THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, BY THE GRACE OF GOD, FREE AND INDEPENDENT, TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, OR MAY CONCERN, SEND GREETING :

KNOW YE, That the annexed is a true copy of the will of THOMAS PAINE, deceased, as recorded in the office of the surrogate, in and for the city and county of New York. In testimony whereof, we have caused the seal of office of our said surrogate to be hereunto affixed. Witness, Silvanus Miller, Esq., surrogate of said county, at the city of New York, the twelfth day of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and nine, and of our independence the thirty-fourth.

SILVANUS MILLER.

THE WILL

The last Will and Testament of me, the subscriber, Thomas Paine, reposing confidence in my Creator, God, and in no other being, for I know of no other, nor believe in any other. I, Thomas Paine, of the State of New York, author of the work entitled “Common Sense,” written in Philadelphia, in 1775, and published in that city the beginning of January, 1776, which awaked America to a declaration of independence on the fourth of July following, which was as fast as the work could spread through such an extensive country; author also of the several numbers of the “American Crisis,” thirteen in all; published occasionally during the progress of the Revolutionary War-the last is on the peace; author also of “Rights of Man,” parts the first and second, written and published in London, in 1791 and 1792; author also of a work on religion, “Age of Reason,” parts the first and second-N. B. I have a third part by me in manuscript, and an answer to the Bishop of Llandaff; author also of a work, lately published, entitled “Examination of the Passages in the New Testament, Quoted from the Old, and called Prophecies concerning Jesus Christ, and showing there are no Prophecies of any such Person”; author also of several other works not here enumerated, “Dissertations on First Principles of Government-Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance-Agrarian Justice, etc., etc., make this my last will and testament, that is to say:

I give and bequeath to my executors hereinafter appointed, Walter Morton and Thomas Addis Emmet, thirty shares I hold in the New York Phoenix Insurance Company, which cost me fourteen hundred and seventy dollars, they are worth now upwards of fifteen hundred dollars, and all my movable effects, and also the money that may be in my trunk or elsewhere at the time of my decease, paying thereout the expenses of my funeral, IN TRUST as to the said shares, movables, and money, for Margaret Brazier Bonneville, wife of Nicholas Bonneville, of Paris, for her own sole and separate use, and at her own disposal, notwithstanding her coverture.

As to my farm in New Rochelle, I give, devise, and bequeath the same to my said executors, Walter Morton and Thomas Addis Emmet, and to the survivor of them, his heirs and assigns forever, IN TRUST nevertheless, to sell and dispose of the north side thereof, now in the occupation of Andrew A. Dean, beginning at the west end of the orchard, arid running in a line with the land sold to Coles, to the end of the farm, and to apply the money arising from such sale as hereinafter directed.

I give to my friends Walter Morton, of the New York Phoenix Insurance Company, and Thomas Addis Emmet, counselor at law, late of Ireland, two hundred dollars each, and one hundred dollars to Mrs. Palmer, widow of Elihu Palmer, late of New York, to be paid out of the money arising from said sale; and I give the remainder of the money arising from that sale, one-half thereof to Clio Rickman, of High or Upper Mary-le-Bone Street, London, and the other half to Nicholas Bonneville, of Paris, husband of Margaret B. Bonneville, aforesaid: and as to the South part of the said farm, containing upwards of one hundred acres, in trust to rent out the same, or otherwise put it to profit, as shall be found most advisable, and to pay the rents and profits thereof to the said Margaret B. Bonneville, in trust for her children, Benjamin Bonneville, and Thomas Bonneville, their education and maintenance, until they come to the age of twenty-one years, in order that she may bring them well up, give them good and useful learning, and instruct them in their duty to God, and the practise of morality; the rent of the land, or the interest of the money for which it may be sold, as hereinafter mentioned, to be employed in their education.

