BY the goodness of God we are still continued in existence, and permitted once more in com­mon with our brethren, to assemble together to ce­lebrate the independence of our country, the birth day of our liberty. While many of the nations of the earth have been deprived of their most invalu­able blessings, have had their governments subver­ted, their religion abolished, and an experience of all the desolating horrors of War: We with a few exceptions have had every endearing privilege secu­red, the pleasing satisfaction of beholding the pro­gression of the arts and sciences, the most important improvements in agriculture, the advancement of the Christian Religion in spite of the exertions of infidels, or the malevolence of athiests, and our country [...] enriched by the streams of wealth con­ducted from the Eastern world, in various and al­most innumerable channels. Notwithstanding our currents of trade have received some impediment in their courses, by the mounds and obstructions thrown into them by a nation the most abandoned in principle, by a nation that has disgraced human­ity by excesses and rendered herself terrible to the world by her conquests, yet we have been great gainers by our commerce—The exertions of indi­viduals, united with the commendable vigilence of [Page 4] our rulers in resisting the spoliations of French pi­rates, have in a great measure placed us beyond the reach of their fraternal hugs, and in a situation where we have little to apprehend from those pica­roons of the earth.

THE benevolent mind must derive the most solid enjoyment from contemplating the resources of A­merica, and the rank which she must hold in a few years in the scale of nations, if we enjoy an uninter­rupted peace, and have the happiness [...] unifor­mity to possess such men for our administrators of justice as are at the present (with a few exceptions) a glory to our nation, a light to our councils, and an honor to the world.

IT is common, my countrymen, on an occasion like the present for the Orator to descant upon the excellences of patriotism—to entertain his audience with an eulogium upon the Heroes who have fought and have fallen, and to dress in the fairest praises the undaunted Warrior who exposed his breast to the mouth of the cannon, and received the bayonet in his bosom while advancing on the foe.

TO hold in grateful recollection the authors of our independence, the Worthies who stepped for­ward in the face of danger, who with manly cou­rage engaged with the foes of our liberty, and who exerted themselves with unremitted ardor until they erected the fair fabric of freedom, is a tribute due to their valour, and will ever be cheerfully ren­dered by all the genuine sons of Columbia, who are as much distinguished for their gratitude, as for those other traits which serve to discriminate them from the nations of the earth.

[Page 5]BUT I concieve that the situation of our country calls for something more important than panegric, and more substantial than eulogy. The antipathy which many of our citizens display against a variety of the acts of our government, the contempt which they cast upon the most excellent of our rulers, and their systematized opposition to every measure of defence, combined with the intrigues, the threats, and the inimical disposition of the French nation, call upon every one who knows the value of our independence, who is charmed with the beautiful symetry of our constitution, who relishes the sweets of liberty, and who prefers the charms of peace to the horrors of blood and carnage to be upon his guard, and to watch incessantly lest the demon of destruction, in an evil hour should subvert the fair temple of freedom, and erect in its stead the throne of despotism and oppression.

THE increase of our navy, together with the combination of powers with which the Magnanimous Republic is contending will undoubtedly exempt us for a season from the invasion, ravages, and slaugh­ter, which we might naturally expect was it not for this fortunate concurrence of circumstances.

THOUGH from this consideration we may at the present style ourselves happy, though we may have a persuasion that the invaluable blessings of proper­ty liberty and life will be protected, and though we may flatter ourselves that our nation will long in­crease in wealth, in population, in respectability and happiness, we ought not to let those things throw us into a stupid and fatal security, (lest like the man in the gospel who looked with pleasure upon his possessions and promised himself the enjoyment of many years yet to come) we be deprived of our rights, robbed of our independence, and compel­led to groan under the iron rod of tyranny.

[Page 6]I shall therefore beg your attention while I point out to you the danger you are in of being deprived of your present happiness, give you a faint picture of the evils you must suffer if you acknowledge Frenchmen for your masters, direct the means by which you may avoid Galic subjugation, and con­clude with urging you to cherish that glorious spirit of independence which burned in the breasts of the heroes of '76, and which enabled them to bear un­shocked the whole artillery of British thunder.

