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(page 217 thru 244)
In the former chapter, some documents were introduced
to prove that the noxious weed of Illuminism
had taken root in our happy soil,
and was here diffusing a poison,
more penetrating and mortal
than that of the famous Bohan Upas.
Let us now examine the aspect of facts,
which are universally known to exist,
and observe their agreement with this hypothesis.
If all appearances harmonize with the sentiment here advanced,
and are unaccountable on every other supposition,
this will give much additional weight to the proofs already adduced.
Indeed, the evidence resulting from the existing state of things,
often impresses the mind with a conviction,
no less forcible, than the most positive testimony.
This kind of evidence, however, requires an equal balance;
its due weight can never be ascertained
where the unsteady hand of passion holds the beam,
or where prejudice possesses the scale.
Persuaded that there are many of my fellow citizens,
who are not guided by prejudice or partiality,
I would invite them to a calm and deliberate consideration
of the following queries,
founded on the state of things among us,
as they have existed, and do now exist.
1st.
Whence arises the avowed attachment
of a numerous party, in this country, to France?
Why are we constantly hearing,
that she is the only nation in whom we can repose confidence,
on whose fidelity we can rely;
the only friend of the rights of man?
Why are all her enormities so industriously palliated,
and her victories celebrated as the triumphs of righteousness?
Perhaps there has never been an instance in the history of man,
of a more sincere and disinterested friendship between two nations,
than that which once subsisted between America and France;
and I hope there is not now a citizen in the United States,
who would not feel a sincere and ardent pleasure
in the return of that nation to the paths of wisdom,
and the enjoyment of the sweets of civil and religious liberty.
But what must be in the heart of that man,
whose feelings accord with her principles,
and who is gratified with the success of her present measures?
Must not every friend to society, to order, and religion,
adopt, with respect to France, the energetic language of the Patriarch,
"O my soul, come not thou into their secret;
unto their assembly, mine honor, be not thou united?"
Whence then the charm which so strongly binds
such a numerous party in this country to France?
Is it their malicious opposition* to the Christian religion,
*
Sunday, Nov. 17, Anachatsis Cloots did homage to the Convention,
and made the following proposal.
"It is now become an acknowledged truth,
that the adversaries of religion have well deserved of mankind.
On this account, I demand, that a statue be erected
to the first abjuring priest, in the temple of reason."
The proposal of Cloots was referred to a committee, and adopted.
In the same month, on the motion of Chaumette,
which was received with applauses,
it was resolved in the Council of Paris,
1. That all the churches and temples of different religions and worship,
which are known to be in Paris, shall be instantly shut.
2.
That whatever troubles may ensue in Paris,
in consequence of religious motive,
the priests and ministers of the different religions,
shall each be particularly responsible.
3.
That every person, requiring the opening of a church, or temple,
shall be put under arrest, as a suspected person, &c. &c."
__ Kett on Prophecy, London edit. 1800, Vol. II, p. 240.
burning their bibles,*
* "What," says an intelligent American gentleman,
in a letter to his friend in Boston, dated at Havre, Nov. 24, 1793,
"What do our good folks think of dethroning God,
burning the Bible, and shutting up the churches?
Before I came here, they burnt the bible in the public square,
pulled down the images of Jesus and Mary, in the churches,
and filled the niches with those of Reason and Liberty, &c."
See Dr. Morse's Thanksgiving Sermon, 1798, p. 22.
obliterating the christian sabbath,**
**
"Oct. 25, 1793, a new calender was proposed,
and adopted by the Convention,
with a view to obliterate the remembrance,
as well as observance of that holy day,
which has been, from the earliest times,
consecrated to the exercise of public devotion.
Festivals were appointed at stated periods,
similar to those which were established in times of Idolatry,
to the Virtues, to Genius, to Labor, to Opinion, to Rewards."
Kett, Vol. II. p. 236.
See also, Residence in France, p. 270, New-York edit.
paying divine honors to imaginary deities, ***
***
"The magnificent church of St. Genevieve, at Paris,
was changed, by the National Assembly,
into a repository for the remains of their great men,
or rather into a pagan temple,
and as such was aptly distinguished by the name of the Pantheon."
[N.B. The Pantheon was a beautiful edifice at Rome,
anciently a temple, dedicated to all the Gods.]
"To this temple,
the remains of Voltaire and Rosseau were conveyed
in solemn and magnificent procession.
