THE battles which decided the fate of the King of Prussia and his Government, began on the 9th of October, and ended on the 14th of that month; but the final event, that of the total overthrow of the Russian army of one hundred and fifty thousand men on the 14th, was not known in England till the 26th or 27th of October. The first public notice of it is in a London paper of the 27th. (See the Mercantile Advertiser of Tuesday, Dec. 9th, and American Citizen, Dec. 10th.) The article in the London paper of the 27th, which announces this event, begins as follows:

“London, Oct. 27.- It is with very great concern that we are obliged to check the pleasing expectations that were entertained YESTERDAY of the success of the Prussian army.”

The manifesto and declaration of the English Government on the failure of the negotiation for peace with France, and which throws all the blame of that failure on the French Government, was published in the London Gazette (the official paper of the English Government) on the 21st of October, five or six days before that Government knew of the overthrow of the Prussians. Query.-Would the English Government have published that manifesto had it been kept back till after the overthrow of the Prussians were known? I think not, unless it be true which fanatics have formerly said, that “those whom God intends to destroy he first renders mad.”

It is a saying often verified by experience, that one story is good till another is told. In a little time we shall have the manifesto of the French Government, and then, by comparing the two with each other, and with such circumstances as are known, which is the only true way of interpreting manifestoes, we shall be enabled to form some judgment of the whole.

But as far as circumstances are already known, Bonaparte has done exactly what I would have done myself, with respect I mean to the present war, had I been in his place, which, thank God, I am not. Why are coalitions continually formed and forming against him, against the French nation, and the French Government? Or why does the Government of England oppress and impoverish the people it governs by loading them with the burdensome expence of paying those coalitions? It is they who pay all, and I pity them sincerely.

The opposers of Bonaparte say, “he is a usurper.” The case is, that all the kings in Europe are usurpers, and as to hereditary Government, it is a succession of usurpers. The present hereditary Government of England is derived from the usurper, William of Normandy, who conquered England and usurped the Government. If there is any man amongst them all that is less a usurper than the rest, it is Bonaparte; for he was elected by the French nation to the rank and title he now holds. The others assumed it by the sword, or succeeded in consequence of the first usurpation.

As to the coalitions against France, it is impossible in the nature of things they can succeed while the French Government conducts itself with the energy and activity it now does. The English Government may amuse itself with forming coalitions as long and as often as it pleases, but they will all come to the same fatal end. For, in the first place, there is no single power on the Continent of Europe that is able to stand against France until a coalition army, coming in detachments from different and distant parts of Europe, can be collected and formed. And, in the second place, those distant detachments of an intended coalition army cannot be put in motion for the purpose of assembling somewhere in Germany without its being known by the French Government. The case, therefore, will always be, that as soon as the French Government knows that those distant parts are in motion, the French army, with Bonaparte at its head, will march and attack the first part of the coalition army he can come up with, and overthrow it. Last year that part was Austria. This year it is Prussia. The English Government may vote coalition armies in the cabinet, but Bonaparte can always prevent them in the field. This is a matter so very obvious to any man who knows the scene of Europe, and can calculate the probability of events, that a Cabinet must be sunk in total ignorance and stupidity not to see it; and thus it is that the lives of unoffending men are sported away.

As to the late negotiation for peace between England and France, I view it as a trick of war on both sides, and the contest was which could outwit the other. The British manifesto says, “The negotiation originated in an offer made by the French Government of treating for peace on the basis of actual possession.” Well! be it so; it makes the matter neither better nor worse; for the fact is, though the British manifesto says nothing about it, that the British Cabinet had planned, and was forming this coalition army of Prussians, Russians, and Swedes, several months before that offer was made, and the French Government had knowledge of it, for it is impossible to keep such things a dead secret. The French Government, therefore, having at least, what may be called suspicious knowledge of this coalition intrigue, made the offer to find out the whole of that intrigue, that it might be prepared against it. And on the other hand, the British Cabinet closed with the offer, and went into the negotiation to give time to the Russians and Swedes to march and join the Prussians, while the comedy of negotiation was going on.