And after the youngest of the said children shall have arrived at the age of twenty-one years, in further trust to convey the same to the said children, share and share alike, in fee simple. But if it shall be thought advisable by my executors and executrix, or the survivors of them, at any time before the youngest of the said children shall come of age, to sell and dispose of the said south side of the said farm, in that case I hereby authorize and empower my said executors to sell and dispose of the same, and I direct that the money arising from such sale be put into stock, either in the United States Bank stock, or New York Phoenix Insurance Company stock, the interest or dividends thereof to be applied as is already directed for the education and maintenance of the said children, and the principal to be transferred to the said children, or the survivor of them, on his or their coming of age.

I know not if the Society of people called Quakers, admit a person to be buried in their burying ground, who does not belong to their Society, but if they do, or will admit me, I would prefer being buried there; my father belonged to that profession, and I was partly brought up in it. But if it is not consistent with their rules to do this, I desire to be buried on my own farm at New Rochelle.

The place where I am to be buried, to be a square of twelve feet, to be enclosed with rows of trees, and a stone or post and rail fence, with a headstone with my name and age engraved upon it, author of “Common Sense.” I nominate, constitute, and appoint Walter Morton, of the New York Phoenix Insurance Company, and Thomas Addis Emmet, counselor at law, late of Ireland, and Margaret B. Bonneville, executors and executrix to this my last will and testament, requesting the said Walter Morton and Thomas Addis Emmet, that they will give what assistance they conveniently can to Mrs. Bonneville, and see that the children be well brought up. Thus placing confidence in their friendship, I herewith take my final leave of them and of the world.

I have lived an honest and useful life to mankind; my time has been spent in doing good, and I die in perfect composure and resignation to the will of my Creator, God. Dated the eighteenth day of January, in the year one thousand eight hundred and nine; and I have also signed my name to the other sheet of this will, in testimony of its being a part thereof.

THOMAS PAINE.

Signed, sealed, published, and declared by the testator, in our presence, who, at his request, and in the presence of each other, have set our names as witnesses thereto, the words “published and declared” first interlined.

W M . KEESE, JAMES ANGEVINE, CORNELIUS RYDER.

REMARKS ON ROMANS, IX, 18-21

Addressed to the Ministers of the Calvinistic Church

Philip Foner’s introduction:

These are generally believed to be the last words written by Paine before his death, June 8, 1809. They were published in the form of an article in 1820 in London by Mary Ann Carlile, wife of the English publisher, Richard Carlile. Carlile himself had been fined £1,500 and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment in 1819 for publishing Paine’s writings. Mrs. Carlile was fined £500 and imprisoned for two years for the same offense. However, public opinion was so aroused by these outrageous violations of freedom of thought and of the press, that Mrs. Carlile’s petition to the House of Commons gained nationwide support.

---

PAUL, in speaking of God, says, “Therefore hath He mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth. Thou wilt say, why doth He yet find fault? For who hath resisted His will? Nay, but who art thou, O man, that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it, Why hast Thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay of the same lump, to make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor?”

I shall leave it to Calvinists and Universalists to wrangle about these expressions, and to oppose or corroborate them by other passages from other books of the Old or New Testament. I shall go to the root at once, and say, that the whole passage is presumption and nonsense.

Presumption, because it pretends to know the private mind of God: and nonsense, because the cases it states as parallel cases have no parallel in them, and are opposite cases.

The first expression says, “Therefore hath He (God) mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth.” As this is ascribing to the attribute of God’s power at the expense of the attribute of His justice, I, as a believer in the justice of God, disbelieve the assertion of Paul. The Predestinarians, of which the loquacious Paul was one, appear to acknowledge but one attribute in God, that of power, which may not improperly be called the physical attribute. The Deists, in addition to this, believe in His moral attributes, those of justice and goodness.

In the next verses, Paul gets himself into what in vulgar life is called a hobble, and he tries to get out of it by nonsense and sophistry; for having committed himself by saying that “God hath mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth,” he felt the difficulty he was in, and the objections that would be made, which he anticipates by saying, “Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth He (God) yet find fault? for who hath resisted His will? Nay, but, O man, who art thou, that repliest against God!”

