They desired peace.- calmly on the effect of their conduct. But they really prolonged the war. immense disadvantages under which it was carried on, through the disaffection of such a large body of our citizens, we so harrassed and crippled the trade of the enemy, what would have been the result, had the united energies of the nation been employed to avenge the national wrongs-had all the ports of the eastern states contributed their portion towards the common cause? Great Britain would in that case have been weary of the war in twelve months. She would have given us an early and honourable peace. Millions of debts and taxes would have been saved-thousands of lives on both sides preserved—the destruction of public and private credit prevented--and the two nations would have been early restored to the relations of commerce and friendship. This is an awful view of the labours of the "peace party." CHAPTER LVII. Parties change name and character. Jacobins. Definition. Unholy struggle for power, the cause of all our difficulties. Candid confession. A PARTIES Sometimes change their names, though they retain their principles. But they more frequently change their character, and conduct, and principles, still retaining their names. On many occasions in England, whig administrations have enforced tory measures. And some of the most whiggish measures have been adopted by tory administrations. very large number of the democrats in 1793, particularly in the western parts of Pennsylvania, were rank jacobins and disorganizers. They offered violence to the government, and raised an insurrection, to free themselves from a paltry excise on whiskey, one of the most rational and salutary taxes ever devised. Most of those men who then violated the laws in this respect, are now strenuous supporters of the government. On the other hand, the federalists of 1793, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, were zealous "friends of order and good government.” This was with them a sort of watch-word. They were ardent supporters of the honour and constituted authorities, which they identified with their own. A very large portion of them still adhere to the good old faith and practice. But there are too many who are as arrant jacobins and disorganizers, and as ripe for tumult and commotion, as the most violent of the democrats in 1793. They may murmur and may curse me for this declaration as much as they please. I care not. They may exhaust Ernulphus's whole collection of maledictions on my devoted head. But were these maledictions ten times told over, they would not efface from their escutcheon the foul blot of jacobinism. A jacobin is a man of violence in politics-an enemy to legal government-and ripe for revolution. This definition is substantially correct. And therefore every man is a jacobin who was in favour of sending to Elba, the President of the United States, chosen by the unbiassed votes of a free nation. Every man is a rank jacobin, who was for putting down the administration by force. Every man is a rank jacolin, who with Mr. King of Massachusetts, regardless of decency, decorum, propriety, or dignity of character, threatened the president in an inuendo with a halter.* Every man is a rank jacobin, who, with Mr. Coleman, editor of the New York Evening Post, preferred war with all its horrors, all its devastations, to a continuance of the present administration. Every mau is a rank, furious, envenomed, and dangerous jacobin, who, with Mr. Blake, a quondam democrat, seized the advantage of a distressing war, to or ganize one portion of this nation against the rest.† In fine, every man who wishes the minority to trample down and rule the majority-who himself opposes, or who excites opposition to, the laws-who seeks to dissolve the union under any pretext whatever-who defends the enemies of his coun *To the disgrace and dishonour of the house of representatives of the United States, this vile effusion of Billingsgate was allowed to pass without a call to order. + Mr. Blake is likely to be a conspicuous character. Neither Marat, Danton, Bor Robespierre began their career with more violence than he has already displayed. Nemo repente turpissimus. He will improve as he goes on I stake my existence, that had a civil war taken place (as would have been the case, had Mr. Blake's councils prevailed) and his party had not been crushed in the conflict, as they probably would--if he had the ascendency, there would have been as summary process with the democrats of that quarter as there was with the royalists under the guillotine government of Paris. Men are monsters all the world over, when unrestrained by law and constitution I hope in the tender mercy of God, we shall not try the experiment. But if in the vengeance of heaven, we are destined to do it, we shall add our example to that of France in proof of this theory. Mr. Blake transcends his friend Mr Otis. far. The latter gentleman is surely violent enough-but he is obliged to curb and restrain the converted dem erat. Perhaps this is a ruse de guerre--perhaps the outrageous violence of Mr Blake is intended to form a contrast with the mildness of the projet of Mr. Otis, who is thereby to gain the popular title of a "modere." Old Lord Burleigh, or Machiavel himself, could not arrange the matter better. But, reader, I merely guess at these things. I am too far removed from the chess board, to judge of the state of the game. try, right or wrong, and slanders and degrades his own government, is an enrage-a disorganizer-a jacobin. Struggle for office. It is in vain to disguise the truth. Would to God, that I had a voice of thunder to proclaim it through the nation! The convulsions and dangers of our country have arisen from the lust of office and power. The safety, the welfare, the happiness of eight millions of people and their posterity have been jeopardized and exposed to ruin, in the unholy struggle.To embarrass, disgrace, and render odious and unpopular the men possessed of power, for the purpose of displacing them, and vaulting into the vacant seats, is a procedure, as ancient as government itself. And that it has been almost universally prevalent here, is incontrovertible. It is not wonderful that those whose grand and sole objects are power and the emoluments of office, should pursue this plan. The depravity of human nature