But the Corsican usurper, as they call him, has been too quick for them. He has outwitted the coalition intriguers, and out-generalled the coalition usurpers. The fallen King of Prussia has to deplore his fate, and the British Cabinet to dread the consequence.

In speaking of these circumstances, it ought always to be remembered that the British Government began this war. It had concluded a treaty of peace with France called the Treaty of Amiens, and soon after, declared war again to avoid fulfilling the conditions of that treaty. It will not be able to conclude another treaty so good as the treaty it has broken, and most probably no treaty at all. That Government must now abide by its fate, for it can raise no more coalitions. There does not remain powers on the Continent of Europe to form another. The last that could be raised has been tried and has perished.

THOMAS PAINE.

New York, Dec. 14, 1806.

Of the term “Liberty of the Press“

from the American Citizen, October 20, 1806.

THE writer of this remembers a remark made to him by Mr. Jefferson concerning the English Newspapers, which at that time, 1787, while Mr. Jefferson was Minister at Paris, were most vulgarly abusive. The remark applies with equal force to the federal papers of America. The remark was, that “the licentiousness of the press produces the same effect as the restraint of the press was intended to do if the restraint, said he, was to prevent things being told, and the licentiousness of the press prevents things being believed when they are told.” We have in this State an evidence of the truth of this remark. The number of federal papers in the city and state of New-York, are more than five to one to the number of republican papers, yet the majority of the elections go always against the federal papers, which is demonstrative evidence that the licentiousness of those papers is destitute of credit.

Whoever has made observations on the characters of nations will find it generally true that the manners of a nation, or of a party, can be better ascertained from the character of its press than from any other public circumstance. If its press is licentious, its manners are not good. Nobody believes a common liar, or a common defamer.

Nothing is more common with Printers, especially of Newspapers, than the continual cry of the liberty of the press, as if because they are Printers they are to have more privileges than other people. As the term liberty of the press is adopted in this country without being understood, I will state the origin of it and shew what it means. The term comes from England, and the case was as follows.

Prior to what is in England called the revolution, which was in 1688, no work could be published in that country without first obtaining the permission of an officer appointed by the government for inspecting works intended for publication. The same was the case in France, except that in France there were forty who were called censors, and in England there was but one, called Imprimateur.

At the revolution the office of Imprimateur was abolished and as works could then be published without first obtaining the permission of the government officer, the press was, in consequence of that abolition, said to be free, and it was from this circumstance that the term liberty of the press arose. The press, which is a tongue to the eye, was then put exactly in the case of the human tongue. A man does not ask liberty before hand to say something he has a mind to say, but he becomes answerable afterwards for the atrocities he may utter. In like manner, if a man makes the press utter atrocious things he becomes as answerable for them as if he had uttered them by word of mouth. Mr. Jefferson has said in his inaugural speech, that “error of opinion might be tolerated, when reason was left free to combat it.” This is sound philosophy in cases of error. But there is a difference between error and licentiousness.

Some lawyers in defending their clients (for the generality of lawyers like Swiss soldiers will fight on either side) have often given their opinion of what they defined the liberty of the press to be. One said it was this, another said it was that, and so on, according to the case they were pleading. Now these men ought to have known that the term, liberty of the press arose from a FACT, the abolition of the office of Imprimateur, and that opinion has nothing to do in the case. The term refers to the fact of printing free from prior restraint, and not at all to the matter printed whether good or bad. The public at large, or in case of prosecution, a jury of the country will be judges of the matter.

COMMON SENSE.

A challenge to the Federalists to declare their principles.

from the American Citizen, October 17, 1806.

The old names of Whig and Tory have given place to the later names of Republicans and Federalists; by contraction Feds. The word republican contains some meaning though not very positive, except that it is the opposite of monarchy; but the word federalist contains none. It is merely a name without a meaning. It may apply to a gang of thieves federalized to commit robbery or to any other kind of association.

When men form themselves into political parties, it is customary with them to make a declaration of their principles. — But the feds do not declare what their principles are; from which we may infer, that either they have no principles, and are mere snarlers, or that their principles are too bad to be told. Their object, however, is to get possession of power; and their caution is to conceal the use they will make of it. Such men ought not to be trusted.