This is neither answering the question, nor explaining the case. It is downright quibbling and shuffling off the question, and the proper retort upon him would have been, “Nay, but who art thou, presumptuous Paul, that puttest thyself in God’s place?”

Paul, however, goes on and says, “Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus?” Yes, if the thing felt itself hurt, and could speak, it would say it. But as pots and pans have not the faculty of speech, the supposition of such things speaking is putting nonsense in the place of argument, and is too ridiculous even to admit of apology. It shows to what wretched shifts sophistry will resort.

Paul, however, dashes on, and the more he tries to reason the more he involves himself, and the more ridiculous he appears. “Hath not,” says he, “the potter power over the clay of the same lump, to make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor?”

In this metaphor, and a most wretched one it is, Paul makes the potter to represent God; the lump of clay the whole human race; the vessels unto honor those souls “on whom He hath mercy because He will have mercy”; and the vessels unto dishonor, those souls “whom He hardeneth (for damnation) because He will harden them.” The metaphor is false in every one of its points, and if it admits of any meaning or conclusion, it is the reverse of what Paul intended and the Calvinists understand.

In the first place, a potter doth not, because he cannot, make vessels of different qualities, from the same lump of clay; he cannot make a fine china bowl, intended to ornament a sideboard, from the same lump of clay that he makes a coarse pan, intended for a close-stool. The potter selects his clays for different uses, according to their different qualities, and degrees of fineness and goodness.

Paul might as well talk of making gun-flints from the same stick of wood of which the gunstock is made, as of making china bowls from the same lump of clay of which are made common earthen pots and pans.

Paul could not have hit upon a more unfortunate metaphor for his purpose, than this of the potter and the clay; for if any inference is to follow from it, it is that as the potter selects his clay for different kinds of vessels according to the different qualities and degrees of fineness and goodness in the clay, so God selects for future happiness those among mankind who excel in purity and good life, which is the reverse of predestination.

In the second place there is no comparison between the souls of men and vessels made of clay; and, therefore, to put one to represent the other is a false position. The vessels, or the clay they are made from, are insensible of honor or dishonor. They neither suffer nor enjoy. The clay is not punished that serves the purpose of a close-stool, nor is the finer sort rendered happy that is made up into a punch-bowl.

The potter violates no principle of justice in the different uses to which he puts his different clays; for he selects as an artist, not as a moral judge; and the materials he works upon know nothing, and feel nothing, of his mercy or his wrath. Mercy or wrath would make a potter appear ridiculous, when bestowed upon his clay. He might kick some of his pots to pieces.

But the case is quite different with man, either in this world or the next. He is a being sensible of misery as well as of happiness, and therefore Paul argues like an unfeeling idiot when he compares man to clay on a potter’s wheel, or to vessels made therefrom: and with respect to God, it is an offense to His attributes of justice, goodness and wisdom to suppose that He would treat the choicest work of creation like inanimate and insensible clay. If Paul believed that God made man after His own image, he dishonors it by making that image and a brickbat to be alike.

The absurd and impious doctrine of predestination, a doctrine destructive of morals, would never have been thought of had it not been for some stupid passages in the Bible, which priestcraft at first, and ignorance since, have imposed upon mankind as revelation.

Nonsense ought to be treated as nonsense wherever it be found; and had this been done in the rational manner it ought to be done, instead of intimating and mincing the matter, as has been too much the case, the nonsense and false doctrine of the Bible, with all the aid that priestcraft can give, could never have stood their ground against the divine reason that God has given to man.

Doctor Franklin gives a remarkable instance of the truth of this in an account of his life, written by himself. He was in London at the time of which he speaks. “Some volumes,” says he, “against Deism, fell into my hands. They were said to be the substance of sermons preached at Boyle’s lectures.”

“It happened that they produced on me an effect precisely the reverse of what was intended by the writers; for the arguments of the Deists, which were cited in order to be refuted, appeared to me more forcible than the refutation itself. In a word I soon became a perfect Deist.” – New York edition of Franklin’s Life, page 93.