The bones of Voltaire were placed upon the high altar,
and incense was offered.
And when the infatuated multitude bowed down
before the relics of this arch enemy to Christ, in silent adoration,
a voice, a single voice, was heard to utter,
in a tone of agony and indignation,
these memorable words;
O God, thou wilt be revenged!
Search was immediately made for the man,
who thus dared to interrupt these rites,
and this Abdiel was, probably,
sacrificed to the fury of the multitude."
__ Kett, Vol. II. p. 233.
"Previous to the tenth day, on which a celebration was to take place,
a deputy arrived, accompanied by the female goddess;
that is (if the town itself did not produce one for the purpose)
a Roman dress, of white satin, was hired from the theatre,
with which she was invested,
her head was covered with a red cap,
ornamented with oak leaves,
one arm was reclined on a plough,
the other grasped a spear,
and her feet were supported by a globe,
and environed by mutilated emblems of feodality.
"Thus equiped, the divinity and her appendages
were borne on the shoulders of Jacobins "en bonnet rouge,"
and escorted by the national guard, mayor, judges,
and all the constituted authorities,
who, whether diverted or indignant,
were obliged to preserve a respectful gravity of exterior.
When the whole cavalcade arrived at the place appointed,
the goddess was placed on an altar erected for the occasion,
from whence she harangued the people,
who, in return, proffered their adoration,
and sung the Carmagnole,
and other republican hymns of the same kind.
They then proceeded in the same order to the principal church,
in the choir of which the same ceremonies were renewed;
a priest was procured to abjure his faith,
and avow the whole of Christianity an imposture:
and the festival concluded with the burning of prayer books,
faints, confessionals, and every thing appropriated to the use of public worship.
The greater part of the attendants looked on in silent terror and astonishment;
while others, intoxicated, or probably paid to act the scandalous farce,
danced round the flames, with an appearance of frantic and savage mirth.
It is not to be forgotten,
that representatives of the people,
often presided as the high priests of these rites;
and their official dispatches to the Convention,
in which these ceremonies were minutely described,
were always heard with bursts of applause,
and sanctioned by decrees of insertion in the Bulletin,
a kind of official newspaper,
distributed at the expense of government,
in large towns, and posted up in public places."
See Residence in France, p. 270, N.Y. ed.
and countenancing even in their National Assembly,
the most impious blasphemies against the God of Heaven? *
* Nov. 1793, the pupils of the new republican school,
of the section des Areis, appeared at the bar,
and one of them set forth,
that all religioius worship had been suppressed in his section,
even to the very idea of religion.
He added, that he and his school fellows detested God,
and that, instead of learning scripture,
they learned the declaration of rights.
The president having expressed to the deputation
the satisfaction of the Convention,
they were admitted to the honors of the sitting,
amidst the loudest applause." Kett, p. 224.
Has France recommended herself to our esteem
by those horrid murders, and scenes of carnage and blood,
which spared neither the hoary head,
the innocent supplicating female,
nor the harmless infant,
but added wanton barbarity to her pretended acts of justice; *
*"Sept. 2, 1792.
The people broke open the prison of the Abbaye,
and commenced a massacre of the prisoners.
Many had been confined on flight suspicions;
many poor priests, on no particular accusation,
but merely because they were priests.
The same horrid scenes were extended to all the prisons in Paris.
Among the unhappy victims who suffered on this occasion,
was Madame de Lamballe, whose only crime was the friendship of the queen.
She was struck on the head with the bludgeon of one assassin,
and her head separated from her body by the sabre of another.
The body, after a series of indignities, not to be related,
was trailed by the mob through the streets."
Moore's Journal, Boston edit. Vol. I. pa. 183-189.
Kett, describing the same event, says,
"Three successive nights and days,
scarcely measured their assassinations of prepared victims,
who had been, from motives of private hatred and revenge, imprisoned.
Seven thousand six hundred and five persons were inhumanely murdered,
and the assassins publicly demanded their wages.
During the short interval between these bloody scenes,
the passions of the populace were fired;
the relentless Roland had the care of the general police;
the bloody Danton was the minister of justice;
the insidious Petion was mayor of Paris,
and the treacherous Manuel was procurator of the common hall.
These magistrates were evidently,
either the authors, or the accessaries, of these massacres."
Kett, Vol. II. p. 235
"A fourth of these, our representatives,"
says the author of La Conjuration, page 160,
"ripped open the wombs of the mothers;
tore out the palpitating embryo,
to deck the point of a pike of liberty and equality."
