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basement, we fear, beyond the power of any recuperative energy to enable us to repass.

The" pacifick wisdom" of which you speak may be inherent in our government; but we are not able to discover any thing in what you are pleased to term so, but hostility without power, and the puny efforts of legal restraint against physical ability. Do you call our insisting on the universal immunity of the American flag in merchants' ships, * pacifick wisdom?" was the non importation law pacifick wisdom ?” or is the far famed Embargo policy, so powerfully coercing foreign nations, pacifick wisdom ?? It is wisdom' indeed, corresponding to the character of Mr. Jefferson's philosophick policy; he affirms it to be coercive, and must therefore be much obliged to your honour for denominating it pacifick.

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But under all the unprecedented circumstances of difficulty which the national government was placed, the Embargo was a necessary measure; and therefore because it has passed into a law we have no right to complain. If it be unconstitutional ‘it is a question no longer open to controversy or opposition;' if it be proved ineffectual it is notwithstanding a measure necessary to coerce foreign nations, and therefore an end must be put to debate ;' if the privations and sufferings of the people, in consequence of it, are notorious to our rulers,' if our property is seized at the point of the bayonet, if our houses are searched, and our persons imprisoned, at the beck of a mere dreg of society in order to execute this law, we are told that our protests, our petitions, and our remonstrances will be of no avail; 'what!' you observe, would you wish to see our peace, liberty, and social happiness at the feet of a party? If this law is thus ineffectual, tyrannical, unconstitutional and oppressive, it is in vain for your honour to refer to our liberty, social happiness or peace; they are long ago extinguished.

The strain of triumph, in which your Honour enquire for the causes of the regretted indiscretions, suddenness and individual rashness, that have denounced our national government, and wounded our own; and the jealousy, distrust, altercation and bitter aspersion of some of our best citizens,' would naturally lead us to im agine that you had proved the propriety of relinquishing all complaint of existing evils, in the exultations of general happiness. But, sir, what have you proved? You admit that the forbearance and pacifick policy of the administration have been no security' to us against belligerent aggression, and yet you vindicate the continuance of measures so ineffectual. The ship owners and the New-England states may have been the greatest sufferers, you observe; and the Embargo, you admit, is unequal in its operation at home, and ineffectual abroad; and do you any longer wonder at the writhing of wounded patriotism, and the cries of calamitous distress? But we understand you, sir, the government must be supported in any system of measures however ruinous,

because it happens to be law. And even when law becomes oppressive, when liberty becomes restraint, when property becomes uncertain, and when innocence is no protection, the people of this country have no right to complain: our rulers in Washington have a fatherly care over us, and though chains are riveting upon our necks, and the poison of injustice is rankling in our veins, our pulsation must remain equable, and we must not so mush as heave one sigh, nor groan, nor expostulation. 'This sir, we deem no less than an attempt to deride our distress at the expense of our understandings. If the people are to be cajoled out of their rights, let it be done under some appearance of argument. Cover the dagger which threatens us with the mantle of publick good; but do not betray the malicious grin of triumphant despotism, when you prostrate our liberty in the dust. If the administration have involved themselves in a toil, their convulsions to escape may destroy the individuals which surround them: let them candidly acknowledge the errour of their policy, let them admit that theory has deluded them like children; but do not let them add insult to injury, and declare to the people, through your honour, that their calamity is no cause of complaint. But, sir, if such is your determination, this legislature will not answer for the consequences; the good sense of the people already begins to be roused, by an unprecedented measure of danger to the state; it cannot much longer be deceived; and when they are once convinced of perfidy in the cabinet at Washington, who will dare to assign other limits to their resistance, than the extent of their power?"

MORE OF THE " CONTRAST."

MESSRS. EDITORS,

AFTER reading your late Remarks on Dr. Mason's 'Contrast between the death of a Deist and the death of a Christian,' my curiosity was strongly excited to read the whole of that article. I accordingly purchased the Panoplist for November, and sat down to read it. My eyes could hardly keep pace with my astonishment. What could induce Dr. Mason to publish a 'Contrast' between the deaths of Hume and Finley, when, notwithstanding his own remarks and inferences, every line of the Contrast is an argument against the cause which he has undertaken to support? Suppose Dr. Finley did wish to feel just as he did when he first closed with Christ?' or that he had assurance of the 'politeness of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ? or that he wished for a substitute to take care of the cause of religion in this world, when he was about to leave it? What is this to the by-standers or any body

else? Does it prove that the Christian religion is truth, and Deism a lie? I cannot see that it proves any such thing. But the whole story proves, incontestibly, that David Hume died with a composure and serenity, becoming a man who had nothing to fear beyond the grave; and that Samuel Finley died either insane, or felt much regret for the past, and more anxiety for the future.