All America, and more than all America, knows Franklin. His life was devoted to the good and improvement of man. Let, then, those who profess a different creed, imitate his virtues, and excel him if they can.

THOMAS PAINE.

from the Public Advertiser (New York), August 18, 1807.

THE election for Charter Officers last year was carried by the federal and quid trick of fortifications, and now the people are to be amused and duped to a new obstructions.

The only eligible mode of obstruction is that proposed by Franklin for the Delaware in ’76, an account of which was given in the Public Advertiser of the 6th, and republished in the Philadelphia Aurora of the 8th August.

The plan of obstruction now proposed for New York is by blocks, that is, by solid bodies of stone or earth in the manner of wharves. This was first suggested by Selah Strong, Chairman of the Committee of the Corporation, and in a publication by Mr. Stevens of Hobuck, which contains many just observations on ships and batteries, he adopts the same unfortunate idea of obstruction by blocks. The blocks to be “25 or 30 feet square or larger; at the distance of 50 or 60 feet from each other.” And the editor of the New York American Citizen in introducing Mr. Smith’s piece in his paper of Saturday last, says, Why not,”to make assurance doubly sure, to give us in fact protection, carry the obstruction by blocks or otherwise entirely cross from Robin’s Reef to Mud Flat.”

This, most certainly, would prevent Hostile Ships coming to the city, and it is equally as certain it would prevent the tide coming up and lay the wharves at New York dry, and be the ruin of all the towns on the North River that depend for commerce on tide water. This, the projectors of obstructors by blocks never thought of; but projectors should think of every thing or they will make ruinous work. If Selah Strong’s project is adopted New York is ruined, for the obstruction by blocks cannot afterwards be removed.

Every alteration made in the channel of a water course, whether it be in the natural current of a river or the current of a tide, will cause another alteration some where else.

If the obstruction be across the natural current of a river like the obstruction of a mill dam, the water will continue rising till it overtops the obstruction or overflow the country above; for as the daily supply from the source will continue the same it will have a passage somewhere.

If the obstruction be to the tide water, the effect will be, that the tide water will rise to the same height at the place where the obstruction is, as it did before and no higher, but the channel above the obstruction will be deprived of tide water.

The stone piers of a bridge lessen the quantity and extent of tide water above the bridge. This every body knows that knows anything of hydraulics. But to know it as a fact, if any person will look into Salmon’s Geography or Guthrie’s Geographical Grammar, he will find, in their account of rivers and bridges in England, that before Westminster bridge was built, which was begun in 1738, the tide flowed up to Kingston, about 17 or 18 miles above Westminster, but since the bridge has been built it flows no higher than Richmond, which is four miles short of Kingston. Now, if the piers of a bridge lessened the quantity of tide water, and shortened its extent four miles out of 17 or 18 miles, what must be the effect of a total, or even semi-total, obstruction by blocks of the channel between Robin’s Reef and Mud Flat on the wharves at the city and on the long course of the North River?

In projecting obstructions two things are absolutely necessary to be taken into view. The one is, the least possible obstruction to the water up or down; the other is, that the obstruction be such as can be removed afterwards. Neither of these entered the mind of the projectors of blocks, and both are embraced in the plan of Franklin. His frames had very little effect on the tide or the stream; and after the enemy went away they were taken up; but all the power and art of Man could not remove solid blocks of stone or earth 25 or 30 feet square, sunk several feet below the surface of the water.

If the channel between Robin’s Reef and Mud Flat is not more than about 36 feet, it can be obstructed as the Delaware was, and the obstruction can be defended by gun boats and batteries, and the militia can defend the shore as the people of Norfolk have done; but for men to be always employing themselves on imaginary fortifications or sculking behind, or within obstruction like a turtle within his shell, lest the crows should pick him, has a very cowardly appearance. It is not the spirit of “the times that tried men’s souls.”