The republicans, on the contrary, are open and frank in declaring their principles, for they are of a nature that requires no concealment. The more they are published and understood the more they are approved.

The principles of the republicans are to support the representative system of government and to leave it an inheritance to their children and to their children’s children — to cultivate peace and civil manners with all nations as the surest means of avoiding wars, and never to embroil themselves in the wars of other nations, nor in foreign coalitions — to adjust and settle all differences that might arise with foreign nations by explanation and negociation in preference to he sword, if it can be done — to have no more taxes than are necessary for the decent support of government — to pay every man for his service, and to have no more servants than are wanted. — The republicans hold, as a fixed uncontrovertible principle, that sovereignty resides in the great mass of the people, and that the persons they elect are the representatives of that sovereignty itself. They know of no such thing as hereditary government or of men born to govern them, for besides the injustice of it, it never can be known before they are born whether they will be wise men or fools.

The republicans now challenge the federalists to declare their principles. But as the federalists have never yet done this, and most probably never will, we have a right to infer what their principles are from the conduct they have exhibited.

The federalists opposed the suppression of the internal taxes laid on in the stupid, expensive, and unprincipled administration of John Adams; though it was at that time evident, and experience has since confirmed it for a fact, that those taxes answered no other purpose than to make offices for the maintenance of a number of their dependents at the expence of the public. From this conduct of theirs we infer, that could the federalists get again into power, they would again load the country with internal taxes.

The federalists, while in power, proposed and voted for a standing army, and in order to induce the country to consent to a measure so unpopular in itself, they raised and circulated the fabricated falsehood that France was going to send an army to invade the United States; and to prevent being detected in this lie, and to keep the country in ignorance, they passed a law to prohibit all commerce and intercourse with France. As the pretence for which a standing was to be raised had no existence, not even in their own brain, for it was a wilful lie, we have a right to infer, that the object of the federal faction in raising that army, was to overthrow the representative system of government and to establish a government of war and taxes on the corrupt principles of the English government; and that, could they get again into power, they would again attempt the same thing.

As to the inconsistencies, contradictions and falsehoods of the federal faction, they are too numerous to be counted. When Spain shut up the port of New-Orleans, so as to exclude from it the citizens of the United States, the federal faction in Congress bellowed out for war and the federal papers echoed the cry. The faction both in and out of Congress declared New Orleans to be of such vast importance that without it the Western States would be ruined. But mark the change! No sooner was the cession of New-Orleans and the territory of Louisiana obtained by peaceable negociation, and for many times less expence than a war, with all its uncertainties of success, would have cost, than this self-same faction gave itself the lie and represented the place as of no value. According to them it was worth fighting for at a great expence, but not worth having quietly at a comparatively small expence. It has been said of a thief that he had rather steal a purse than find one, and the conduct of the federalists on this occasion corresponds with that saying. But all these inconsistencies become understood, when we recollect that the leaders of the federal faction are an English faction, and that they follow, like a satellite, the variations of their principal.

Their continual aim has been and still is, to involve the United States in a war with France and Spain. This is an English scheme, and the papers of the faction give every provocation that words can give, to provoke France to hostilities. The bugbear held up by them is that Bonaparte will attack Louisiana. This is an invention of the British emissary Cullen, alias Carpenter, and the association of the federalists, at least some of them, with this miserable emissary involves their own characters in suspicion.

The republicans, as before said, are open, bold, and candid in declaring their principles. They are no skulkers. Let then the federalists, declare theirs.

COMMON SENSE.

[The original manuscript of this letter is in the library of Harvard University – ed.]

I received your friendly letter, for which I am obliged to you. It is three weeks ago today (Sunday, August fifteenth), that I was struck with a fit of apoplexy, that deprived me of all sense and motion. I had neither pulse nor breathing, and the people about me supposed me dead. I had felt exceedingly well that day, and had just taken a slice of bread and butter for supper, and was going to bed.

