and that the body, corrupted, as yours has been, by appetites the most unnatural, would of course be accompanied by a heart of the most deadly venom, and principles of the most destructive tendency. This letter is addressed to you, not in the delusive hope of your amendment, but that your successor may take warning from your example. That he may be induced to consider the universal detestation which you have excited, as a sort of memento to deter him from similar excesses; and to teach him, when the particular interests of any part of the community, and the constitutional rights of the whole are invaded, that not only the very existence of the nation is threatened, but that there is even some danger to be apprehended from the efforts of its accumulated resentment.

The philosophick dignity, and humble acquiescence of your inaugur al address, afforded no indication, but to those who penetrated your hypocrisy, of those violent measures which have since marked the course of your administration; and those personal partialities and malignant resentments which have added new graces to your private character. Without daring, at first, to intimate the slightest displeas ure at a difference of political opinion, we noticed your fruitless attempts to reconcile your opposers by smooth expressions, and excessive sensibility; and indeed it was not until you thought yourself perfectly secure in the favourable prejudices which you had excited among the people, that you had courage enough to unfold the perfidy of your real disposition, No sir, your ambition, like your passions, you satisfy by treachery; and as, to compass the one, your care not for the fate of the victim; so to gratify the other, you are regardless of the prosperity of the empire.

It would lead me into an exhaustless field of censure, were I to chase you through all the windings of your political race, and beat every bush which conceals some of your perfidious transactions. Your conduct has been so subtle, that your most corrupt proceedings have often been attributed to anxiety for the publick welfare: you have so mantled your vices, that the world have mistaken plausibility for reason, and affected zeal for true sincerity of disposition. But reflecting men have ever known you, and they would long ago have been reduced to the last state of desperation, had they not taken refuge from the dangers of your wickedness, in the cowardice of your heart. By some unaccountable fatality, however, they are now to be disappointed. Either they have mistaken your courage, or there is some hidden corner of inconsistency in your mind, which has not yet been penetrated. You have perhaps thought of your favourite plan of the extirpation of commerce, until you have believed the people would submit to its oppression; or what is still more probable, you have wished to complete the turpitude of your character, by leaving your successor to sustain the resentment of the people, when you shall have eluded the vehemence of their fu

ry. This I own is the probable calculation of such a mind as yours; but I trust the people will have too much good sense, even in the violence of the passions, not to level the bolt of their revenge against the head of their oppressor. You sir, have reserved for the end of your course this last black act, to shed if possible, a more malignant shade upon the rank and poisonous weeds of your former life.

This act only was required to complete the inconsistencies of your political conduct. We have seen you pay the libeller of Washington, and then weep over the tomb of the hero; we have seen you befriend Mr. Munroe, in order to desert him; we have seen you the most abject slave to the dictates of tyranny, and a high-handed brawler for the rights of the people; we have seen the laws treacherously relaxed in favour of Wilkinson, and strained in prosecuting Burr; and at length we have seen you, in order to give a death blow to the interests of our commerce, plunge your dagger through the vesture of the constitution. This last act is indeed practicing fully upon the principles of your writings; your Notes on Virginia, promulgated a doctrine, which your conduct as president has enforced. Hatred is the necessary feeling at your common transactions, but in this instance it is displaced by astonishment; for your last deed has been an act of danger. Had it been merely wicked or disgraceful, it would have been viewed as common to the administration, and corresponding with the tenour of the presidential character.

The fifth Embargo law, too, is essentially different from any of your other measures, as it is entirely destitute of every species of plausibility for its defence. You have declared not in language, but in deeds, that the inefficiency of a policy, is no bar to its adoption, though it involve the ruin of the nation; and that the ramparts of the constitution are no defence against the unprincipled ambition of a ruler. You have at last reduced the examination of your conduct, to a question which the most inferiour understanding can decide. This I confess surprises me, for while your perfidy was only to be detected by perspicacity of argument and investigation, you were safe from publick resentment; for the people cannot be reasoned into belief, they must feel their injuries before they will avenge them. You have ventured forth into the sea of tyranny, depending on the popular breath to waft you into harbour. The basis on which you have erected your last Embargo bill is too weak to sustain the building. Already the earthquakes of publick clamour have shaken it to its foundation; would to God the desolation which will follow, might whelm the contrivers in exemplary destruction. You have hitherto maintained your popularity; you have been supported by the people in the calmness of domestick security, and serenity of general happiness; but are you prepared for your fate, when they shall rise in the tumult of their indignation, supported by the majesty of their strength, and defended by the barriers of the constitution. Vol. 1.

F

Do you hope that the people will submit to the invasion of their rights, because yon command a servile majority in Congress; or do you vainly imagine that your newly raised army will join with you to subvert the liberties of the country, by enforcing unconstitutional meas. ures? They, we trust are true Americans; and though they know their duty as soldiers, they will remember their rights as citizens. If their swords are to be pointed at the enemies of their country; let them proceed to the source of the evil, and wreak their vengeance at Washington.

You have treated the northern states with indignity and insult; with insult which has made them feel their spirit and indignity, which will make you feel their power. Your publick correspondence has branded them with the epithet of worthless; and your private conduct and personal manners, have contributed to insult them by reproaches or neglect. But the citizens of the commercial states understand the rights which the constitution has secured to them; that instrument they consider the bible of their faith in the administration; where your doctrines are repugnant to the letter and spirit of that political creed, they will not deem it heresy to disobey them. And if their disobedience calls forth the restrictive energies of the government, it is clear the interests, the rights, the liberties and independence of the people, will first have been abridged and then overthrown.