IT is an unhappy circumstance for America that so many of her sons are impressed with the idea that the services rendered by France in our late glorious struggles for liberty has bound us to her by the bands of gratitude. As long as this opinion is cur­rent in our nation (and receives the patronage of our countrymen) we shall stand in a precarious sit­uation, and our rights and independence must be placed on the brink of nonentity. Palliatives will be invented for all the enormities of the French nation, their blackest deeds will be clothed in the whitest garments, and while their crimes are such as barbarians themselves would shudder at—the advo­cates of this opinion will represent them as things which the exigences of the republic required, and therefore perfectly justifiable. Time then will not be badly employed in combatting this sentiment, and in shewing that the opinion was conceived in error, and that it owes its support to an ignorance of the true reason of Louis's yielding us assistance. The causes which gave birth to our late glorious revolution have been so often exhibited, and are so well known to the generallity of my audience, that a minute detail of them would be wholly superflu­ous—suffice it to remark that Great Britain by a variety of acts oppressive in their nature, and which had a direct tendency to deprive the colonies of ev­ery [Page 7] security, irritated the minds of the colonists,— By going directly in the teeth of her constitution she assumed the right of taxing the people of Ame­rica without their consent and without being repre­sented. She claimed the prerogative of binding the people of these states in all cases whatsoever, and thus abolished a maxim the most certain in politicks, and the most interesting to nations, a maxim that deserves to be written in letters of gold, and engraven on tables of brass, That Representation and Taxation should never be separated.

THESE measures were incompatible with the feel­ings of the freeborn sons of America, incongruous with their ideas of justice, and the alarm which roused them from their lethargy, which prompted them to call forth the latent energies of the soul, which nerved their arm to oppose the unauthorized encroachments of the British government, and which exhibited them to the world as an example of what could be atchieved by a nation determined to be free, and resolved to prefer death to slavery.

IT is well known that France and Great Britain had for centuries been unfriendly to each other, (had long been striving for the mastery in power) and that a number of causes combined to engender a resentment mortal and implacable.

FRANCE had ever looked upon the colonies of Britain with an envious eye, and apprehended that in a few years their increase in commerce and res­pectability, would throw a weight in the scale of her enemy which would destroy its equilibrium, and turn it in her favour.

FROM this circumstance alone it is not necessary for us to apply to a Cassandra for the purpose of [Page 8] enquiring whether it would be pleasing to France to behold a contest between the mother and her chil­dren? A knowledge of human nature, and of the principles by which nations as well as individuals are actuated will without the spirit of prophecy solve the question.

SHOULD the chance of war turn in favour af A­merica, one of the richest gems in the crown of George must have lost its lustre, Great Britain must have been humbled, and France herself materially benefited. Although she had all these inducements to wish for our success, although it was decidedly for her interest that a separation of the colonies from Britain should be effected, yet she did not come forward in that friendly and generous manner to our assistance which would confer an obligation.

WHILE our resources were few, our soldiery un­disciplined, and the probability was, that we should again be subjected to obedience by the acknowledg­ed power of Britain—France stood aloof, afforded us no assistance, in the time which tried men's souls, our Commissioners were delayed at her court for several months unable to effect an alliance, or to accomplish the end of their mission, while our coun­try was groaning for succour.

LOUIS saw our danger, yet he was not the gen­erous, the disinterested friend to stretch out his arm to preserve us from falling, or to supply us with medicine to heal our bleeding wounds.

IT was not until the capture of Burgoyne, it was not until he perceived that the Americans were re­gaining their strength, that by their resolution and bravery they were able to withstand the British for­ces in the field of battle, it was not until he had the [Page 9] greatest persuasion of security that he should receive not only a threefold but a tenfold return for his fa­vors that he offered us aid. When a conquest was accomplished which inspired the sons of Columbia with more than mortal courage, and which nearly extinguished the martial flame that burned in the breasts of the soldiery of George, then Gallia's vali­ant and benevolent monarch; took pity upon the poor, weak, and defenceless Americans and offered his assistance.