THOMAS PAINE.

CHEETHAM AND HIS TORY PAPER.

from the Public Advertiser (New York), September 26, 1807.

CHEETHAM is frequently giving symptoms of being the successor of Cullen, alias Carpenter, as Cullen was the successor of Cobbett, alias Porcupine. Like him he is seeking to involve the United States in a quarrel with France for the benefit of England.

In his paper of Tuesday, Sept. 22, he has a long abusive piece against France, under the title of “Remarks” on the speech of the Arch Chancellor of France to the French Senate. This is a matter that Cheetham, as an adopted American Citizen, has no business with; and as a John Bull it is impertinence in him to come here to spew out his venom against France. But Cheetham cannot live without quarreling, nor write without abuse. He is a disgrace to the Republicans, whose principle is, to live in peace and friendship with all nations and not to interfere in the domestic concerns of any.

Cheetham seems to regret that peace is made on the continent of Europe, and he shews his spleen against it by the following round-about scurrilous paragraph:

“The people of France, says he, now breathe the air of peace under slavery closer, more systematic, military, and universal, (Cheetham knows nothing about it) than that with which they were overwhelmed previous to the beginning of the long continued calamity.” — This is spoken exactly in the character of a stupid prejudiced John Bull, who, shut up in his island and ignorant of the world supposes all nations slaves but themselves; whereas those at a distance can see that of all people enslaved by their governments, none are so much so as the people of England. Had Cheetham staid in England till this time he would have had to shoulder a musket and this would have been dreadful to him, for as all bullies are cowards, the smell of gunpowder would be as horrid to Cheetham as the scent of a skunk to other animals.

The danger to which the city of New York was exposed, by the continual abuse of France in such papers as Cullen’s, was, that the French government might be induced to consider the city of New York as a British Colony, such as it was during the revolutionary war, and exclude her from the commerce of the continent of Europe, as she has excluded Britain. Cheetham is following the footsteps of Cullen.

The French nation, under all its changes of government has always behaved in a civil and friendly manner to the United States. We have no cause of dispute with France. It was by the aid of France in men, money, and ships, that the revolution and independence of the United States were so completely established(1), and it is scarcely sufferable that a prejudiced and surly tempered John Bull should fix himself among us to abuse a friendly power.

September 25, 1807.

Six thousand French troops under General Rochambeau, and thirty-one sail of the line under Admiral De Grass, assisted at the capture of Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia, which put an end to the war.

*On the Question, WILL THERE BE WAR?

from the Public Advertiser (New York), August 15, 1807.

Every one asks, Will there be war? The answer to this is easy, which is, That so long as the English government be permitted, at her own discretion, to search, capture, and condemn our vessels, controul our commerce, impress our seamen, and fire upon and plunder our national ships, as she has done, she will Not Declare War, because she will not give us the acknowledged right of making reprisals. Her plan is a monopoly of war, and she thinks to succeed by the manoeuver of not declaring war.

The case then is altogether a question among ourselves. Shall we make war on the English government, as the English government has made upon us; or shall we submit, as we have done, and that with long forbearance, to the evil of having war made upon us without reprisals? This is a right statement of the case between the United States and England.

For several years past it has been the scheme of that government to terrify us, by acts of violence, into submission to her measures, and in the insane stupidity of attempting this, she has incensed us into war. We neither fear nor care about England, otherwise than pitying the people who live under such a wretched system of government. As to navies, they have lost their terrifying powers. They can do nothing against us at land, and if they come within our waters, they will be taken the first calm that comes. They can rob us on the ocean as robbers can do, and we can find a way to indemnify ourselves by reprisals, in more ways than one.

The British Government is not entitled, even as an enemy, to be treated as civilized enemies are treated. She is a pirate, and should be treated as a pirate. Nations do not declare war against pirates, but attack them as a natural right. All civilities shown to the British government, is like pearl thrown before a swine. She is insensible of principle and destitute of honour. Her monarch is mad and her ministers have caught the contagion.