Many instances of the like nature might be produced,
but I am not willing to torture the feelings of the reader.
and persecuted the ministers of religion with marks of peculiar rancor?*
*The commisioner Garnier wrote thus to the Convention,
on the 11th of December, 1793,
"I have caused fifty eight priests to be drowned."
The next month he writes again,
"Ninety priests have just been brought to me;
I have drowned them,
which has given me great pleasure."
"It appears that there have been two millions of persons murdered in France,
since it has called itself a republic;
among whom are reckoneed 250,000 women,
230,000 children (besides those murdered in the womb)
and 24,000 christian priests, many of them Protestants."
__ Kett, Vol. II. p. 252
The conflagration of 1820 towns, villages, and hamlets,
in one portion of its own territory;
the deliberate assassination of women and children,
by hundreds and by thousands;
the horrid pollution of female victims, expiring or expired;
and the establishment of a tan yard, under the auspices of government,
for manufacturing leather out of the skins of the murdered citizens,
are facts, which exclusively grace
the blood stained annals of the gallic republic,
and give to the revolution a dreadful pre-eminence in guilt."
__ Kett. Vol. II. p. 251.
Or are they pleased with the loose morality of France;**
**"To keep the minds of the Parisians in the fever of dissolute gaiety,
they are at more expense, from the national treasury,
for the support of the sixty theatres,
than all the pensions and honorary offices in Britain,
three times told, amount to.
Between the 10th of August, 1792, and the 1st of January, 1794,
upwards of 200 new plays were acted in the Parisian theatres.
Their immorality and their barbarism exceed all description."
__ Kett. Vol. II, p. 253
where the sacred obligations of the marriage covenant are dissolved; *
"In consequence of the decree relative to marriage,
it is calculated, that, in 1793, one hundred and fifty divorces
took place in every month in Paris."
__ Kett. Vol. II. p. 253
prostitution countenanced; **
**By a decree of the Convention, June 6, 1794, it is declared,
that there is nothing criminal in the promiscuous commerce of the sexes."
__ Kett. Vol. II. p. 217
suicide publicly applauded; **
"Beaurepaire shot himself at the surrender of Verdun.
When the news reached the National Assembly,
M. Delaunay proposed,
that his remains should be brought from St. Menebold,
and interred in a French Pantheon.
This was immediately decreed,
and an honorary inscription put on his tomb."
Moore, Vol I. p. 238.
where dissipation meets with no check,
and the endearing charities of life are extinguished? *
*
"A man, or rather a monster, named Philippe,
came to the Jacobin club, of which he was a member;
and, with a box in his hand, mounted the tribune.
Here he made a long speech on patriotism,
concluding by a declaration,
that he looked upon every one who preferred
the ties of blood and of nature, to patriotic duty,
as an aristocrat worthy of death;
and to convince them of the purity and sincerity of his own principles,
he opened the box, and held up by the grey hair,
the bloody and shrivelled heads of his father and mother,
which, said the impious wretch,
I have cut off because they obstinately persisted
in not hearing mass from a constitutional priest.
The speech of this paricide received the loudest applauses."
Le Historic du Clerge' Francois, or, History of the French Clergy, p. 328.
The following information was communicated
in a letter from a gentleman of the first respectability in Europe,
to his friend in the United States, dated Sept. 1800.
"I cannot refrain from mentioning another particular.
A Count Soden, proprietor of lands on the orders of the Black Forest,
has several small Iron Works on his estates,
which occasioned him to be continually riding from place to place,
during the stay of Jourdan's army in that country, in 1796.
He published, at Nuremburg, an account of his own observations.
He had many transactions with the different detachments
who ravaged that country, so that he was perfectly acquainted
with the state and conduct of that army.
He says, that to keep the army always in good humor,
there was a fund for a theatre,
and concerts of music, and balls, at every head-quarters,
and that a liberal allowance was granted to the officer
who took with them their wives and mistresses.
Each had as many bed-fellows as he could support by his plunder.
The ladies, of course, were the patronesses of every gaiety and elegance.
But lyin in, and particularly, nursing,
was altogether incompatible with this plan of the National Councils.
The only remedy for this, which occurred to their wisdom,
was (horresco referens !) to drown the new born infants,
--- to DROWN THEM!!
This was actually done under military escort.
