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turally progressive, and is rapidly so in matters that are

vicious.

Soon after the federal constitution arrived in England, I received a letter from a female literary correspondent (a native of New York) very well mixed with friendship, sentiment, and politics. In my answer to that letter, I permitted myself to ramble into the wilderness of imagination, and to anticipate what might hereafter be the condition of America. I had no idea that the picture I then drew was realizing so fast, and still less that Mr. Washington was hurrying it on. As the extract I allude to is congenial with the subject I am upon, I here transcribe it:

"You touch me on a very tender point, when you say, "that my friends on your side the water cannot be reconciled "to the idea of my abandoning America even for my native England. They are right. I had rather see my horse, "Button, eating the grass of Bordentown or Morrissania, "than see all the pomp and show of Europe.

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"A thousand years hence, for I must indulge a few "thoughts, perhaps in less, America may be what England 66 now is. The innocence of her character, that won the "hearts of all Nations in her favour, may sound like a romance, and her inimitable virtue as if it had never been. "The ruins of that liberty, which thousands bled to obtain, may just furnish materials for a village tale, or extort a "sigh from rustic sensibility; while the fashionable of that "day, enveloped in dissipation, shall deride the principle, "and deny the fact.

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"When we contemplate the fall of empires, and the ex"tinction of the Nations of the ancient world, we see but "little more to excite our regret than the mouldering ruins "of pompous palaces, magnificent monuments, lofty "pyramids, and walls and towers of the most costly work

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manship: but when the empire of America shall fall, "the subject for contemplative sorrow will be infinitely "greater than crumbling brass, or marble can inspire. It "will not then be said, Here stood a temple of vast anti"quity, here rose a Babel of invisible height, or there a Pa"lace of sumptuous extravagance; but, Here, ah painful "thought! the noblest work of human wisdom, the "greatest scene of human glory, the fair cause of free"dom, rose and fell: Read this, and then ask if I forget "America."

Impressed as I was, with apprehensions of this kind, I

had America constantly in my mind in all the publications I afterwards made. The First, and still more, the Second Part of the Rights of Man, bear evident marks of this watchfulness; and the Dissertation on First Principles of Government goes more directly to the point than either of the former. I now pass on to other subjects.

It will be supposed by those into whose hands this letter may fall, that I have some personal resentment against you; and I will therefore settle this point before I proceed further.

If I have any resentment, you must acknowledge that I have not been hasty in declaring it, neither would it now be declared (for what are private resentments to the public?) if the cause of it did not unite itself as well with your public as with your private character, and with the motives of your political conduct.

The part I acted in the American revolution is well known. I shall not here repeat it. I know also, that, had it not been for the aid received from France, in men, money, and ships, your cold and unmilitary conduct (as I shall shew in the course of this letter) would in all probability have lost America; at least she would not have been the independent Nation she now is. You slept away your time in the field, till the finances of the country were completely exhausted, and you have but little share in the glory of the final event. It is time, Sir, to speak the undisguised language of historical truth.

Elevated to the chair of the presidency, you assumed the merit of every thing to yourself; and the natural ingratitude of your constitution began to appear. You commenced your presidental career by encouraging and swallowing the grossest adulation; and you travelled America from one end to the other to put yourself in the way of receiving it. You have as many addresses in your chest as James the Second. As to what were your views, for if you are not great enough to have ambition you are little enough to have vanity, they cannot be directly inferred from expressions of your own; but the partizans of your politics have divulged the secret.

John Adams has said, (and John it is known was always a speller after places and offices, and never thought his little services were highly enough paid,)--John has said, that as Mr. Washington had no child, the presidency should be made hereditary in the family of Lund Washington. John might then have counted upon some sinecure for himself,

and a provision for his descendants. He did not go so far as to say also, that the vice presidency should be hereditary in the family of John Adams. He prudently left that to stand on the ground, that one good turn deserves another.*

John Adams is one of those men who never contemplated the origin of Government, or comprehended any thing of first principles. If he had, he might have seen, that the right to set up and establish hereditary Government, never did, and never can, exist in any generation at any time whatever; that it is of the nature of treason, because it is an attempt to take away the rights of all the minors living at that time, and of all succeeding generations. It is of a degree beyond common treason; it is a sin against nature. The equal rights of every generation is a fixed right in the nature of things; it belongs to the son when of age, as it belonged to the father before him. John Adams would himself deny the right that any former deceased generation could have to decree authoritatively a succession of governors over him or over his children, and yet he assumes a pretended right, treasonable as it is, of acting it himself. His ignorance is his best excuse.