sufficiently accounts for it. But that a large por tion of the community who neither have nor hope for place of honour or profit, should lend themselves to such a schemeshould allow themselves to be made instruments to be wielded [ for the purpose-that they should, as the history of this young country has often verified, shut their eyes to the vital interests of the nation, in order to promote the aggrandizement of a few men, is really astonishing. The following paragraph from the New York Evening Post, is as candid a confession of a most sinister object as ever was made. While we were exposed to all the horrors of war—our cities and towns liable to Copenhagenism-our wives and our daughters to violation-it was ingenuously avowed, that all these frightful evils were of no account compared with the exclusion of Mr. Coleman's friends from office!!! It is impossible to mistake the idea. It is capable of no other than this interpretation. However we reprobate its want of public spirit, its candour commands applause. "What would be the value of a peace, if not attended with a change of those rulers who are driving the country headlong to ruin? A PEACE, if such be its effects, WOULD BE THE HEAVIEST OF CURSES.-There is no event that could happen-no possible condition of things that could be imagined, which ought not to be deplored, and avoided, as the HEAVIEST OF CALAMITIES, if its tendency is to perpetuale power in the profligate hands that for sixteen years have governed this unhappy country." The man who can read these declarations without shuddering with horror, must have his moral feelings destroyed, or at least blunted to an extreme degree. These sentiments have appeared in other papers besides the New York Evening Post. This paragraph affords a complete clue to all the convulsive struggles in congress-all the efforts to prevent the success of every measure calculated to meet the recent emergency. The possession of power on the one hand, or the perdition of the country on the other, were the alternative. The parties had no hesitation about forcing the choice on their ill-starred country. CHAPTER LVIII. Illiberality of prejudices against foreigners. Ungrateful on the part of America. Irishmen and Frenchmen peculiar objects of dislike. Pennsylvania line. Extreme suffering. Tempting allurements. Unshaken virtue and heroism. Arnold. Silas Deane. Refugees. "The real cause of the war must be traced to ***** the influence of worthless foreigners over the press, and the deliberations of the government in all its branches" Reply of the house of representatives of Massachusetts to the speech of governor Strong, June, 1814. *Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." Exodus, xxii. 21. I HAVE long desired a fair opportunity of handling this topic. I have long felt indignant at the indiscriminate abuse huiled on foreigners in general-and more particularly on the Irish, on whose devoted heads "the vials of wrath," are incessantly "poured out." There is no country that owes more to-there is no country has more need of foreigners. There is no country in which they are more the objects of invective, of reproaches, of envy and jealousy. A jealousy of foreigners prevails in England. But it is confined to the canaille, who, trundling their barrows-sweeping the streets or pursuing their genteel offices of chimney-sweeps and night men-hate and despise the bag and tail parleyvoo―― the blundering Irishman—the simple sawney Scotchman—the leekcating Welchman. In fact, every man who wears a coat different from their own, or who displays any indication that proves him not to be a "true-born Englishman," is an object of contempt to an English scavenger. But it is not thus in high life in that country. A foreigner of genteel manners-decent address-and good character, is treated with the attention and politeness he deserves. With a degree of magnanimity, deserving of praise, and worthy of being made an example, England, who possesses abundance of artists of high standing and sterling merits, appointed the American West, as president of her royal academy. France, with a constellation of native talents never exceeded, entrusted her armies to a Berwick, to a Saxe. At a more recent period, a Swiss banker presided over her financial concerns. Russia has frequently placed over her fleets Scotch naval heroes. In fact, go through Christendom, and you will find no country so savage, so uncultivated, or so highly polished and refined, which does not cheerfully avail itself of the proffered talents of the foreigner who makes his permanent domicil there. But in this "most enlightened" of all the enlightened nations of the earth, party spirit has excited a peculiar degree of malevolence against the Irish and the French--and for the same reason, because England is hostile to both. The urbanity, the mildness, the equanimity, the refinement, and the politeness of the Frenchman, avail him nothing. He is an object of jealousy and ill-will, in spite of all his own good and endearing qualities, and in spite too of the services his nation, "in the fiery hour of trial," rendered the United States. The poor, persecuted, proscribed, and oppressed Irishman, hunted out of his native country, and knowing the value of liberty here, from the privation of it there, finds the antipathies of his lords and masters transferred to those whose fellow citizen he intends to become. To some of these narrow, infatuated, bigoted, and illiberal men, a Hottentot, or a Caffrarian, or a Japanese, would be more acceptable than an Irishman. One circumstance were there no other on record-ought to endear to Americans the name, the country of an Irishman.-It has a high claim, not cancelled, on the pen of the historian. It has not yet had justice done it. Let me grace my book with the narrative. During the American revolution, a band of Irishmen were embodied to avenge in the country of their adoption the injuries of the country of their birth. They formed the major part of the celebrated Pennsylvania line. They fought and bled for the United States. Many of them sealed their attachment with their lives. Their adopted country was shamefully ungrateful. The wealthy, the independent, and the luxurious, for whom they fought, were rioting in all the comforts and superfluities of life. Their defenders were literally half starved |