The fit took me on the stairs, as suddenly as if I had been shot through the head; and I got so very much hurt by the fall, that I have not been able to get in and out of bed since that day, otherwise than being lifted out in a blanket, by two persons; yet all this while my mental faculties have remained as perfect a I ever enjoyed them.

I consider the scene I have passed through as an experiment on dying, and I find that death has no terrors for me. As to the people called Christians, they have no evidence that their religion is true. There is no more proof that the Bible is the Word of God, than that the Koran of Mahomet is the Word of God. It is education makes all the difference. Man, before he begins to think for himself, is as much the child of habits in Creeds as he is in plowing and sowing. Yet creeds, like opinions, prove nothing.

Where is the evidence that the person called Jesus Christ is the begotten Son of God? The case admits not of evidence either to our senses or our mental faculties: neither has God given to man any talent by which such a thing is comprehensible.

It cannot therefore be an object for faith to act upon, for faith is nothing more than an assent the mind gives to something it sees cause to believe is fact. But priests, preachers, and fanatics, put imagination in the place of faith, and it is the nature of the imagination to believe without evidence.

If Joseph the carpenter dreamed (as the book of Matthew (i) says he did), that his betrothed wife, Mary, was with child by the Holy Ghost, and that an angel told him so, I am not obliged to put faith in his dreams; nor do I put any, for I put no faith in my own dreams, and I should be weak and foolish indeed to put faith in the dreams of others.

The Christian religion is derogatory to the Creator in all its articles. It puts the Creator in an inferior point of view, and places the Christian devil above Him. It is he, according to the absurd story in Genesis, that outwits the Creator in the Garden of Eden, and steals from Him His favorite creature, man, and at last obliges Him to beget a son, and put that son to death, to get man back again; and this the priests of the Christian religion call redemption.

Christian authors exclaim against the practice of offering up human sacrifices, which, they say, is done in some countries; and those authors make those exclamations without ever reflecting that their own doctrine of salvation is founded on a human sacrifice. They are saved, they say, by the blood of Christ. The Christian religion begins with a dream and ends with a murder.

As I am now well enough to sit up some hours in the day, though not well enough to get up without help, I employ myself as I have always done, in endeavoring to bring man to the right use of the reason that God has given him, and to direct his mind immediately to his Creator, and not to fanciful secondary beings called mediators, as if God was superannuated or ferocious.

As to the book called the Bible, it is blasphemy to call it the Word of God. It is a book of lies and contradictions, and a history of bad times and bad men. There are but a few good characters in the whole book. The fable of Christ and his twelve apostles, which is a parody on the sun and the twelve signs of the zodiac, copied from the ancient religions of the eastern world, is the least hurtful part.

Everything told of Christ has reference to the sun. His reported resurrection is at sunrise, and that on the first day of the week; that is, on the day anciently dedicated to the sun, and from thence called Sunday – in Latin Dies Solis, the day of the sun; and the next day, Monday, is Moon-day. But there is no room in a letter to explain these things.

While man keeps to the belief of one God, his reason unites with his creed. He is not shocked with contradictions and horrid stories. His bible is the heavens and the earth. He beholds his Creator in all His works, and everything he beholds inspires him with reverence and gratitude. From the goodness of God to all, he learns his duty to his fellow-man, and stands self-reproved when he transgresses it. Such a man is no persecutor.

But when he multiplies his creed with imaginary things, of which he can have neither evidence nor conception, such as the tale of the Garden of Eden, the Talking Serpent, the Fall of Man, the Dreams of Joseph the Carpenter, the pretended Resurrection and Ascension, of which there is even no historical relation – for no historian of those times mentions such a thing – he gets into the pathless region of confusion, and turns either fanatic or hypocrite. He forces his mind, and pretends to believe what he does not believe. This is in general the case with the Methodists. Their religion is all creed and no morals.

I have now, my friend, given you a facsimile of my mind on the subject of religion and creeds, and my wish is, that you make this letter as publicly known as you find opportunities of doing.

