right the laws of decency had some influence on their uncultivated minds; but the barbarians, or rather the savages, of Paris, have set those and all other laws human and divine, at defiance. They şeem to look upon themselves as the children of the devil, and to have assumed in virtue of their father, the right of prowling about the earth, disturbing the peace of mankind, by scattering the seeds of rebellion and bloodshed.

Their agents have long been practising their fiend-like temptations on the people of this country. They have proceeded from one degree of malice to another, till at last their late minister Adet (for whom I wish I could find a name worse than his own) makes a direct attempt to inflame the people against the government.-After telling them, that the Convention has ordered their vessels to be seized (contrary to treaty), he proceeds: " And 26 now, if the execution of these measures gives "rise to complaints in the United States, it is not against France they should be directed, but

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against those men, who have entered into nego"tiations contrary to the interests of their coun"try."-Just as if he had said, pointing to the President, the Senate and Officers of State: there they are; rise on them, cut their throats, and choose others more pliant to our will.'—His words do not amount to this, 'tis true; but in his country a hint far less intelligible, would have been perfectly undersood, and would not have failed of the desired effect. Happily he was not haranguing a Parisian mob. Whatever foolish partiality some of us may have had, and may yet have for France, nature has been so kind as not to make us Frenchmen.

The insult on the people too; the despicable opinion he must have of their understandings and their hearts, is past all bearing.-I know a little Island, which America was once proud to emu

late,

late, that would suffer itself to be sunk into the sea, rather than patiently put up with such an abominable outrage.-In the reign of Queen Anne, when a Tory Ministry, aided by an intriguing Frenchman, were treating for a separate peace with Louis XIV, the Imperial Minister, Count Gallas, in order to prepossess the people of England against the peace, caused the transaction to be published, as an article of news, in one of the daily papers. This step, though it could not be looked upon as an appeal to the people, was so much resented by the Queen, that she ordered him to quit the kingdom immediately; and in this she was supported by the unanimous voice of the nation; who, notwithstanding they disapproved of a peace which was to sacrifice the great advantages obtained by their arms under the immortal Duke of Marlborough, justly and manfully resented the attempt of a foreign minister to step in between them and their own sovereign, however blameable her measures might be.

And, shall it be said of the people of America, that they are less attached to a government of their own choosing, and that has never for a moment lost sight of their interests? No; it would be unjust to say this. The people are impatient of the insult, and their confidence in the wisdom of their chief is the only thing that could keep them pacified.

To express a hatred to the government and affect friendship for the people who live under it, and thus arraign the former at the bar of the latter, is the unbearable tone which the despots of Paris have assumed to all the nations of Europe; and at last it is come to the turn of America. They did not declare war against the Germans, the English, and the Dutch; but against the Emperor, the King of England, and the Stadtholder.

The

The Germans and the English did not believe them; they knew them of old. The Dutch sucked in the bait, and now they know them too. They have paid dearly for the fraternal hug. God send they may squeeze them to the size of shotten herrings; that they may not leave even a frog to sport in their canals; that they may eat up the very herbage, like the locusts in Egypt. These poor degraded devils, who never ceased their clamours for liberty and equality, till they had driven into exile the princely family of Orange, to whom they owed the birth and the preservation of their real liberties, their riches, and their power, are now obliged to yield their houses and even their beds to the filthy raggamuffin sans-culottes.

This may be truly called political justice, and I sincerely hope it may fall on the heads of every people capable of acting the same treacherous and dastardly part. That this part will not be acted by America I am certain, and if Citizen Adet had known the dispositions of the people, he never would have dared to hold out the temptation.

After the perfidy, injustice and malice we have been witness of, it would seem strange to hear any other than a Frenchman talking about French friendship.-I, for my part, had long wished to know in what this friendship consisted. I had often heard of it and read of it, and read about it, especially in Poor Richard's gazette; but never could discern any thing palpable in it. It all seemed to consist in negatives. It appeared something like platonic love; or like the girl that brought a fortune of twenty thousand pounds in the excellence of her disposition.-As my mind is too gross to be satisfied with this abstract kind of friendship, I was led to seek for something more solid in the Citizen's Notes. The reader will see how I was disappointed. "The alliance with America," says.

he,

he, "was always dear to Frenchmen; they have "done every thing to tighten its bands."-Just as the Jack Catch does; and we were one time actually upon the point of strangling.

"the government has sought to break them."

"But

Here's a fellow for you! They were tucking us up, and he has the conscience to blame the government for cutting the halter!-Again: "As "soon as the war broke out between France and

England, American vessels were permitted to "trade to the West Indies and France, upon the

same footing as French vessels."—All that is wanting to make this an act of friendship, is, the permission should have been granted before the war broke out. After it broke out, both the Islands and France must have starved, if an advantage had not been offered to draw American produce to them; and even this has been a losing game; for one half of this produce has never been paid for in Christian coin. So that, the great act of friendship amounts to our liberty of keeping themselves from starving and of receiving bundles of assignats as a recompense."The French government heard "the complaints of the United States, against Genet, and immediately gave the most striking repa"ration."--It was certainly very gracious in them to hear these complaints, and a very striking reparation to suffer Genet to remain here to insult the government by his presence; but, if I am not mistaken, this gracious condescension was in consequence of Genet's threatening to do of his own head, just what Adet has now done, by their order; appeal from the government to the people. Hence we must inevitably conclude, that Genet was displaced because he did not go far enough, or because he deprived them of the pleasure of dragooning us; and this I take to be no very great proof of family affection.We are now coming

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10

to the close, the very bottom of the budget of friendship; the reception of the American flag, by the Convention." What joy did not the American flag inspire, when it waved unfurled in the "French Senate! Tender tears trickled from each eye. Every one looked at it with amazement. "There, said they, is the symbol of the independ"ence of our American brethren."-Shameful farce! The flag was received as a symbol of voluntary subjection, instead of independence; and, had I been President, the Ambassador who dared to give colour to such an idea, should not have had it in his power to degrade his country a second time.

It must have been curious to see the tender tears trickling from the eyes of Robespierre and the rest of those sanguinary villains, who were daily employed in butchering the human species, tearing out their entrails, biting their hearts and lapping their gore. They wept blood instead of brine, I suppose.

When you go home, Citizen Adet, to your "terrible nation," which I hope in God will be very soon, I will send, to those of your weepers whom the justice of heaven has not yet overtaken, a copy of the Bloody Buoy: they will see something there that has drawn tears from the eyes of Americans, and that has made too deep an impression on their hearts to be worn away even by the hand of time. This compendium of tyranny, brutality, ferociousness and infamy, is read by the rising generation of America: it sinks into the inemory as the plummet into the stream, and, till the plummet shall glide along the surface like a feather, the name of French Republican will awaken the idea of all that is perfidious and bloody minded.

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