WITH what views my countrymen did he offer it? Was it for the purpose of rendering us inde­pendent? Was it because he had an ardent desire for our happiness? Was it because the commence­ment of British hostilities pierced his tender and compassionate soul? Reason with a voice of thun­der, and like an angel trumpet tongued says

NO!

FRANCE entered into a treaty of alliance with the United States with far different views—the French Sovereign hoped that by the storm of war the throne of the English Monarch would be made to totter to its base, that the haughty crest of Britain would be depressed, and that the whole nation would be com­pelled to mourn for many days in sackcloth and ashes.

IF there are any still so incredulous as to think differently from the statement just made, such I would refer to the condition of the French nation at that very instant.

THE power of the king was absolute—the gov­ernment in the highest degree tyrannical and op­pressive, and in consequence of this tyranny and oppression the people wretched and unhappy.

[Page 10]IF then the slight oppression which the colonists re­ceived from the British government was so repugnant to the exquisite sensibility of the French Sovereign, and so inconsistent with his ideas of justice, that he thot' it a duty incumbent upon him (though at an ad­vanced stage of the contest) to liberate the Ameri­cans from bondage, and to break in shivers the iron rod raised over their heads: How comes it to pass that the same benevolent disposition did not display itself in ameliorating more effectually the condition of his own subjects, of those who were under his immediate inspection, and whom he was bound by his office and station to treat as a friend and protect as a father.^*

LET the advocates of the idea I have been com­batting reconcile if possible this evident contradic­tion, and account for the capriciousness of the French Monarch in preferring to soften the condi­tion of strangers and foreigners to that of his own people and children.

IN considering the assertion that we owe a debt of gratitude to France, I have gone upon the sup­position that nations do sometimes act disinter­estedly.—This however is not a fair representa­tion of things, the idea is altogether chimerical and fit only to be urged by theoretical philoso­phers whose province it is to advance absurdities.

[Page 11]BUT allowing that is it possible for one nation to be bound to another by the ties of gratitude, and that the conduct of France was wholly disinterested, and of such a nature as to produce an obligation: Will it follow that the nation who conferred a favor cannot by the most abominable outrage, and the most flagrant impiety cancel the debt, or render herself unworthy of the friendship of the nation upon whom the favor was conferred? Suppose my friends that your neighbor should assist you when in prison, and freely and without your solicitation ransom you by the payment of a trifling sum, must you for this reason not be allowed to resent his dest­ruction of your property, his murdering your son, or the violation of the chastity of your wife or daugh­ter? Apply the same rule to nations and there will be no difficulty in calculating the quantum of gra­titude we owe to France.

BUT the prevalence of the idea whose absurdity I think I have sufficiently exposed, is not our only source of danger. We are so unhappy as to have a class of men in our country, who keep concealed from the public eye, who feed upon the vitals of our constitution, and fatten upon their attempts to subvert our government and holy religion.

IN the breasts of these Demagogues all the baneful passions concentre, which are to be found among the infernals—Envy, jealousy, revenge, backbiting, and rage, are prominent features in their character, and render them fit instruments to accomplish the task assigned them by their grand master the DEVIL. These men are always unprin­cipled, and generally their property has been squan­dered away in acts of lewdness, dissipation, nnd impiety.

[Page 12]OPPRESSED with debt accumulated by their irre­gularities, and extravagance, like Cataline and his horde of robbers and assassins they have no hopes of remedying their infamous and desperate situa­tion, but by exciting uneasiness, division, and anar­chy.

THEY are men whose invention is sharpened by necessity, and whose schemes are planed in conform­ity to the directions of BELZEBUB.

NOT contented with superficial performances, they lay the ax to the root of the tree and determine to make it surrender at a stroke. That virtue is the basis of Republics, and the chief corner stone of the building, is a truth as clear as the sun-beams, and coeval with eternity.

AND that the permanancy of governments will ever be dependent upon the respect which the peo­ple have for the laws, and the reverence shewn for their rulers is not less apparent. We need not wonder then that these wretches in society should make it their chief study to bring the religion of Je­sus into contempt, and to cover the rulers of the people with ridicule, slander and obliquy.