But sir, as you have already gone too far, beware how you proceed; the inhabitants of these states have been sufficiently oppressed, insulted and abused; they have hitherto submitted to your tyrannies without absolute resistance; but, if you advance beyond your parchment hostility, if you proceed to violent means in the execution of your will, the consequences may lead to a death-bed repentance. But as this is at all times seriously to be avoided, I now warn you not to push your persecution of the people to the last extremity. "You may live long enough to make the experiment;" but death is the fate of mortals. MARCUS BRUTUS.

THE CONTRAST

"Between the Death of a Deist and the Death of a Christian."

IF the temper with which some good christians enter into controversies on speculative doctrines, bore any proportion in point of modeeration, to that which is generally discovered among sceptical writers, we should stand a much better chance of discovering through the mist of errour and dispute, the great object of our enquiry. But unhappily there is a kind of intolerant zeal, and enthusiastick rage, operating in the minds of some orthodox people of really good intentions, and well

disposed views, which counteract the beneficial tendencies of their virtues, their principles, and their actions. They have such an abhorrence of heresy, that they think they can discover it on the most common occasions; and a man is almost denounced by them, as an absolute infidel, who will not fully believe the doctrine of the natural corruption of human nature, and the depravity of all actions and habits previous to conversion: who will not readily admit the necessity of special regeneration, the belief of election, and of course, everlasting punishment, by means of hell-fire. In a periodical work, published in Boston, entitled "The Panoplist," the paroxysms of zeal, which we have just referred to, are frequently very violent, and seem almost to choak the authors with their wrathful effects. Sometimes they exhibit themselves in philipicks against people "who call themselves christians;" at other times in a profuse, and we had almost said, impious use of the language of the sacred scriptures, upon trivial topicks, and an indiscriminate mixture of the inspired phraseology, with the tiresome, stale and trite expressions of the editors. A most ridiculous cant in style and sentiment, equally removed from genuine piety and good taste, affords another indication of the existence of these zealous effusions.

We are not now disposed to enter at large into the tedious and unprofitable discussion, which an examination of the general merits of this work, would necessarily produce; nor should we have been induced to notice it all, if its reputation had rested solely on its intrinsick worth: but we are induced to make a few remarks on a particular article which has attracted our attention, as well because we think its tendendency is far from being beneficial to the cause of religion, which it undertakes to espouse, as because the work which contains it, astonishing as it may seem, has a very extensive circulation. We cannot but regret that these violent overboilings of the spirit which we so peculiarly distinguish it, are likely to quench the very fire of devotion, by which they were at first set in motion.

The article to which we allude, is contained in "The Panoplist" of last November, entitled "a contrast between the death of a deist, and the death of a christian; being a succinct account of that celebrated infidel David Hume, Esq. and of that excellent minister of the Gospel, Samuel Finley, D. D. in their last moments." This contrast, however, was written, it seems by the Rev. Dr. Mason, of New-York, and published in the Christian's Magazine, from which the editors of the Panoplist have extracted it, "first, to benefit their readers," and "secondly, to make them acquainted with a periodical work," which they affirm "is edited with peculiar ability, and does honour to our country." We shall not be justly chargeable with unrelenting severity in making some animadversions on this article, as a part of the Panoplist, after the full and complete panegyrick the editors have lavished upon it, which we

think, quite sufficient to make them responsible for all the absurdities which it may be found to contain.

We would by no means be understood to step forward as vindicators of the deistical character of Hume; we trust we hold his works to be as dangerous, as the most enthusiastick bigot can imagine them to be; but we do say, that the manner of the death of that great writer, makes nothing for or against the doctrines of christianity, and that the attempt of Doctor Mason, to torture language into ambiguities of meaning to suit his purposes, is inconsistent with the dignity of the christian character, and not in any respect calculated to extend the diffusion of truth. Much less is the ridiculous account which is given of the death of Doctor Finley advantageous to the cause of religion. There is no rational man but must consider his language and conduct, in the light of incoherent jargon, and visionary delusion.

The death of Mr. Hume is related by Dr. Adam Smith, in a letter to William Strathan, Esq. in which he very plainly, and feelingly informs him of the circumstances which led to, and followed his dissolution ; of the conduct of Mr. Hume, under his disease, the cheerfulness of his deportment, his agreeable conversation with his friends; and concludes by giving an estimate of the value of his moral and intellectual character. There is nothing throughout this account, which has a tendency to prove the christian religion either better or worse; it is a mere isolated fact, and has no bearing whatever on the truth or falsehood of the religious systems in the world.

The account of Dr. Finley's decease, on the contrary, seems evidently prepared for the object, it is by no means likely to promote, a more general enthusiasm in religious opinions. The style of his conversation generally absurd, is often impious, and frequently ridiculous; and we are astonished that Dr. Mason, and the editors of the Panoplist, could not dispose of their talents in any more profitable way, than in making comparisons, which, if they have any effect whatever, are more calculated to defeat, than promote the interests which they so warmly es pouse. We have said the language of Dr. Finley was often incoherent jargon, absurd, and frequently impious and ridiculous; we think the following expressions will warrant our assertions.

Being asked by the Rev. Mr. Treat, who had visited him for the purpose of prayer, "what he should pray for," he answered, "beseech God that he would make me feel just as I did at that time when I first closed with Christ, at which time I could scarce contain myself out of heaven!"* This is absurd enough, if not impious.

One said. " you will soon be joined to a blessed society; you will ever converse with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with the spirits of just men made perfect; with old friends, and many old fashioned people."