Yours, in friendship,

Thomas Paine

New York, August 15, 1806

Of the cause of Yellow Fever, and the means of preventing it in places not yet infected with it, addresed to the Board of Health.

from the American Citizen, June 27, 1806.

A great deal has been written respecting the yellow fever. First, with respect to its causes, whether domestic or imported. Secondly, on the mode of treating it.

What I am going to suggest in this essay is to ascertain some point to begin at in order to arrive at the cause; and for this purpose some preliminary observations are necessary.

The yellow fever always begins in the lowest part of a populous mercantile town near the water, and continues there, without affecting the higher parts. The sphere or circuit it acts in is small, and it rages most where large quantities of new ground have been made by banking out the river for the purpose of making wharves. The appearance and prevalence of the yellow fever in these places, being those where vessels arrive from the West Indies, has caused the belief that the yellow fever was imported from thence. But here are two cases acting in the same place. The one, the condition of the ground at the wharves, which being new made on the muddy and filthy bottom of the river, is different from the natural condition of the ground in the higher parts of the city, and consequently subject to produce a different kind of effluvia or vapour; the other case is the arrival of vessels from the West-Indies.

In the state of Jersey neither of these cases has taken place, no shipping arrives there, and consequently there have been no imbankment for the purpose of wharves, and the yellow fever has never broken out in Jersey. This, however, does not decide the point as to the immediate cause of the fever, but it shews that this species of fever is not common to the country in its natural state; and I believe the same was the case in the West Indies before imbankments began for the purpose of making wharves, which always alter the natural condition of the ground — no old history of the West-Indies that I know of mentions such a disorder as the yellow fever.

A person seized with the yellow fever in an affected part of the town, and brought into the healthy part, or into the country, and among healthy persons, does not communicate it to the neighbourhood, nor to those immediately around him. Why then are we to suppose it can be brought from the West Indies, a distance of more than a thousand miles, since we see it cannot be carried from one town to another, nor from one part of a town to another at home; but a healthy going from a healthy part into an affected part will be seized with it, which shews it has a limited local existance and is not communicable. Is it in the air? This question on the case requires a minute examination. In the first place the difference between air and wind is the same as between a stream of water and a standing water. — A stream of water is water in motion, and wind is air in motion. In a gentle breeze the whole body of air, as far as the breeze extends, moves at the rate of seven or eight miles an hour. In a high wind, at the rate of 70, 80 or 100 miles an hour. When we see the shadow of a cloud gliding on the surface of the ground we see the rate at which the air moves; and it must be a good trotting horse that can keep pace with the shadow, even in a gentle breeze — consequently a body of air that is in and over any place of the same extent as the affected part of a city may be, will, in the space of an hour, even at the moderate rate I speak of, be moved seven or eight miles to leeward and its place, in and over the city, will be supplied by a new body of air coming from a healthy part seven or eight miles distant the contrary way and then on in continual succession. The disorder, therefore, is not in the air considered in its natural state and never stationary. This leads to another consideration of the case.

An impure effluvia arising from some cause in the ground in the manner that fermenting liquors produce near their surface an effluvia that is fatal to life, will become mixed with the air contiguous to it, and as fast as that body of air moves off it will impregnate every succeeding body of air, however pure it may be when it arrives at the place.

The result from this state of the case is, that the impure air or vapour that generates the yellow fever issues from the earth, that is from the new made earth or ground raised on the muddy and filthy bottom of the river, and which impregnates every fresh body of air that comes over the place, in like manner as air becomes heated when it approaches or passes over fire, or becomes offensive in smell when it approaches or passes over a body of corrupt vegetable or animal matter in a state of putrefaction.

The muddy bottom of rivers contains great quantities of impure and often inflammable air injurious to life, and which remains entangled in the mud till let loose from thence by some accident. This air is produced by the dissolution and decomposition of any combustible matter falling into the water and sinking into the mud, of which the following circumstance will serve to give some explanation.