A serjeant and party of soldiers accompanied the murderers,
and protected them from the peasants.
Count Soden did not see any of these sacrifices with his own eyes,
but he saw two of the innocent victims,
and he heard several of these accounts
in a way that he could not doubt of their truth.
In particular, he saw a clergyman,
at a village about 12 English miles from Nuremburg,
who being also a magistrate,
attempted to hinder the perpetration of the horrid deed.
The soldiers threw him into the river,
and fired some shots at him and at those who saved him.
He was so fortunate as to save the little innocent,
and took it to his house and provided a nurse for it.
The mother went away next day, with the rest of the party,
but staid seven weeks at a little town five miles off,
and in all that time, never once sent to inquire
whether this issue of her own blood was dead or alive.
All this is published by Count Soden,
and his name affixed as a voucher for the truth of it.
I defy the annals of human debasement to match this."
Do these persons find the traits of a great nation
in the cruel exactions practised in Holland;
in their persidious dealing with the Swiss;
or the detestable arts by which Geneva was subjugated to her will?
Has she recommended herself to Americans
by her determination to plunder us of our property?*
*See Barlow's Letter, March 1, 1798.
By her meditated attack on the southern states, **
** Harper's Address of March 2, 1799.
or by those unprovoked depredations on our commerce,
condemned by a most respectable member of their legislature,
as equally inconsistent with good faith, and sound policy?*
* Pastoret's motion in the Council of 500. 1797.
Not admitting the above as the foundation of their attachment to France,
her partisans will probably rather recur to their usual plea,
which, however destitute of substance,
has a more reputable aspect, viz. gratitude,
yes gratitude, never to be cancelled,
for her afforded protection.
It is no small trial of patience to be compelled to answer pleas,
which have no foundation in reason,
nor even in the mind of the person who makes them;
and which are brought forward merely to conceal less honorable sentiments.
It is very easy to answer in the present case,
that if gratitude is still due for assisstance,
for which the stipulated price has been paid in full,
and which was afforded, as every one must be sensible,
and as the National Assembly have acknowledged,
not from a regard to the interests of republicanism,
but from opposition to England,
this gratitude is due to the ancient,
and not to the present government of France;
and ought to lead us to deplore the fate of an unhappy king,
and not to attach us to those who,
with circumstances of needless and unfeeling cruelty,
have deprived him of his crown and life. *
* Among many instances in confirmation of this fact,
it is sufficient to observe,
"that the head of the princess Lamballe was hoisted on a pike,
and carried before the temple where the royal family were imprisoned,
and they were called to the window to see it.
A fainting fit, from hearing of the event,
fortunately saved the queen from the heart-rending sight."
See Moore's and Clery's Journals.
Or will they justify their partiality for France by the plea,
that it is a sister republic; the land of liberty?
It is styled, indeed, a republic, but in reality,
a more despotic government does not exist in Europe.
From the beginning of the revolution
the people have been the dupes of successive factious leaders,
who have misled one part by false representations,
and drove the other by terror
into a compliance with their ambitious views.
But now, their government is in theory as well as practice, despotic.
However favorable to the natural rights of men,
we may believe the several constitutions
successively adopted in the years 1791, 1793, and 1795,
to have been,
the present leaves the people but a very faint semblance
of representation or legislative power.
Are we not then warranted in presuming, that,
among the more enlightened citizens, at least,
the real grounds of attachment to France,
are different from the ostensible ones?
2d.
To what other cause, than the one here suggested,
can we ascribe that opposition
to all the leading measures of the late administration,
which has been uniformly maintained by those identical persons,
who have mainifested such a strange predilection for French politics?
The notoriety of this opposition, renders it unnecessary
to adduce any proofs of its existence.
That our rulers have committed errors, is presumable.
They were human beings, and had to explore a new, and untried path,
amidst innumerable difficulties,
without the useful aid of precedent and experience.
But were those errors such
as afforded any just pretext for the perpetual clamors,
the factions, cabals, and insurrections,
with which they have been opposed, and impeded?
Whatever may have been their errors,
the result of their measures has been
the establishment of peace with the nations of Europe;
peace with the Indians upon the principles of humanity,
and with prospects of permanency;
the preservation of our neutrality
against artful and violent attempts to involve us in European contentions;
the consolidation of our feeble union,
and the restoration of that vigor and energy
which we almost exhausted.
