in my own, I doubt not I shall find with you, though I cannot promise to be a better subject of this Government, than my whole conduct will evince that I have been to that of Great Britain.”
This is neither the style periodique, nor the style coupé; it is, I presume, the style entortillé; for one would certainly think that the author had racked his imagination to render what he had to say unintelligible. This sentence of monstrous length is cut asunder in the middle by a semicolon, which, except that it serves the weary reader by way of halfway house, might be placed in any other part of the sentence, to, at least, equal advantage: in fact, this is not a sentence; it is a rigmarole ramble, that has neither beginning nor ending, and conveys to us no idea of any thing but the author’s incapacity.
“Viewing with the deepest concern, as you do, the prospect that is now exhibited in Europe, those troubles which are the natural offspring of their forms of government.” What in the name of goodness does this mean? Troubles is the only antecedent that can be found to their; and the necessary conclusion is, troubles have their forms of government.
The Doctor says, in his answer to the Tammany Society, “Happy would our venerable ancestors,” as you justly call them, “have been, to have found America such a retreat to them.” It may, perhaps, be useful to the learned Doctor to know, that he ought to have said, “Happy would our venerable ancestors, as you justly call them, have been, to find America, &c.”
I grant that there is great reason to believe, that the Doctor was resolved to be as dull as his addressers; but I assert, that it is impossible for a person accustomed to commit his thoughts to paper, with the smallest degree of taste or correctness, to fall into such gross solecism, or to tack phrases together in such an awkward homespun manner: in short, he cannot be fit for even the post of castigator; and therefore it is to be hoped that the “Associated Teachers” will not lessen their “importance” by admitting him amongst them, that is to say, except it be as a pupil.
There are many things that astonish us in the addresses, among which the compassion that the addressers express for that “infatuated” and “devoted country,” Great Britain, certainly is not the least.
The Democratic Society, with a hatred against tyranny that would have become the worthy nephew of Damien, Ref 017 or the great Marat himself, say, “The multiplied oppressions which characterize that Government, excite in us the most painful sensations, and exhibit a spectacle as disgusting in itself as dishonourable to the British name.”
And what a tender affectionate concern do the sons of Tammany express for the poor distressed unfortunate country of their “venerable ancestors!”—“A country,” say they, “although now presenting a prospect frightful to the eye of humanity, yet once the nurse of sciences, of arts, of heroes, and of freemen; a country which, although at present apparently devoted to destruction, we fondly hope may yet tread back the steps of infamy and ruin, and once more rise conspicuous among the free nations of the earth.”
But of all the addresses, none seem so zealous on this subject as “the republican natives of Great Britain and Ireland.”—“While,” say they, “we look back on our native country with emotions of pity and indignation at the outrages human nature has sustained in the persons of the virtuous Muir and his patriotic associates, and deeply lament the fatal apathy into which our countrymen have fallen, we desire to be thankful to the great Author of our being that we are in America, and that it had pleased him, in his wise providence, to make these United States an asylum, not only from the immediate tyranny of the British Government, but also from those impending calamities which its increasing despotism and multiptied iniquities must infallibly bring down on a deluded and oppressed people.” What an enthusiastic warmth is here! No Solemn-league-and-covenant prayer, embellished with the nasal sweetness of the Conventicle, was ever more affecting.
To all this the Doctor very piteously echoes back “sigh for sigh, and groan for groan; and when the fountain of their eyes is dry, his supplies the place, and weeps for both.”
There is something so pathetic, so irresistibly moving in all this, that a man must have a hard heart indeed to read it, and not burst into laughter.
In speaking of monarchies, it has often been lamented, that the sovereign seldom or never hears the truth; and much afraid I am, that this is equally applicable to democracies. What court sycophants are to a prince, demagogues are to a people; and the latter kind of parasites is by no means less dangerous than the former; perhaps more so, as being more ambitious and more numerous. God knows, there were too many of this description in America before the arrival of Doctor Priestley; I can, therefore, see no reason for boastings and addressings on account of the acquisition.
Every one must observe how the Doctor has fallen at once into the track of those who were already in possession of the honourable post. Finding a popular prejudice prevailing against his country, and not possessing that patriæ caritas which is the characteristic of his countrymen, he has not been ashamed to attempt making his court by flattering that prejudice. I grant that a prejudice against this nation is not only excusable, but almost commendable, in Americans; but the misfortune is, it exposes them to deception, and makes them the sport of every intriguing adventurer. Suppose it be the interest of Americans that Great Britain should be ruined, and even annihilated, in the present contest, it can never be their interest to believe that this desirable object is already nearly or quite accomplished, at a time when she is become more formidable than ever in every quarter of the globe: and with respect to the internal situation of that country, we ought not to suffer ourselves to be deceived by “gleanings from Morning Chronicles or Dublin Gazettes;” for if we insist that newspaper report is the criterion by which we ought to judge of the governments and the state of other countries, we must allow the same measure to foreigners with respect to our own country; and then what must the people of England think of the Government of the United States upon reading a page or two from the slovenly pen of Agricola?
“It is charitable,” says this democrat, Ref 018 “it is charitable to believe many who signed the constitution never dreamed of the measures taking place, which, alas! we now experience. By this double Government we are involved in unnecessary burdens, which neither we nor our fathers ever knew: such a monster of a Government has seldom ever been known on earth. We are obliged to maintain two Governments, with their full number of officers from head to foot. Some of them receive such wages as never were heard of before in any Government upon earth; and all this bestowed on aristocrats for doing next to nothing. A blessed revolution! a blessed revolution indeed! but farmers, mechanics, and labourers, have no share in it; we are the asses who must have the honour of paying them all, without any adequate service. Now let the impartial judge, whether our Government, taken collectively, answers the great end of protecting our persons and property! or whether it is not rather calculated to drain us of our money, and give it to men who have not rendered adequate service for it. Had an inspired prophet told us the things which our eyes see in the beginning of the revolution, he might have met Jeremiah’s fate; or, if we had believed him, not one in a thousand would have resisted Great Britain. Indeed, my countrymen, we are so loaded by our new Governments that we can have little heart to attempt to move under all our burdens. We have this consolation, when things come to the worst there must be a change, and we may rest satisfied that either the Federal or State Governments must fall.”
If “gleanings” like these were published in England, would not the people naturally exclaim, What! the boasted Government of America come to this already? The poor Americans are dreadfully tyrannized by the aristocrats! There will certainly be a revolution in America soon! They would be just as much mistaken as the people in this country are when they talk of a revolution in England.
Neither ought we to look upon the emigration of persons from England to this country as a proof of their being persecuted, and of the tyranny of the English Government. It is paying America a very poor compliment to suppose that nothing short of persecution could bring settlers to its shores. This is, besides, the most unfortunate proof that could possibly be produced by the advocates of the French revolution: for if the emigration of a person to this country be a proof of a tyranny existing in that from which he comes, how superlatively tyrannical must the Government in France be? But they say, those who emigrate from