In the fall of the year that New York was evacuated (1783) Gen. Washington had his headquarters at Mrs. Berrian’s, at Rocky-hill, in Jersey, and I was there — Congress sat then at Prince Town. We had several times been told that the river or creek that runs near the bottom of Rocky-hill, and over which there is a mill, might be set on fire, for that was the term the country people used; and as General Washington had a mind to try the experiment, Gen. Lincoln, who was also there, undertook to make preparation for it against the next evening, November 5th. This was to be done as we were told by disturbing the mud at the bottom of the river and holding something in a blaze as paper or straw, a little above the surface of the earth.

Colonels Humphries and Cob were at that time aids of General Washington, and those two gentlemen and myself got into an argument as to the cause. Their opinion was, that on disturbing the bottom of the river, some bituminous matter arose to the surface, which took fire when the light was put to it; I on the contrary supposed that a quantity of inflammable air was let loose, which ascended through the water and took fire above the surface. Each party held to his opinion and the next evening the experiment was to be made.

A scow had been stationed in the mill-dam, and Gen. Washington, Gen. Lincoln and myself, and I believe Col. Cob, (for Humphries was sick), and three or four soldiers with poles were put on board the scow in Buteaux. General Washington placed himself at one end of the scow and I at the other. Each of us had a roll of cartridge paper, which we lighted and held over the water about two or three inches from the surface, when the soldiers began disturbing the bottom of the river with the poles.

As Gen. Washington sat at one end of the scow and I at the other, I could see better anything that might happen from his light than I could from my own, over which I was nearly perpendicular. When the mud at the bottom was disturbed by the poles, the air-bubbles rose fast, and I saw the fire take from General Washington’s light and descend from thence to the surface of the water, in a similar manner as when a lighted candle is held so as to touch the smoke of a candle just blown out the smoke will take fire and the fire will descend and light up the candle. This was demonstrative evidence that what was called setting the river on fire was setting on fire the inflammable air that arose out of the mud.

I mentioned this experiment to Mr. Rittenhouse of Philadelphia the next time I went to that city, and our opinion on the case was that any combustible matter (vegetable or otherwise) that underwent a dissolution and decomposition of its parts, either by fire or water in a confined place so as not to blaze, that the air or vapour that issued from it would be inflammable and would become flame whenever it came in contact with flame.

In order to determine if this was the case, we filled up the breach of a gun barrel about five or six inches with saw-dust and the upper part with dry sand to the top, and after spiking up the touch-hole, put the breech into a smith’s furnace and kept it red hot so as to consume the sawdust, the sand of consequence would prevent any blaze. We applied a lighted candle to the mouth of the barrel, but as the first vapour that flew off would be humid, it extinguished the candle; but after applying the candle three or four times the vapor that issued out began to flash. We then tied a bladder over the mouth of the barrel which the vapour soon filled, and then tying a string round the neck of the bladder, above the muzzle, took the bladder off.

As we could not conveniently make experiments upon the vapours while it was in the bladder, the next operation was to get it into a phial. For this purpose, we took a vial of about three or four ounces, filled it with water, put a cork slightly into it, and introducing it into the neck of the bladder, worked the cork out, by getting hold of it through the bladder. The water then emptied itself into the bladder and the air in the bladder ascended into the vial. We then put the cork into the vial, and took the vial from the bladder. It was then in a convenient condition for experiment.

We put a lighted match into the phial and the air or vapour in it took first and blazed up in the manner of a chimney on fire. We extinguished it two or three times by stopping the mouth of the vial, and putting the lighted match to it again it repeatedly took fire, till the vapour was spent and the vial became filled with atmospheric air.

These two experiments, that in which some combustible substance (branches and leaves of trees) had been decomposed by water, in the mud, and this where the decomposition had been produced by fire without blazing, shew that a species of air injurious to lif, when taken into the lungs, may be generated from substances which in themselves are harmless.

It is by means similar to these that charcoal, which is made by fire, without blazing emits a vapor destructive to life. I now come to apply these cases, and the reasoning deduced therefrom, to account for the cause of the yellow fever. (Note: The author does not mean to infer that the inflammable air or carbureted hydrogen gas, is the cause of the yellow fever; but that perhaps it enters into some combination with miasma generated in low grounds, which produces the disease.)