FROM men of this description and character you have every thing to fear—Having made shipreck of faith, and viewing the religion of Jesus as a fable, and not more worthy of regard than the Al­coran of Mahomet they are prepared for the most dark and bloody attempts: The restraints which are laid on the believer of the doctrines of the gos­pel, and which have the greatest tendency to make him a dutiful son, an affectionate husband, a tender father, and a good citizen, have no influence upon those opposers of government, those murderers of [Page 13] the blest IMMANUEL, and those deniers of JEHO­VAH.

WHEREVER you see them let the seal of stigma­tism be instamped; view them as the sons of Ish­mael whose hands are against every man, and con­sider that it is a duty you owe to yourselves, your country, and your God, that your hands should be against them.

HONOR them not with your suffrages, choose them not for your rulers, for they will surely be the barriers betwixt you and your happiness. They will be a slow poison which will diffuse itself throughout the body politic of your constitution, weaken the system, and produce a dreadful and lamentable death. The dissolution will not be an euthanasy, but the struggling of a dire convulsion, by which every feature of the frame will be distorted and every joint dislocated.

THE idea that we are bound to France by indis­soluble ties of gratitude for her assistance in our late revolution, and the strenuous and unremitted exertions of infidels and atheists in subverting the ehristian religion, in exciting confusion, uneasiness, and discord among us to overthrow our excellent consttiution, are the two principal sources from which we have to apprehend the loss of our liberties, and the imposition of shackles which Frenchmen alone can forge and the DAMNED bear to sustain.

A representation of the woes and miseries under which we must labor if burdened with the Gallic yoke must, I think appal the stoutest heart, and strike terror into every man whose conscience is not feared as with a red hot iron. The rulers of the French nation have perpetrated every crime which the pen of the historian every recorded—which ever [Page 14] stamped the mark of infamy on a Tiberius, a Ne­ro and a Caligula, or which ever pervaded the brain of the grand enemy of mankind.

NOT satisfied with tearing children from their parents, husbands from their wives, and seizing on the hard earned property of the peaceful citizen, the honest mechanic and the industrious farmer: They have refined even upon cruelty itself, racked their invention to discover new modes of torture, ex­ulted in the dying groans of thousands, and deemed the sight of rivers of blood a luxurious repast.

CHARITY would gladly extend her silver wings, pity would fain throw her snowy mantle over the detestable crimes of Carrier, who filled the Loire with the bodies of his Countrymen. Over the cru­elties of the hard hearted Collet de Herbois who delighted in the miseries of the wretched victims, whom he shot upon the Rhone, and over the horrid barbarities perpetrated at Nantz, at Lyons, and at Orleans, which deprived these unhappy cities of their most able and respectable citizens, which de­stroyed their property and which dyed their pave­ments with gore.

BUT History, the faithful translator of past events hath enrolled them on her page, to be transmitted to posterity for perusal, to make generations yet unborn tremble at the recital, and men of honesty and virtue lift up their hands, and wonder who could do them.

THE tyranny and despotism of the executive Di­rectory exceed all our ideas of the abuses of power, and would be incredible to credulity itself, were they not declared by men of the greatest integrity, and confirmed by facts which will bear the scrutiny [Page 15] of ages, and which to the consummation of the world, will brand these monsters of the human race with infamy unsurpassed, and consign them to the regions of woe "where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched."

TO enumerate all their excesses would exhaust the power of language. To give you a complete descrip­tion of their character is impossible; for no lan­guage contains words of execration sufficiently ner­vous. You will have but a faint idea of their enor­mities, when I inform you that they have attempt­ed to dethrone JEHOVAH by a decree, that they have written over the doors of their Temples that "death is an eternal sleep," that with the true principles of Illuminatism, they have declared `that the end will justify the means,' that by their soldie­ry they have destroyed every Republic in Europe, deprived nations of rational liberty, and bestowed upon them the liberty of Frenchmen, which is the liberty of hell, broken down the land marks of pro­perty, banished the most patriotic men in France, confined the unfortunate brave in loathsome prisons, sentenced thousands and tens of thousands to be be­headed by the accursed Guillotine, and wrested the tender infant from the arms of the affectionate mo­ther, while smiling in their faces, "plucked the nip­ples from its boneless gums and dashed its brains out!"