John Jay has said, (and this John was always the sycophant of every thing in power, from Mr. Girard in America, to Grenville in England)-John Jay has said, that the senate should have been appointed for life. He would then have been sure of never wanting a lucrative appointment for himself, and have had no fears about impeachment. These are the disguised traitors that call themselves federalists.t

Could I have known to what degree of corruption and perfidy the administrative part of the Government of America had descended, I could have been at no loss to have understood the reservedness of Mr. Washington towards me during my imprisonment in the Luxembourg. There are cases in which silence is a loud language. I will here explain the cause of that imprisonment, and return to Mr. Washington afterwards.

In the course of that rage, terror, and suspicion, which the brutal letter of the Duke of Brunswick first started into existence in France, it happened that almost every man

*Two persons to whom John Adams said this, told me of it. The secretary of Mr. Jay was present when it was told to me.

If Mr. John Jay desires to know on what authority I say this, I will give that authority publicly when he chuses to call for it.

who was opposed to violence, or who was not violent himself, became suspected. I had constantly been opposed to every thing which was of the nature, or of the appearance of violence; but as I had always done it in a manner that shewed it to be a principle founded in my heart, and not a political manœuvre, it precluded the pretence of accusing me. I was reached, however, under another pretence.

A decree was passed to imprison all persons born in England; but as I was a member of the Convention, and had been complimented with the honorary style of citizen of France, as Mr. Washington and some other Americans have been, this decree fell short of reaching me. A motion was afterwards made and carried, supported chiefly by Bourdon de l'Oise, for expelling foreigners from the Convention. My expulsion being thus effected, the two committees of public safety and of general surety, of which Robespierre was the dictator, put me in arrestation under the former decree for imprisoning persons born in England. Having thus shewn under what pretence the imprisonment was effected, I come to speak of such parts of the case as apply between me and Mr. Washington, either as a president, or as an individual.

I have always considered that a foreigner, such as I was in fact, with respect to France, might be a member of a convention for framing a constitution, without affecting his right of citizenship, in the country to which he belongs, but not a member of a Government after a constitution is formed; and I have uniformly acted upon this distinction. To be a member of a Government requires a person being in allegiance with that Government and to the country locally. But a constitution, being a thing of principle, and not of action, and which after it is formed, is to be referred to the people for their approbation or rejection, does not require allegiance in the persons forming and proposing it; and besides this, it is only to the thing after it is formed and established, and to the country after its Governmental character is fixed by the adoption of a constitution, that the allegiance can be given. No oath of allegiance or of citizenship was required of the members who composed the Convention: there was nothing existing in form to swear allegiance to. If any such condition had been required, I could not, as a citizen of America, in fact, though citizen of France by compliment, have accepted a seat in the Con

vention.

As my citizenship in America was not altered or diminished by any thing I had done in Europe (on the contrary, it ought to have heen considered as strengthened, for it was the American principle of Government that I was endeavouring to spread in Europe), and as it is the duty of every Government to charge itself with the care of any of its citizens who may happen to fall under an arbitrary persecution abroad, (and this is also one of the reasons for which ambassadors or ministers are appointed,) it was the duty of the executive department in America, to have made, at least some enquiries about me, as soon as it heard of my imprisonment. But if this had not been the case, that Government owed it to me on every ground and principle of honour and gratitude. Mr. Washington owed it to me on every score of private acquaintance, I will not now say friendship; for it has some time been known by those who know him, that he has no friendships, that he is incapable of forming any; he can serve or desert a man, or a cause, with constitutional indifference; and it is this cold hermaphrodite faculty that imposed itself upon the world, and was credited awhile by enemies, as by friends, for prudence, moderation, and impartiality.

Soon after I was put into arrestation, and imprisonment in the Luxembourg, the Americans who were then in Paris, went in a body to the bar of the Convention to reclaim me. They were answered by the then President Vadier, who has since absconded, that I was born in England, and it was signified to them, by some of the Committee of General Surety, to whom they were referred (I have been told it was Billaud Varennes), that their reclamation of me was only the act of individuals, without any authority from the American Government.

A few days after this, all communication between persons imprisoned, and any person without the prison, was cut off by an order of the police. I neither saw nor heard from any body for six months; and the only hope that remained to me was, that a new Minister would arrive from America to supersede Morris, and that he would be authorized to inquire into the cause of my imprisonment; but even this hope, in the state to which matters were daily arriving, was too remote to have any consolatory effect, and I contented myself with the thought that I might be remembered when it would be too late. There is, perhaps, no condition from which a man, conscious of his own uprightness,

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