First, the yellow fever is not a disorder produced by the climate naturally, or it would always have been here in the hot months. The climate is the same now as it was 50 or 100 years ago. There was no yellow fever then, and it is only within the last twelve years that such a disorder has been known in America.

Secondly, the low grounds on the shores of the rivers at the city, where the yellow fever is annually generated and continues about three months without spreading, were not subject to that disorder in their natural state or the Indians would have forsaken them; whereas they were the parts most frequented by the Indians in all seasons of the year on account of fishery. The result from these cases is that the yellow fever is produced by some new circumstance not natural to the country in its natural state, and the question is, what is that new circumstance?

It may be said that every thing done by the white people since their settlement in the country, such as building towns, clearing lands, levelling hills and filling up vallies, is a new circumstance; but the yellow fever does not accompany any of these new circumstances. No alteration made on the dry land produces the yellow fever. We must therefore look to some other new circumstances, and we now come to those that have taken place between wet and dry, between land and water.

The shores of the rivers at New-York, and also at Philadelphia, have, on account of the vast increase of commerce, and for the sake of making wharves, undergone great and rapid alterations from their natural state within a few years, and it is only in such parts of the shores where those alterations have taken place that the yellow fever is produced. The parts where little or no alteration has been made, either on the East or North river, and which continue in their natural state, or nearly so, do not produce the yellow fever. The fact therefore points to the cause.

Besides several new streets gained from the river by embankment there are upwards of eighty new wharfs made since the war, and the much greater part within the last ten or twelve years; the consequence of which has been that great quantities of filth or combustible matter deposited in the muddy bottom of the river contiguous to the shore, and which produced no ill effect while exposed to the air and washed twice every twenty-four hours by the tide water, have been covered over several feet deep with new earth, and pent up, and the tide excluded. It is in these places, and in these only, that the yellow fever is produced.

Having thus shown from the circumstances of the case, that the cause of the yellow fever is in the place where it is produced, or rather in the pernicious vapour issuing therefrom, I go to shew a method of constructing wharves, where wharves are yet to be constructed (as on the shore on the East River at Corlder’s Hook, and also on the North river) that will not generate the yellow fever, and which may also point out a method of removing it from places already infected with it. Instead, then, of imbanking out the river and raising solid wharves of earth on the mud bottom of the shore, the better method would be to construct wharves on arches, built of stone. The tide will then flow in under the arch by which means the shore, and the muddy bottom will be washed and kept clean as if they were in their natural state without wharves.

When wharves are constructed on the shore length-ways, that is without cutting the shore up into slips, arches can easily be turned, because arches joining each other length-ways serve as butments to each other; but when the shore is cut up into slips there can be no butments. In this case wharves can be formed on stone pillars, or wooden piles planked over on the top. In either of these cases the land underneath will be commodious shelter or harbour for small boats, which can come in and go out always, except at low water, and be secure from storms and injuries. This method besides preventing the cause of the yellow fever, which I think it will, will render the wharfs more productive than the present method because of the space preserved within the wharf.

I offer no calculation of the expence of constructing wharves on arches or piles; but on a general view I believe they will not be so expensive as the present method. A very great part of the expence of making solid wharves of earth is occasioned by the carriage of materials which will be greatly reduced by the methods here proposed, and still more so were the arches to be constructed of cast iron blocks. I suppose that one ton of cast iron blocks would go as far in the construction of an arch as twenty tons of stone.

If by constructing wharves in such a manner that the tide water can wash the shore and bottom of the river contiguous to the shore, as they are washed in their natural condition, the yellow fever can be prevented from generating in places where wharfs are yet to be constructed, it may point out a method of removing it, at least by degrees, from places already infected with it, which will be by opening the wharves in two or three places in each, and letting the tide water pass through. The parts opened can be planked over without preventing the use of the wharf.

In taking up and treating this subject I have considered it as belonging to natural philosophy rather than medicinal art, and therefore I say nothing about the treatment of the disease after it takes place. I leave that part to those whose profession it is to study it.

THOMAS PAINE.