : yet this writer has
the audacity to reproach as modern patriots, other-
wise ale-house senators, all those who shall dare to lift
up a complaint against the upright measures of the
virtuous Ministry, or supplicate our Sovereign for his
Royal and more immediate protection of his distant
plantations.

We are left at large for his animadversions on an-
ient patriotism ; no doubt but they would have been
as shrewd as those he gave us, and would only have
served to corroborate the evidence of one conspicuous
truth, that a set of dull unwieldy faculties, a little
reading and a bad heart, will fix a mind on the
isthmus of that middle state, which lies between
common sense and lunacy.

Americanus then denies his being a court-hireling ;
an assertion very probably true; the statesmen of
England are men of confessed discernment, and tho'
disposed perhaps to distribute pensions to indigent
men of genius, to varnish acts and polish measures,
neglect and despise the ignorant and supercilious,
however well disposed they might be to embrace the
cheerful perquisites of a daily sustenance, and throw
in their literary mite towards diverting the public
odium from an unskilful, arbitrary, and impolitic
administration.

And let me prophecy, after thy example, Americanus,
that in thy garret thou wilt ever continue to feed thy
spleenful mind on thy beloved subject of abusive criti-
cism, from whence no kind of distinction will ever
invite thee; there, rolled up in thy den, like Homer's
serpent, thou mayest collect thy poisons, and dis-
charge them at every traveller that journeyeth on his
way to the public ear, unknown, unheeded, and des-
pised

And now, Americanus, I will let thee get off, and tho'
thou shouldst again deluge the press, by
pouring through its channels upon me all the torrents
of scurrility and invective, scattering filth and sowing
abuse, I will let thee enjoy the imaginary triumph in
all the raptures of completed revenge, for to me
thy shafts have leaden points, unable to provoke me
to any thing else for the future but a silent contempt.

H. P.