Gazette Of The United States

Philadelphia,
SATURDAY EVENING, APRIL 2, 1796.

Extract of a letter from a gentleman of Savannah, dated 8th of March.

"It must be highly gratifying to every friend to order and good government, to remark the change a few months have made in the public opinion, respecting the measures of the general government, as they regard the treaty with England.—Now that the paroxysm of intemperance, which fumed so admirably last summer, is spent, and reason has resumed her power, people begin to perceive, that the good effects of the treaty have, as yet, exceeded its bad. That it has been instrumental in preserving to us the enjoyment of peace and neutrality, and thereby placing us in a condition to reap the accumulative blessings with which we are, at this moment, so peculiarly favored.—The highly irritated state of the public mind, after the depredations and other outrages committed by British cruizers, rendered it more than problematical that reprisals would be the remedy of individuals (urged as they were by French partizans, and in some degree sanctioned by the public sentiment) unless some accommodation of differences between the two nations had taken place— The President foresaw this, and tried by negotiation to avert the impending evil. He succeeded, and the happy result is generally known and felt, co-extensive with the United States."

"Our legislature, amidst other acts of wisdom, have passed a string of resolutions to censure this measure. They have, unfortunately, however, chosen a wrong period to give their fiat, The people are too busy in making their fortunes, or paying off old scores, to spare time for grumbling. On the contrary, they never were more in the humour than at present to adopt the axiom of Pope, that whatever is, is right." In short, never has the spring-tide of prosperity been so brimful in this country as at the present time, as the rates of all our articles of produce prove. Yet, that venerable, that veteran patriot, to whose judgment and prudent policy we may attribute those advantages, must be dragged before the bar of the publick; and for what? to feed the vanity and consequence of a pampered demagogue."