HOW infamous then is the conduct of those men who murmer at our administration and who with open arms would welcome an army dispatched by the five headed monster. Their stubbornness keeps pace with their stupidity, and their opposition to measures of defence discovers the depravity of their minds. Let me ask the men who are bellowing out for France, for liberty and equallity, what they ex­pect to gain by being under French domination?

[Page 16]IF the Directory should establish themselves in this country, we should experience every oppression which the unhappy Frenchman feels, and which pierces to the heart. We should have exhibited con­stantly before our eyes those scenes of violence at which humanity recoils, and be the instruments and slaves of a lawless banditti, whose ambition is e­qualled only by their wickedness.

ANSWER me, ye democrats, is this condition to be preferred to your present, where you are govern­ed by rulers of your own choice? Is the tempest­uous storm of France possessed of greater charms, than the serene calm of America? Is a situation in which you can have no security for your proper­ty, for the continuation of your lives, for the chas­tity of your wives and daughters, more eligible than the situation in which all these invaluable blessings are secured? If you are men of principle—if you are men in whose bosoms the genial flame of philan­thropy ever burned, I conjure you by the love you profess to bear to your country—by the love you bear to yourselves, to revolve these things in your minds, to consider well the sentiments you have imbibed, to forsake your system of opposition, and be convinced that you have the happiest government on earth—a government as far preferable to that of France, as the verdure of Summer is to the dreariness of Winter, lest GOD in his wrath should hurl you out of the highway to heaven into regions of endless woe, perdition and despair. If my countrymen, GOD in his righteous providence should permit this scourge of mankind to land upon our happy shores, and destroy our present Consti­tution, which is the most beautiful edifice that ge­nius could devise, or art construct, and plant in its stead the tree of French liberty, whose leaves are impregnated with poison, whose branches are cover­ed [Page 17] with serpents, whose sap is the blood of the un­happy brave whom bare suspicion murdered, whose fruit "outvenoms all the worms of Nile," and whose roots are the strong holds which guard these tyrants of the world, we must bid a long farewell to happiness, to all those endearing scenes which give a taste to pleasure, and which render virtue itself more pleasing.

"WE should find under every footstep a spring-gun, under every roof a spy, in every family an in­former, and on every bench of justice an assassin."

RELIGION the solace and staff of the Christian would be blasted by the lethiferous breath of those nameless villians in iniquity, who with awful audaci­ty have turned their heel upon the Sovereign of the universe, and placed the Saviour of the world upon the catalogue of impostures.

YOUR wives and your daughters would be expo­sed to the brutal desires of a soldiery fiercer than the Tyger, and more cruel than the Hyenna, and when they are polluted by the deadly contagion you will exclaim too late with the poet,

[Page 18]IF you set a value upon your liberty, if you have any regard for your families, if you wish for the promotion of Christianity, if you have any reve­rence for your Saviour and your God, resolve to oppose the intrigues and encroachments of the French nation and flash your vengeance like the forked lightning, on those enemies of man, for in Frenchmen is concentrated every enormity. En­lightened by the bright beams of Illumination they have made the wonderful discovery that the per­fection of happiness consists in the subversion of or­der, and in the abolishment of Religion, they have prepared the besom of destruction to sweep every benificial and virtuous institution from the face of the earth, and to substitute in their stead the temple of reason, and edifices more destructive to human happiness than even the Bastile.

TO escape the mortal fangs of these whining Crocodiles and to preserve the happy situation we now sustain, a particular attention must be paid to the men whom we choose for our rulers, the blush of resentment crimsons my cheek when I look upon our councils, and view the number of foreigners who are chosen as our lawgivers, to the exclusion of our own citizens, renowned for wisdom, for virtue and for patriotism.

MY heart bleeds for my country when I antici­pate the evils she must sustain, without the abolish­ment of so impolitic a custom. Open your eyes A­mericans before it is too late—before the thunder­bolt of destruction shall close them forever.

