Gazette Of The United States, & Philadelphia Daily Advertiser

From the Independent Chronicle.

Mr. RHODES,

THE democratic writers in your paper,
exert themselves to create and embitter
hatred of Britain, almost as much as of the
Federal Government. National hatreds
lead very surely to national controversies
and wars; and yet, very lately, they seem
to be full and overflowing with the love of
peace. These false teachers are rather in-
consistent with their own preaching; but
it is not at all inconsistent with their hidden
design, to inculcate that we should hate
Great Britain with all our strength and with
all our mind. In that way, they expect to
bring our citizens to dislike and to change
the laws and institutions we derive from our
British forefathers, and which stand like a
wall round the liberty and property that
these apostles of revolution wish to invade.
Before we hate all that is English, so
heartily as we are called upon to do, let us
see what there is in that nation that is so
hateful.

We are bound to allow that English
blood is good blood, because it flowed in
the veins of our venerable ancestors. It is
not coward's blood, that is or ever was
afraid of thirty millions of Frenchmen,
though they are only 21 miles distant from
that little island. If I mistake not, your
writers have not much of that blood, so
they admonish us, at the distance of 3000
miles from our foe, to ask for peace, and
when we are denied it, to ask again and still
more urgently again and again, till we ob-
tain it from the forgiveness of the French
Directory. The democrats have little right
therefore, to pour contempt on the "coward-
ly English," in the words of the French
Convention after Lord Howe's victory over
the French fleet June 1st, 1794.

There never was a colony settled by a
better sort of men than our New-England
forefathers. They came from the smaller
sea ports and country places of England.
and afford a very honorable specimen of the
piety, morals and learning of the nation at
that day. In the places where trade and
manufactures have not swelled the size of
the towns, travellers tell us, the English are
now very much what they were between
1620 and 1640. They were then and they
are still great supporters of a regular wor-
ship, and of a learned, excellent clergy; of
charity schools and of all institutions for the
enlightening, comforting, and employing
the poor. No country on earth expends
more, or is half so free to expend its trea-
sures for charity to their own poor, or for
any object of general benevolence and bene-
fit to mankind.

But their government is a monarchy; it
is, and the English appear to like it. Let
them keep it to themselves, and let us keep
our republicanism. We are not obliged to
run mad, like so many Quixotes, because
the English are not yet encouraged by the
bad account the Democratic writers give of
our republican system, and its vile admini-
stration, as they represent it, to kill King
George, and set up a five headed republic.
The jacobin party have raised three rebel-
lions, and Kentucky assures the world it is
ripe for another, and yet we are told that
we ought to hate the English and pray (or
rather drink rum and roast oxen) for their
downfall and subjugation and shame, because
they will, like fools, stick to their accursed
monarchy, and refuse to taste the intoxica-
ting cup of revolution. Some persons doubt
exceedingly whether such a country as Eng-
land would be happy, and reasonably sure
of remaining happy and tranquil under a re-
publican form - and as it would cost a trifle
of blood to try the experiment, they do not
blame the nation for showing some loathsomeness
and frowns in beginning the good work.

In many other respects, our plans of gov-
ernment are like the English. We have no
king, and it would be a terrible change to
this, and perhaps to the two or three next
generations of America to set up a king here.
We do pretty well without one, by our elec-
tive single chief magistrate. Our legis-
lature, our law courts, and our laws, are like
the English. The very best safe guards and
defences of all these good things are Eng-
lish, and that perhaps is the cause why the
Democrats are forever trying to undermine
them.

All these observations afford no
reason why we should take ill usage from English
or French. But they give a natural direction to our resentments, by marking out the
objects on which they should fall, and the
just limits that should confine them. I wish,
for one, there was a little more indignation
produced by national insults and injuries.
I beg leave to doubt however when we are
the most angry with the British ministry,
whether it is natural to hate our whole kin-
dred, or reasonable to affect scorn for the
English nation. Truth like this may offend
some weak brethren, but what harm can it
do?

W.