they were removed from their barracks, which deeply implicated in Arnold's machinations. Was were adjacent to the shore, many might seize that he to reprieve the victim, and thus sanction to his opportunity to escape. This attempt was never surrounding officers the treason of Arnold, by his afterwards renewed. On the junction of Arnold own signature, or to mitigate the severity of his with lord Cornwallis, in Virginia, the serjeant fate, and teach them by this example to hope for found means to elude the vigilance of the British mercy if detected? It is not meant to criminate lines, and to reach in safety the army of general sir Henry Clinton. Such artifices are justifiable Greene. Having been furnished by that officer in war. That he did, however, by the promulgawith the means of escaping to Washington's camp, he arrived there to the astonishment and joy of his old confederates in arms. When Washington assumed the command of the army under president Adams, he caused strict enquiry to be made for the man who had so honorably distinguished himself, intending to honor such tried fidelity with military promotion, and heard to his great sorrow that he died but a short time before, in the state of Kentucky. These facts are taken and condensed from the interesting manuscrip of major general Lee. Ann Seward, in her monody on the death of major Andre, thus speaks of the character of Washington: Oh Washington! I thought thee great and good, Each faulchion sharpen that the Britons wield, Then, when each hope of thine shall end in night, With horror shalt thou meet the fate thou gave, tion of such reports, render the death of Andre inevitable, it is conceived impossible to doubt.-The solicitude of Washington to save the life of this unfortunate man was such, that he hazarded one of the bravest of his own soldiers in the camp of the enemy, for that purpose; and nothing but a concurrence of unpropitious circumstances, that could not have been foreseen by mortal eye, or guarded against, if they could have been, prevented its accomplishment. It is a singular fact, that while the British commander was hastening the death of Andre, Washington was exerting himself to ward off that calamity. Serjeant Jasper. The following biographical sketch of serjeant Jas PER, whose name has been given to one of the counties of Georgia, in commemoration of his gallant deeds and signal services during the revolutionary war, is extracted from the second vol. of M'Call's history of Georgia. "The conduct of serjeant Jasper, meets particular notice in the history of Georgia, and his name is entitled to a page in the history of fame, while many others, high in rank, might justly be for gotten. He was a man of strong mind, but as it had not been cultivated by education, he modestly declined the acceptance of a commission, which was offered to him. At the commencement of the war, he enlisted in the second South Carolina regiment of infantry, commanded by colonel Moultrie. He distinguished himself in a particular manner, at the attack which was made upon fort Moultrie, on Sullivan's Island, on the 28th of June, 1776. In Thus does poetic petulance dispense its invec- the warmest part of that contest, the flag-staff was tive. We will now ask, who accelerated the death of severed by a cannon ball, and the flag fell to the Andre? Who made the extension of mercy toward bottom of the ditch on the outside of the works. him an act of mistaken mercy and of criminal This accident was considered by the anxious inhaindulgence? Unquestionably sir Henry Clinton? bitants in Charleston, as putting an end to the Unquestionably the man who was propagating these contest by striking the American flag to the ene false alarms of treason in the American camp. He my. The moment Jasper made the discovery that rendered this severe measure for common security the flag had fallen, he jumped from one of the perfectly indispensable, as the commander in chief embrasures, and mounted the colors, which he could not, at that time, know but what those who tied to a spunge-staff, and re-planted them on the shared his confidence the most, where the most parapet, where he supported them until another flag-staff was procured. The subsequent activity where travellers often halt to refresh themselves and enterprize of this patriot, induced colonel with a coel draught from this pure fountain. Jasper Moultrie to give him a sort of roving commission, and his companion considered this spot the most to go and come at pleasure, confident that he was favorable for their enterprize. They accordingly always usefully employed. He was privileged to passed the guard and concealed themselves near select such men from the regiment as he should the spring. When the enemy came up they halted, choose to accompany him in his enterprizes. His and only two of the guard remained with the priparties consisted generally of five or six, and he soners, while the others leaned their guns against