WHERE is that fire which burnt in the breast of your forefathers? That spirit which preserved our Country—where is the dignity of our nation, will you submit to be ruled by men who have fled [Page 19] the rod of justice in their own country uplifted to crush them into atoms? If you will you richly merit every curse which they will pour upon you. But I am confident that the sons of Columbia have not yet sunk to such a state of degradation, and I hope for the honor and happiness of my county, that it shall not be said on another anniversary, that the people of America are so abject, as to fill their highest departments of government with foreigners.

NEXT to the exclusion of Aliens and men devoid of principle from offices of state, I would enjoin it upon you in the strongest terms to pay all decent [...] respect to those with whom you have entrusted the reins of Government, they are men whom you have chosen for your rulers, men who owe their promotion to your own act, men in whom you have reposed the most important trust, and of course are men whom you ought to revere.

NOTHING can be more absurd, and but few things more injurous to society than the unaccount­able conduct of some men in delighting to find fault with the proceedings of our rulers, and endeavor­ing to make them contemptible in the eyes of the nation.

WHEN it is considered that a contempt for the law maker, produces a contempt for the law, and that a contempt for the law is the fruitful parent of con­fusion and disorder, I conceive that the good sense of the generality of my countrymen will want no o­ther argument to induce them, to treat their Rulers with decency, with respect and with reverence.

TO ensure for any length of time our independ­ence, and the numberless blessings which are its concomitants, it is necessary that there should be a general diffusion of knowledge.

[Page 20]THE mind enlightened with the divine rays of science, beholds with the greatest horror, and de­testation, those nefarious practices which set citizen against citizen, and convert men who stile themselves citizens into the most ferocious barbarians.

AS it is the pride of tyrants, to bind their subjects in the chains of ignorance, so let it be your glory to break in twain the bonds which confine the powers of the soul, and cramp the dignity of man.

CONSIDER that a people well enlightened have too exalted ideas of liberty to yield to the nod of a des­pot. As long as there is a general diffusion of knowledge in our country, so long shall she be free. But if we become involved in [...] ignorance— Immorallity, superstition, irreligion, and an whole host of evils will overrun the land. The advance­ment of Christianity is likewise another circumstance which demands your serious regard. If the Bible is treated with contempt, Religion regarded as a fable and the sabbath unobserved, we may with the great­est rationallity expect all those evils which I have enumerated.

WE cannot with any propriety expect that men who laugh their Maker to scorn, and who treat our holy religion as the invention of priests and impos­tures, should be solicitous for the interest of man­kind, the noble, generous and social affections of the soul would all be banished, and man void of be­nevolence coil himself up, in the nut-shell of self-love.

LET me urge you then by every motive to be strenuous in your exertions in opposing infidelity and irreligion, inculcate the principles of Christian­ity on the minds of your children and dependents, [Page 21] train them up in the fear of the Lord, inspire them with a respect for his laws, make them punctual in their attendance upon public worship, expound to them the baneful nature of sin, and replenish their minds with those divine doctrines and precepts, which will render them a blessing to their country and an honor to their God.

IF your patience is not already exhausted, I will request your attention a little longer, while I warn you to shun division.

IF you unite as a band of brothers in sentiment and exertion, you need not fear the combined for­ces of the world, but if you separate yourselves in parties, excite commotions, and strive to stir up an­imosities, this will be the rock on which you will split.

IT is the voice of reason, as well as the voice of inspiration, that a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand, your division will be an invitation to your enemies to ravage your country, to subvert your laws and to destroy your happiness.

THE many insults you have already received from the French nation have been produced, in a great measure by the idea of your being a divided people. Resolve then now to shew by your actions that they have been mistaken in their opinion, and that you are ready not only to spend but to be spent for your country. Oppose with a manly firmness the in­trigues of the French, and of every other nation un­friendly to your liberties, fired with the spirit which blazed in the breast of your forefathers, and which lighted them through the dark valley of oppression, to the fair temple of Freedom, glory and independ­ence. Let your language be "millions for defence, [Page 22] but not a cent for tribute." Resolve to unite in the support of the laws of your country in protecting your wives and your children, and in preserving your Religion inviolate.

THE independence you enjoy is a boon you have received from the benevolent Author of Nature, it is a talent he has entrusted to your charge, and it is at your peril if you loose it, through negligence, or inattention.