The British government, and also the nation, deceive themselves with respect to the power of navies. They suppose that ships of war can make conquests at land; that they can take or destroy towns or cities near the shore and obtain by terror what terms they please. They sent admiral Duckworth to Constantinople upon this stupid idea, and the event has shewn to the world the imbecility of navies against cannon on shore. Constantinople was not fortified any more than our American towns are now; but the Turks, on the appearance of the British fleet, got five hundred cannon and a hundred mortars down from the arsenals to the shore, and the blustering heroes of the navy seeing this, fled like a hound with a rattle at his tail. The gallant people of Norfolk and its neighbourhood have sent Douglas off in a similar manner. An Indian who studies nature is a better judge of naval power than an English minister.

In March, 1777, soon after taking the Hessians at Trenton, I was at a treaty held with the five northern nations of Indians at East Town, in Pennsylvania, and was often pleased with the sagacious remarks of those original people. The chief of one of the tribes, who went by the name of King Lastnight, because his tribe had sold their lands, had seen some English men of war in some of the waters of Canada and was impressed with an idea of the power of those great canoes; but he saw that the English made no progress against us by land. This was enough for an Indian to form an opinion by. He could speak some English, and in conversation with me, alluding to the great canoes, he gave me his idea of the power of a king of England by the following metaphor.

“The king of England,” said he, “is like a fish, When he is in the water he can wag his tail. — When he comes on land he lays down on his side.” — Now, if the English Government had but half the sense this Indian had they would not have sent Duckworth to Constantinople and Douglas to Norfolk to lay down on their side.

Accounts from Halifax state, that admiral Berkley has alleged in writing, that “his orders (to Douglas) were not issued until every application to restore the mutineers and deserters (as he calls them) had been made by his Britannic majesty’s minister, consul, and officer, and had been refused by the government of the United States.”

If this account be true, it shows that Berkley is an idiot in governmental affairs; for if the matter was in the hands of the British minister, who is the immediate representative of his government, Berkley could have no interference in it. That minister would report to his government the demand he made, if he made any, and the answer he received, if he received any, and Berkley could act only in consequence of orders received afterwards. It does not belong to subordinate officers of any government to commence hostilities at their own discretion.

I now come to speak of the politics of the day as they rise out of the circumstances that have taken place.

The injustice of the British government, and the insolence of its naval officers, is no longer to be borne. That injustice, and that insolence grows out of a presumption the British government has set up, which it calls “the right of search.” There is not, nor ever was, such a right appertaining to a nation in consequence of its being in war with another nation. Wherever such a right existed it has been by treaty, and where no such treaty exist, no such right can exist, and to assume the exercise of it is an act of hostility which if not abandoned must be repelled until it be abandoned. The United States cannot even cede such a right to England, without ceding the same right to France, Spain, Holland, Naples, Italy, and Turkey, or they will take it, and the United States must take the consequence. It is a very difficult matter, and requires great political wisdom for a neutral nation to make a treaty during a time of war with one belligerent nation, that shall not commit her with the other. — The best way then, since matters are come to the extremity they are, is to resist this pretended right of search in the first instance. The United States are able to do it, and she is the only neutral nation that is able.

We are not the diminutive people now that we were when the revolution began. Our population then was two millions and an half, it is now between six and seven millions, and in less than ten years will exceed the population of England. The United States have encreased more in power, ability, and wealth within the last twenty or twenty-two years than she did for almost two hundred years before, while the states were British colonies.

She owes this to two things, independence and the representative system of government. It was always the ill-judged and impracticable system of the British government to keep the colonies in a state of continual nonage. They never were to be of full age that she might always controul them.

While the United States have been going forward in this unparalleled manner, England has been going backward. Her government is a bankrupt, and her people miserable. More than a million of them are paupers. Her king is mad, and her parliaments corrupt. We have yet to see what the present new elected parliament will be. There is one man in it, whom I proudly call a friend, from whom there will be great expectations; but what can one honest independent member do, surrounded by such a mass of ignorance and corruption as have for many years past governed that unfortunate nation.