Our deranged financees have been reduced to a regular system,
and a revenue raised, which,
though scarcely perceived in its operation,
has been adequate to the support of government,
has answered many extraordinary demands,
and effected a considerable reduction of the public debt.
To the same judicious system, are we indebted
for the existence of a Navy,
which has enabled us to repel
many wanton encroachments on our neutral rights,
and been the principal means of our present commercial prosperity.
Favorable arrangements were also made
for the recovery of our property from the hands of spoilers;
and that this provision has not been more complete
has probably been owing to the belief
which the French government entertained
of their influence in the United States.
With great justness, President Jefferson announced, in his inaugural speech,
that our government, at the close of our late administration,
was "in the full tide of successful experiment."
I shall not attempt a further justification
of those measures which have been so severely censured.
All who have witnessed the difficulties
from which we have been extricated;
and the prosperity which has resulted to all classes of citizens,
from the measures which have been adopted and pursued,
in the two late administrations,
and yet remain unsatisfied, as to their wisdom,
I can have no hope of convincing by any arguments I can use.
It ought, however, to be remarked,
that these measures were adopted by Washington and Adams,
and warmly recommended by them,
as indispensible to the peace and prosperity of the United States,
and the perpetuity of their union and independence.
We may probably soon be called to witness
the effects of a departure from their salutary system.
To what cause then are we to attribute the opposition
which has been made to such men, and such measures;
men, who have given the most unequivocal proofs
of a wise, patriotic, and faithful adherence
to the principles of rational liberty, and the interests of America,
through scenes which try men's principles;
measures, which have procured to this country,
respectability abroad, and prosperity and strength at home?
The nature and systematic operations of this opposition
appear perfectly unaccountable and mysterious,
unless we recur to some secret influence.
This influence, moving many hidden springs,
produces those uniform effects
which are visible in all parts of our country.
And this conclusion forces itself upon our minds when we recollect,
that the class of men who raise this outcry,
and who are so extremely jealous
of any encroachments on the privileges of mankind,
are the very persons who justify
all the extravagant and tyrannical proceedings of the French government;
not excepting that arbitrary act of the directory, in 1797,
which drove into banishment, without the form of a trial,
some of the best of her legislators, and the most worthy of her citizens.
3d.
Whence is it, that this jealous concern for the liberties of America,
this nice sense of the rights of man,
(to which is ascribed the opposition to government)
originated in the southern States,
is still most prevalent there,
and is thence communicated to the eastern States?
I certainly have no disposition to foment a spirit of division,
nor would I suggest an idea detracting from
the respect due to many southern gentlemen,
whose fortunes have been devoted to the pursuits,
not of pleasure, but of the liberal arts,
and who have become blessings and ornaments to their country;
but, as an opposition in principles is known to exist,
it becomes necessary, in order to acquire just notions of liberty,
that the origin and tendency of these principles should be freely discussed.
Some observations on the subject
are evidently of importance in the present inquiry.
I must, therefore, take the liberty of asking,
if the principles, which have attached many
of the citizens of the United States to France,
and rendered them opposed to the leading measures
adopted by Washington and Adams,
flow from an enlightened spirit of freedom,
whence is it, that these sentiments are found,
originally, and principally, in the southern part of the Union?
Are the habits and manners of the people there,
more congenial to the spirit of genuine republicanism?
or are the citizens generally better informed?
Do they acquire this patriotic spirit in their elective assemblies,
where, we have been informed, by one of their own legislators,
that bludgeons are substituted for proxies,
and the arguments of the citizens acquire weight
in proportion to their bodily strength and activity?
In drawing the portrait of a true republican, would you represent him
with one hand contending for the rights of man,
and with the other holding a scourge over his trembling slaves?
It has been supposed of the first importance in republican governments,
that the lower classes of the people be well informed;
that youth be taught to subject their passions
to the dictates of reason and duty,
and be early trained to habits of virtue, industry, and economy.
But if, as has been represented,
New England be the "La Vendee of America,"
and its inhabitants aristocrats,
until they are politically regenerated by the southern states,
the above principles of education must be renounced as erroneous,
and the race ground,
and the gaming table, acknowledged the best school
for the education of republicans.
Here new paradoxes occur, and paradoxes they remain
till we recollect, that Illuminism first dawned upon the southern states;
that they formed the principal resort for European emigrants,
and there only, we discover the lodges
which derive their origin from the Grand Orient, at Paris.