often returned with prisoners before Moultrie was trees in a careless manner and went to the spring. apprised of his absence. Jasper was distinguished Jasper and Newton sprung from their place of for his humane treatment, when an enemy fell concealment, seized two of the muskets, and shot into his power. His ambition appears to have the sentinels. The possession of all the arms been limited to the characteristics of bravery, placed the enemy in their power, and compelled humanity and usefulness to the cause in which he them to surrender. The irons were taken off, and was engaged. When it was in his power to kill, arms put in the hands of those who had been pri but not to capture, it was his practice to permit soners, and the whole party arrived at Purysburgh a single prisoner to escape. By his cunning and the next morning and joined the American camp. enterprize, he often succeeded in the capture of There are but few instances upon record, where those who were lying in ambush for him. He personal exertions, even for self-preservation from entered the British lines, and remained several certain prospects of death, would have induced days in Savannah, in disguise, and after informing resort to an act so desperate of execution; how bimself of their strength and intentions, returned to much more laudable was this, where the spring to the American camp with useful information to his action was roused by the lamentations of a female commanding officer. In one of these excursions, unknown to the adventurers. an instance of bravery and humanity is recorded by the biographer of general Marion, which would "Subsequent to the gallant defence at Sullivan's stagger credulity, if it was not well attested. Island, colonel Moultrie's regiment was presented While he was examining the British camp at with a stand of colors by Mrs. Elliot, which she Ebenezer, all the sympathy of his heart was had richly embroidered with her own hands, and awakened by the distresses of a Mrs. Jones, whose as a reward for Jasper's particular merits, goverhusband, an American by birth, had taken the nor Rutledge presented him with a very handsome king's protection, and been confined in irons for sword. During the assault against Savannah, two deserting the royal cause, after he had taken the officers had been killed and one wounded endeavor. oath of allegiance. Her well founded belief was, ing to plant these colors upon the enemy's parapet that nothing short of the life of her husband would atone for the offence with which he was charged. Anticipating the awful scene of a beloved husband expiring upon the gibbet, had excited inexpressible emotions of grief and distraction. of the Spring hill redoubt. Just before the retreat was ordered, Jasper endeavored to replace them upon the works, and while he was in the act, received a mortal wound and fell into the ditch.— When a retreat was ordered he recollected the honorable conditions upon which the donor pre"Jasper secretly consulted with his companion, sented the colors to his regiment, and among the serjeant Newton, whose feelings for the distressed last acts of his life, succeeded in bringing them female and her child were equally excited with off. Major Horry called to see him soon after the his own, upon the practicability of releasing Jones retreat, to whom, it is said, he made the following from his impending fate. Though they were unable communication: "I have got my furlough. That to suggest a plan of operation, they were determin- sword was presented to me by governor Rutledge, ed to watch for the most favorable opportunity and for my services in the defence of fort Moultriemake the effort. The departure of Jones, and give it to my father, and tell him I have worn it several others (all in irons,) to Savannah, for trial, with honor. If he should weep, tell him his son under a guard, consisting of a serjeant, corporal, died in the hope of a better life. Tell Mrs. Elliot and eight men, was ordered upon the succeeding that I lost my life supporting the colors which she morning. Within two miles of Savannah, about presented to our regiment. If you should ever thirty yards from the main road, is a spring of fine see Jones, his wife, and son, tell them that Jasper water, surrounded by a deep and thick underwood, is gone, but that the remembrance of the battle 1 which he fought for them, brought a secret joy | defeat at Lexington, and what I never did before, to his heart when it was about to stop its motion have learnt to knit, and am now making stockings forever." He expired a few minutes after closing of American wool for my servants, and this way this sentence. do I throw in my mite to the public good. I know this, that as free I can die but once, but as a slave I shall not be worthy of life. I have the pleasure to assure you that these are the sentiments of all my sister Americans. They have sacrificed both FEMALE PATRIOTISM. From the Richmond Enquirer. The M. S. of the following interesting letter was politely forwarded to us by a gentleman of Balti-assemblies, parties of pleasure, tea drinking and more, and was found among some old papers of a distinguished lady of Philadelphia.