The great dependance of England has been on her navy, and it is her navy that has been her ruin. The falsely imagined power of that navy (for it was necessary it should be amphibious to perform what was expected from it) has prompted the ignorance of her government into insolence towards all foreign powers till England has not a friend left among nations. Russia and Sweden will quarter themselves upon her purse till it becomes empty, and then very probably will turn against her.

Depending on her navy she blockaded whole countries by proclamation, and now, Bonaparte, by way of justifiable retaliation, has blockaded her by land from the commerce of the western part of the continent of Europe. Her insolent and imbecile expedition to Constantinople, has excluded her from the commerce of Turkish Europe and Turkey in Asia, and thrown it into the hands of France — and her outrageous conduct to us will exclude her from the commerce of the United States. By the insolence of the crew of her navy she is in danger of losing her trade to China; and it is easy to see that Bonaparte is paving his way to India by Turkey and Persia. The madness of the British government has thrown Turkey into the arms of France. Persia lies between Turkey and India, and Bonaparte is forming friendly connections with the Persian government. There is already an exchange of ambassadors. Bonaparte is sending military officers into Persia, and will with the consent of its government, raise an army there and attack the English monopoly in India. If France holds her connections with Turkey and Persia, England cannot hold India.

It is in this wretched chaos of affairs that the mad Government of England has brought on herself a new enemy by commencing hostilities against the United States. She must be ignorant of the geography of America, or she would know that we can dispossess her of all her possessions on the Continent whenever we please, and she cannot, with safety, keep a fleet in the West Indies during the hurricane months. Bonaparte will find employment for every soldier she can raise, and those she may send to the continent of Europe will become prisoners. There never was an instance of a government conducting itself with the madness and ignorance the British government has done! This is John Adams’s stupendous fabric of human wisdom!

That the British government will disown giving hostile instructions to Berkeley I have no doubt. It is the trick of old governments to do so when they find themselves wrong and pay some scapegoat to bear the blame. But this will not be sufficient. The pretended right of search and the impressment of our seamen must be abandoned. Three thousand of them have been impressed by British ships to fight against France. The French government has shewn a great deal of patience in not complaining of it, for it is a great injury to her and must be redressed or worse consequences will follow.

I have said in the former part of this essay that it is a difficult matter and requires great political wisdom for a neutral nation during a war to form a treaty with one belligerent nation that shall not commit her with the other. I will now give an instance of it.

In 1794, Washington sent Mr. Monroe as minister to France, and John Jay to England, and gave them contradictory instructions. By the treaty that then existed between the United States and France, “Free ships made free goods.” So that English property on board American ships was protected from seizure by France. John Jay made a treaty with England which Washington and the stupid senate of that day ratified by which free ships DID NOT make free property, and that French property on board American ships could be seized by England. This of consequence vacated the free article in the treaty with France, and she availed herself of it, and the United States lost the carrying trade of both nations. There is a jesuitism in Jay’s treaty which says, that the question whether free ships make free goods shall be taken into consideration two years after the war. It is now more than two years since that war, and therefore it forms an item with the matters to be now settled with the English government.

The British government have been so long in the habit of insolence that she has not the sense of seeing when the power of being insolent ceases. — She ought to see that the power of France by land is far superior to her power at sea. France, by land, can blockade the commerce of England out of Europe and India, and the English navy can do nothing to prevent it. Of what use is it to “rule the waves,” if you cannot put your foot on shore? If it was a contest for fisheries, the most powerful navy would decide; but as it is a contest for commerce at land, it is land force that decides, and navies are out of the question.

If the British government were wise, she would cease the pretended right of search of her own accord, for it brings her into endless trouble. It makes all nations her enemy. Every nation detests the piratical insolence of England and none more so than the United States. The spirit that is now raised, cannot be appeased until reparation is made for the past, and security be given for the future.

COMMON SENSE.