Have we, then, no grounds to conclude
that these outrageous pretenders to liberty,
who "dispise government, and are not afraid
to speak evil of dignities,"
are the genuine offspring of that sect,
which we have seen alike opposed to the restraints of religion,
and the laws of society?
Why do we hear, from the same quarter,
the clergy of New England represented,
not only as useless, but a public nuisance. *
* In proof of the fact here intimated,
I beg leave to refer the reader to those newspapers
in which Washington's system of politics is condemned,
and the measures of France advocated in the gross.
I shall not undertake the defence of this order of men,
nor attempt a refutation of the various,
and very indefinite charges brought against them.
The people of New England are acquainted with their clergy,
and can judge for themselves,
whether or not they are justly censured.
One charge, however, as it is more frequently alledged,
and respects their secret intentions,
and therefore not so easily refuted,
demands more particular attention.
The charge to which I refer, is, in substance, this,
that they are unfriendly to the political interests of their country,
and the principles of the American revolution.
Is this a fact?
If it be proved, I presume it must be by the same kind of logic,
by which those who bring the charge,
attempt to prove that Washington was blind
to the interests of his country;
Adams, a monarchist;
and the citizens of New England, aristocrats.
But let us attend to facts.
It is a matter of public notoriety,
that at the time of the American revolution,
no class of men were more united,
or more active in their efforts to promote that cause.
Their public performances afford, also,
abundant proofs of their warm attachment to the French revolution,
until it became evident that the cause in which France had embarked,
was the cause of licentiousness, oppression, and atheism.
Have then these men in a body
relinquished that system of political faith,
which, at that period, they so fervently embraced?
To what probable cause,
can such a general revolution of sentiment be attributed?
Their accusers will not probably ascribe it to their ignorance,
for they likewise accuse them of meddling too much with politics;
it is therefore presumable that they have, at least,
acquired political information.
Will it be said that the prospects of ambition have led them astray?
This would be a very uncharitable supposition indeed;
for although they are men of like passions with others,
they are not, in all cases, exposed to like temptations.
Excluded, by their profession, from posts of worldly honor and profit,
they are merely spectators of the contentions of ambition.
Unless they are influenced by a patriotic concern for their countrymen,
they have no connection with government,
other than to secure for themselves the blessings of freedom,
and to transmit the precious inheritance to their posterity.
In haste to deprive them of public confidence,
their accusers have industriously, and indiscriminately
applied to the clergy here,
the charges brought against the order in Europe.
But what similarity in situation is there
between the cardinals, bishops, and lords spiritual,
of the European hierarchies, and an American clergyman,
who, by rhe scantiness of his support
is compelled to the most rigid economy,
and often to labor with his own hands,
to obtain a decent support for his dependents;
and instead of the prospect of preferment,
must consider himself fortunate if he be not dispossessed of his office,
and subjected to the inconveniences of a removal?
Their poverty, indeed, exposes them to temptations,
in point of property, should such temptations present;
but it is fortunate, with respect to this charge,
that the public measures
to which they have conscientiously given their support,
have been unfavorable to their private interests.
The duties of imposts and excise,
which are taken from the consumer,
and establishment of banks,
which has operated the greatly to advance the price of every article of life,
have reduced their means of subsistence.
This has been so obvious, that their parishioners, in general,
have felt themselves bound in justice to increase the nominal sum,
to preserve the original value of their stipends.
The clergy, alone, are excluded a share
in the increasing wealth of their country;
and were they governed by selfish motives, merely,
would be the first to oppose, rather than
the first to defend the administration.
But it has also been suggested, that, in espousing this cause,
they have meanly courted the favor of the majority.
For an answer to this charge, facts declare the truth;
for it is a known fact, that many of the clergy
have nobly maintained their sentiments,
and warned their hearers of their danger,
at the hazard of their displeasure,
and of offending particular gentlemen of influence.
The author in particular, pleases himself,
that he, at least, shall escape the charge of a time-server,
as he is weekly notified, through the medium of the Worcester Gazette,
by one high in office, that the cause he here advocates,
is fast sinking into contempt;
and that he already foresees the "downfall of Federal Clergymen."
The above observations are not so much designed
to vindicate the clerical order,
as to develope the real designs of thei calumniators.
These accusations appear as groundless as
the attachment of their authors to French politics.
It is to be presumed that they are not the real causes
of the present opposition to the clergy of New England.