—It is a copy of a letter from a lady of Philadelphia to a British officer at Boston, written immediately after the battle of Lexington, and previous to the declaration of independence-It fully exhibits the feelings of those times.-A finer spirit never animated the breasts of the Roman matrons, than the following letter breathes: must finery to that great spirit of patriotism, that actuates all ranks and degrees of people throughout this extensive continent. If these are the senti ments of females, what must glow in the breasts of our husbands, brothers and sons? They are as with one heart determined to die or be free. It is not a quibble in politics, a science which few understand, which we are contending for; it is this plain truth, which the most ignorant peasant knows, SIR-We received a letter from you-wherein and is clear to the weakest capacity, that no man you let Mr. S. know that you had written after the has a right to take their money without their consent. The supposition is ridiculous and absurd, battle of Lexington, particularly to me-knowing my martial spirit-that I would delight to read as none but highwaymen and robbers attempt it. the exploits of heroes. Surely, my friend, you Can you, my friend, reconcile it with your own mean the New England heroes, as they alone per- good sense, that a body of men in Great Britain, formed exploits worthy fame-while the regulars, who have little intercourse with America, and of vastly superior in numbers, were obliged to retreat course know nothing of us, nor are supposed to with a rapidity unequalled, except by the French see or feel the misery they would inflict upon us, at the battle of Minden. Indeed, general Gage shall invest themselves with a power to command gives them their due praise in his letter home, our lives and properties, at all times and in all where he says lord Percy was remarkable for his activity. You will not, I hope, take offence at any expression that, in the warmth of my heart, should escape me, when I assure you, that though we consider you as a public enemy, we regard you as a private friend; and while we detest the cause you are fighting for, we wish well to your own personal interest and safety. Thus far by way of apology. All ranks of men amongst us are in arms.As to the martial spirit you suppose me to possess, Nothing is heard now in our streets but the trumpet you are greatly mistaken. I tremble at the thoughts and drum; and the universal cry is "Americans to of war; but of all wars, a civil one: our all is at stake; and we are called upon by every tye that is dear and sacred to exert the spirit that HeaveR has given to us in this righteous struggle for liberty. I will tell you what I have done. My only bro. ther I have sent to the camp with my prayers and blessings; I hope he will not disgrace me; I am confident he will behave with honor, and emulate the great examples he has before him; and had twenty sons and brothers they should go. I have retrenched every superfluous expense in my table and family; tea I have not drank since last Christmas, nor bought a new cap or grown since your cases whatsoever? You say you are no politician. Oh, sir, it requires no Machiavelean head to developè this, and to discover this tyranny and oppression. It is written with a sun-beam. Every one will see and know it because it will make them feel, and we shall be unworthy of the blessings of Heaven, if we ever submit to it. arms." All your friends are officers: there are captain S. D. lieut. B. and captain J. S. We have five regiments in the city and county of Philadel. phia, complete in arms and uniform, and very expert at their military manœuvres. We have com. panies of light horse, light infantry, grenadiers, riflemen, and Indians, several companies of artillery, and some excellent brass cannon and field pieces. Add to this, that every county in Pennsylvania, and the Delaware government, can send two thousand men to the field. Heaven seems to smile on us, for in the memory of man never were known such quantities of flax, and sheep without number.