National Gazette

From the Fayetteville Gazette.

"OUR neutrality in the present war is serving the British court more efficaciously, than any one power France has to contend with. From the number of British agents, with their superior force in the West Indies, they will receive provisions in an abundant manner, equal to her wants, with the advantage of capturing on the coasts of the United States, the supplies which France may procure. Her opening at this time one or two of her islands, to enable her to destroy our allies, is a fresh insult to American understanding; we know that without these States her islands, much less her fleets and her armies, could not be subsisted."

It is said by the friends of Britain, we have no right to intermeddle, and it is certain that republics move with caution.— If France should be compelled to submit to her enemies, would the islands in the West Indies conquered by Britain, be returned? The case is, Great Britain aims at an universal monopoly of trade and commerce; and these States would see their folly, when, perhaps it would be too late. For the sake of making, perhaps, two or three millions of dollars, by this neutrality, we are to sacrifice our allies who advanced us nearly twenty million, and came with forty thousand men to our aid; for this our national character is to be blasted for ages to come!

That France has a right to establish whatever form of government is suitable to her happiness, every rational being must allow. That the despots of Europe should interfere to prevent this right, is an abundant evidence that the French are acting for the general welfare of themselves and the human race.

The many massacres, murders and hangings, which ministerial writers dwell on with pleasure, by reasonable men must be laid on those who united and set in ferment this great nation; and our wonder at these accounts must cease, when we consider the dreadful provocations and insults offered to the most refined, polite and liberal minded nation in Europe:

There are some hereditary strokes of character by which a family may be as
Eternally distinguished, as by the blackest features of the human face. That Charles I. of England, and Louis XVI. of France lived and died hypocrites, is not disputed: Both were amiable to their subjects, whose sufferings under their tyranny were tremendous. In England we see the British court armed with the most despotic authority—the respectable kingdom of Ireland, which contains upwards of four millions of inhabitants, plundered and abused; this unhappy kingdom is doomed to the heaviest curse a tyrant can inflict. Unhappy Irishmen! who lavish their blood and treasure for despots, are to be disarmed. St. Patrick never denounced so severe an anathema against the Pagans as George III. has against your feelings, your loyalty and honor! Can you live under this reproach—The United States are open to receive you, unless prevented by the wooden walls of your oppressors; whose joy at the recent treason of the French General Dumourier, appeared more contemptible than when they bought Benedict Arnold. The despots of the earth being endowed with the basest of passions, leave no method untried to accomplish the destruction of the human race. We trust that the firmness and wisdom of the National Assembly will be equal to that of the American Councils when Arnold sold himself—the fruits of whose treason was much more prejudicial to their enemies than themselves.