No; their attachment to order,
the resistance they make to the progress of philosophism,
their exertions in defence of Christianity,
and their attempts to impress its important,
but unwelcome truths, on mankind,
constitute their real crime, in the judgment of their accusers.
Political opinions prove a convenient cover
for schemes not yet ripe for execution.
Were the enemies of religion among us to come forward unmasked,
and avow their real designs,
it would be demonstrative proof
that they had apostatized from the principles of their master;
but the disciples of Voltaire and Weishaupt
are true to their favorite maxims,
"to bind men with invisible bands.
To strike, but hide the hand."
We accordingly find those who are endeavoring
to deprive the clergy of all public confidence,
abounding in what D'Alembert calls "bows to religion."
Religion is carefully spoken of with high respect,
in those publications which denounce the body of the clergy
as hostile to the interests of their country.
"They must be gained or ruined," the reader will recollect,
is a prime maxim of the order;
but finding that the clergy of New England
will not be induced to betray their religion and country,
and consign themselves and their posterity to infamy and wretchedness,
they are unceasingly represented,
as attempting to subvert those establishments
to which they have invariably given their support,
and to annex to their office the honors and emoluments
which are peculiar to the corrupt religious establishments in Europe.
That friends to order and religion,
by a series of misrepresentations,
are led to give their support to systems,
which, if free from deception, they would detest, is not to be doubted;
but the man who approves the principles
on which the French revolution has been conducted,
and is pleased with that liberty and independence,
which have received the sanction of the National Assembly,
cannot but wish for the abolition of the Christian faith,
and whatever gives it support.
The reader will remark, that the same evidence
which proves that Illuminism, or French influence,
(for one involves the other)
has existed in America, proves that it now exists among us.
The similarity of the effect, indicates the sameness of the cause.
In 1794, we find Fauchet sketching the grievances
which excited the western insurrection.
In 1797, appeared the societies of United Irishmen.
In the same year, the American Envoys were assured,
"That it was in vain for them to think
of uniting their countrymen against France,
by exposing the unreasonableness of their demands.
You ought to know," they are told,
"that the diplomatic skill of France,
and the means she possesses in your country,
are sufficient to enable her,
with the French party in America,
to throw the blame which will attend the rupture of the negotiations,
on the federalists; and you may assure yourselves this will be done." *
* Dispatches from American Envoys, published by the Secretary of State, No. 2.
At the same period, Mr. Pinckney was told by another French negotiator,
"we know we have a very considerable party in America,
who are strongly in our interests." *
* Ibid. Exhibit A. No. 4.
Has this "French party in America," this
"very considerable party,"
on which the Directory placed so much dependence in 1797,
became entirely extinct?
Have they been in no degree active, since that period,
to excite jealousies, foment divisions,
alienate the citizens from their best friends,
to disseminate the principles of infidel philosophy,
and overturn the ancient happy establishments of our country?
If, in their attempts to deprive us of our religion,
they have not obtained an equally decided victory,
zeal has not been wanting, nor has their success been inconsiderable.
The principal bulwarks are yet safe.
Our bibles are not consigned to the flames;
nor our places of worship devoted to idolatry, and pagan rites.
The Christian sabbath, although treated with practical contempt
by some who ought to give it their firm and decided support,
is not yet abolished by law.
But many of the outworks are in the power of the enemy,
and they are daily making regular and alarming approaches.
It is not my intention, by the foregoing observations,
to implicate all those who err in their political opinions,
as engaged in the conspiracy against Christianity, and social order.
This is far from being the case;
yet I have no doubt that many persons,
who are sincere friends to religion, their country, and mankind,
are led, by a series of misrepresentations,
to give their support to systems, which,
if seen in their true nature and tendency,
would excite their abhorrence.
It is, indeed, astonishing that good characters,
real friends to Christianity,
should be so easily filled with suspicion and jealousy
towards men of established character,
for piety, talents, and patriotism,
and drawn in to aid the enemies of their religion, and their country;
and this too, by persons, whose moral and religious characters
they cannot but hold in abhorrence;
but Weishaupt himself wondered at the success of his own policy,
and in his confidential epistles, often exclaims,
"What cannot men be made to believe."
Persuaded that many are unwarily led to advocate a cause
which militates against the best interests of their country,
these historical sketches, and articles of evidence,
have been collected for their benefit;
and with the same friendly design
their calm and unprejudiced attention
is requested to the contents of the following
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