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From an attentive perusal of the 'Contrast,' I am convinced that it is calculated to do more hurt than good, by exhibiting the 'Deist' dying like a man, and the Christian' like a lunatick or a fool. I ask a gain, What could induce Dr. Mason to injure the cause, he pretends so warmly to have espoused? I must believe he is not the author of the 'Contrast-he has probably been imposed upon by some diabolical evil-minded infidel, some wolf in sheep's clothing, who wrote the Contrast' and procured its insertion in the Christian Magazine, before the Doctor had thoroughly examined it. Dr. Mason will not be under very great obligations to the Panoplist editors, for asserting, in such unqualified terms, that it is from his pen. I think they ought, in justice to the Doctor, and the cause of religion, to contradict the assertion immediately, that the vindication may tread upon the heels of the calumny.

Yours, &c.

B.

POETRY.

IT has been our earnest desire, in the poetical branch of this publication, to inculcate something which may have a tendency to benefit the community. A pretty thought, prettily expressed, will not of itself have attraction sufficient for our views; the thought must have an application to something tangible or useful, and the expression will then be brought into consideration. The periodical works in this country have been extremely general in the application of their poetry; and one article may be supposed to enforce a moral, which a subsequent one as certainly may refute. It has been immaterial to the compilers, so long as the lines contained a regular chime, or the diction was happy or chaste, whether the whole of their compilation had any tendency at all. Now we cannot discover why poetry may not be made conducive to beneficial purposes, as well as prose; why the soaring imagination may not be guided in its excursions, as well as the regular step of vulgar reason. If we cannot always succeed in procuring such productions as may have the most powerful influence on society, we trust we never shall introduce any thing which has not some. The Ode Vol. 1.

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which follows, was written by the unfortunate Chatterton; it is not complete. Though we cannot but' censure the infidelity of his tenets, we at the same time must fully concur with him, in viewing the religious hypocrite with execration, when he 'preaches heaven with a downward eye, which turns his soul to dross ;' and we confess ourselves as ready and willing as he was, to raise our tongue against him, • until our eyelids can no longer wag;' 'Oh! 'tis glorious mischief, when vice turns holy and puts religion on." Is it asked of what use it is in this country, to expose a vice which does not exist; at least, to the extent in which the satire understands it? We would only refer our enquirers to the disgraceful camp-meetings, the midnight lovefeasts and lectures, which have so general a prevalence throughout New-England. Let them visit such scènes, and they will no longer doubt the existence of the most consummate hypocrisy, and daring vice; more, much more than sufficient to warrant severer satire than the succeeding Ode conveys.

ODE.

RECITATIVE.

IN his wooden Palace jumping,
Tearing, sweating, bawling, thumping,
Repent, repent, repent,
The mighty Whitfield cries,
Oblique lightning in his eyes;

Or die and be damn'd! all around,

The long-ear'd rabble grunt in dismal sound,
Repent, repent, repent,

Each concave mouth replies.

The comet of Gospel, the lanthorn of Light,
Is rising and shining
Like candles at night;
He shakes his ears,

He jumps, he starts;

Hark! he's whining,

The short-hand saints prepare to write,

And high they mount their ears.

AIR.

Now the devil take ye all;

Saints or no saints, all in a lump;

Here must I labour and bawl,
And thump, and thump, and thump,
And never a souse to be got,

Unless I swear by jingo,

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He's now an old woman, who talks to her cat :
Again he starts, he beats his breast,

He rolls his eye, erects his chest ;
Hark! hark! the sound begins,
"Tis a bargain, and sale for remission of sins.

AIR.

Say, beloved congregation,

In the hour of tribulation,
Did the power of man affray me?
I have labour'd-pay me-pay me!
I have given absolution,

Don't withhold your contribution,
Men and angels should obey me-
Give but freely, you've remission
For all sins without condition;

RECITATIVE.

Again he's lost, again he chatters
Of lace and bobbin, and such matters.
A thickening vapour swells-
Of Adam's fall he tells;

Dark as twice ten thousand hells,
Is the gibberish which he spatters.

Now a most dismal elegy he sings;

Groans, doleful groans are heard about,
The Issacharian rout

Swell the sharp howl, and loud the sorrow rings.

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