will not insult the reader’s feelings by desiring him to compare the pretended tyranny of the British Government with that I have here related; nor will I tell the United Irishmen, that even an Irish massacre is nothing compared to the exercise of the democratic laws of France; but I will ask them to produce me, if they can, an instance of such consummate tyranny in any government, or in any nation. Queen Mary of England, during a reign of five years, caused about five hundred innocent persons to be put to death; for this, posterity has, very justly too, branded her with the surname of bloody. What surname, then, shall be given to the assembly that caused more than that number to be executed in one day at Lyons? The massacre of St. Bartholomew, an event that filled all Europe with consternation, the infamy and horrors of which have been dwelt on by so many eloquent writers of all religions, and that has held Charles IX. up to the execration of ages, dwindles into child’s play, when compared to the present murderous revolution, which a late writer in France emphatically calls “a St. Bartholomew of five years.” According to Mons. Bousset, there were about 30,000 persons murdered, in all France, in the massacre of St. Bartholomew; there has been more than that number murdered in the single city of Lyons and its neighbourhood; at Nantz there have been 27,000; at Paris, 150,000; in La Vendée, 300,000. Ref 023 In short, it appears that there have been two millions of persons murdered in France, since it has called itself a republic, among whom are reckoned two hundred and fifty thousand women, two hundred and thirty thousand children (besides those murdered in the womb), and twenty-four thousand Christian priests!
And is there, can there be a faction in America so cruel, so bloody-minded, as to wish to see these scenes repeated in their own, or any other country? If there be, Great God! do thou mete to them, ten-fold, the measure they would mete to others; inflict on them every curse of which human nature is susceptible; hurl on them thy reddest thunder-bolts; sweep the sanguinary race from the face of the creation!
AN ACCOUNT OF SOME RECENT FEATS PERFORMED BY THE FRENCHIFIED CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
If such, then, are the principles of those men called Democrats, ought not every good man in this country to be very cautious how he gives them the least countenance? Ought he not to follow them in all their actions with an attentive eye, and let slip no opportunity of exposing their ambitious and destructive designs? For my part, I by no means desire to assume the dubious name of patriot; what I am doing, I conceive to be my duty; which consideration, as it will justify the undertaking, will in some measure apologize for the want of abilities that may appear in the execution.
Upon a view of the horrible revolution that at present agitates the world, we perceive that though the grand object of the democrats has been every where the same, yet their pretended motives have varied with their situation. In America, where the Federal Ref 024 Constitution had just been put in movement, and had begun to extend its beneficent effects, it was impossible to talk of reformation; at least it was impossible to make the people believe that it was necessary. The well-known wisdom and integrity and the eminent services of the President, Ref 025 had engraven such an indelible attachment for his person on the hearts of Americans, that his reputation or his measures could be touched but with a very delicate hand. A plan of indirect operations was therefore fixed upon; and it must be allowed, that, by the help of a foreign agent, it was not badly combined. The outlines of this plan were to extol to the skies every act of the boxing legislators of France; to dazzle those who have nothing with the sublime system of “equality;” to make occasional reflections on the resemblance between this government and that of Great Britain; to condemn the British laws (and consequently our own at the same time) as aristocratic, and from thence to insinuate that “something yet remained to be done;” and finally, to throw a veil over the insults and injuries received from France, represent all the actions of Great Britain in the most odious light, plunge us into a war with the latter, put us under the tutelage of the former, and recall the glorious times of violence and plunder. Thanks to Government; thanks to the steady conduct of the executive power, this abominable plan has been disconcerted; the phalanx has been broken; but it is nevertheless prudent to pursue the scattered remains, draw them from their caballing assemblies, and stretch them on the rack of public contempt. Ref 026
I do not know whether there were any of the United Irishmen, or their retainers, at the last St. Patrick’s feast, in this city; but I know that they drank to the memory of “Brutus and Franklin (a pretty couple), to the Society of the United Irishmen, to the French, and to their speedy arrival in Ireland.” After this, I think it would be cruel to doubt of the patriotism of the United Irishmen, and their attachment to the British constitution.
In these toasting times it would have been something wonderful if the sans culottes in America had neglected to celebrate the taking of Amsterdam by their brethren in France. I believe from my soul there have been more cannons fired here in the celebration of this conquest, than the French fired in achieving it. I think I have counted twenty-two grand civic festivals, fifty-one of an inferior order, and one hundred and ninety-three public dinners; at all which, I imagine, there might be nearly thirty thousand people; and as twenty thousand of them, or thereabouts, must have been married men, it is reasonable to suppose that eighteen or nineteen thousand women with their children were at home wanting bread, while their husbands were getting drunk at a civic feast.
There is in general such a sameness in those feasts, that it would be tiring the reader to describe them; and it would, besides, be anticipating what I intend to treat more at large, as soon as my materials for the purpose are collected. The grand civic festival at Reading (Massachusetts), however, deserves a particular mention, as it approaches nearer to a real French civic feast than any thing I have yet heard of in this country.
“The day was ushered in by the ringing of the bells, and a salute of fifteen discharges from a field-piece. The American flag waved in the wind, and the flag of France over the British in inverted order. At noon a large number of respectable citizens assembled at citizen Rayner’s, and partook of an elegant entertainment—after dinner Captain Emerson’s military company in uniform assembled, and escorted the citizens” (to the grog-shop, I suppose, you think?) “to the meeting-house!! where an address, pertinent to the occasion, was delivered by the Reverend citizen Prentiss, and united prayers and praises were offered to God, and several hymns and anthems were well sung; after which they returned in procession to citizen Rayner’s, when three farmers with their frocks and utensils, and with a tree on their shoulders, were escorted by the military company, formed in a hollow square, to the common, where the tree was planted in form, as an emblem of freedom, and the Marseillois hymn was sung by a choir within a circle round the tree. Major Bondman, by request, superintended the business of the day, and directed the manœuvres.”
These manœuvres were very curious to be sure, particularly that of the Reverend citizen Prentiss, putting up a long snuffing prayer for the successes of the French atheists! A pretty minister truly! There was nothing wanted to complete this feast but to burn the Bible, and massacre the honest inhabitants of the town. And are these the children of those men who fled from their native country to a desert, rather than deviate from what they conceived to be the true principles of the gospel? Are they such men as Prentiss, to whom the people of Massachusetts commit the education of their children and the care of their own souls? God forgive me if I go too far, but I think I would as soon commit my soul to the care of the devil.
Nor was the Reverend citizen Prentiss the only one who took upon him to mock Heaven with thanksgivings for the successes of the French sans culottes. From Boston they write: “It was highly pleasing to republicans to hear some of our clergy yesterday returning thanks to the Supreme Being for the successes of the good sans culottes.” Yes, reader, some of the clergy of Boston put up thanksgivings for what they imagined to be the successes of a set of impious wretches, who have in the most solemn manner abolished the religion these very clergymen profess, who have declared Christianity to be a farce, and its Founder an infamous impostor, and who have represented the doctrine of the immortality of the soul as a mere cheat, contrived by artful priests to enslave mankind. There is but too much reason to fear that many of those whose duty it is to stand on the watch-tower, whose duty it is to resist this pernicious doctrine, are among the first to espouse it; but let the clergymen of Boston remember—
“That