— We are making powder fast, and do not want for ammunition. In short, we want for nothing but sagacity to determine. They affect, tis true, to ships of war to defend us, which we could procure abhor the imputation of intolerance, and applaud by making alliances: but such is our attachment to themselves for their pretended toleration and Great Britain, that we sincerely wish for recon- lenity. As contra-distinguished, indeed, from ciliation, and cannot bear the thoughts of throwing actual prohibition, a permission may doubtless be off all dependence on her, which such a step would called a toleration; for as a man is permitted to assuredly lead to. The God of mercy will, I hope, enjoy his religion under whatever penalties or open the eyes of our king that he may see, while forfeitures, he is certainly tolerated to enjoy it. in seeking our destruction, he will go near to com- But as far as he pays for such enjoyment, by sufferplete his own. It is my ardent prayer that the ing those penalties and forfeitures, he as certainly effusion of blood may be stopped. We hope yet does not enjoy it freely. On the contrary, he is to see you in this city, a friend to the liberties of America, which will give infinite satisfaction to, Your sincere friend, To captain S. in Boston. C. S. Remarks on liberty of conscience, ascribed to his excellency William Livingston, governor of New Jersey, 1778. "If, in our estimate of things, we ought to be regulated by their importance, doubtless every encroachment upon religion, of all things the most important, ought to be considered as the greatest imposition; and the unmolested exercise of it, a proportionable blessing. persecuted in the proportion that his privilege is so regulated and qualified. I call it persecution, because it is harassing mankind for their principles, and I deny that such punishments derive any sanction from law, because the consciences of men are not the objects of human legislation. And to trace this stupendous, insult on the dignity of reason to any other source than the one from which I deduced it in the preceding essay, I mean the abominable combination of KING-CRAFT and PRIESTCRAFT, (in everlasting indissoluble league to extirpate liberty, and erect on its ruins boundless and universal despotism,) would I believe puzzle the most assiduous enquirer. For what business, in the name of common sense, has the magistrate By religion, I mean an inward habitual reverence (distinctly and singly appointed for our political for, and devotedness to the Deity, with such external and temporal happiness) with our religion, which homage, either public or private, as the worshipper is to secure our happiness spiritual and eternal? believes most acceptable to him. According to this And indeed among all the absurdities chargeable definition, it is impossible for human laws to re- upon human nature, it never yet entered into the gulate religion without destroying it; for they can- thoughts of any one to confer such authority upon not compel inward religious reverence, that being another. The institution of civil society I have altogether mental and of a spiritual nature; nor pointed out as originating from the unbridled can they enforce outward religious homage, because rapaciousness of individuals, and as a necessary all such homage is either a man's own choice, and curb to prevent that violence and other inconthen it is not compelled, or it is repugnant to it,veniences to which men in a state of nature were and then it cannot be religious. exposed. But whoever fancied it a violence offered to himself, that another should enjoy his own The laws of England, indeed, do not peremptorily opinion? Or who, in a state of nature, ever deemed inhibit a man from worshipping God, according to it an inconvenience that every man should choose the dictates of his own conscience, nor positively his own religion? Did the free denizens of the constrain him to violate it, by conforming to the world, before the monstrous birth of PRIEST-CRAFT, religion of the state: But they punish him for aiding by and aided by the secular arm, ever worry doing the former, or what amounts to the same one another for not practising ridiculous rites, or thing, for omitting the latter, and consequently for disbelieving things incredible? Did men in punish him for his religion. For what are the their aboriginal condition ever suffer persecution civil disqualifications and the privation of certain for conscience sake? The most frantic enthusiast privileges he thereby incurs, but so many punish-will not pretend it. Why then should the memments? And what else is the punishment for not bers of society be supposed, on their entering into embracing the religion of others, but a punishment it, to have had in contemplation the reforming an for practising one's own? With how little pro-abuse which never existed? Or why are they priety a nation can boast of its freedom under such pretended to have invested the magistrate with restraints on religious liberty, requires no great.uthority to sway and direct their religious senti ment? In reality, such delegation of power, had countable only to the Great Searcher of hearts, it ever been made, would be a mere nullity, and whose prerogative it is to judge them.` In contrast with this spiritual tyranny, how beautiful appears our Catholic constitution in dis and claiming all jurisdiction over the souls of men, securing, by a law never to be repealed, the voluntary, unchecked moral suasion of every individual, and his own self-directed intercourse with the father of spirits, either by devout retirement or pub of conscience, and renouncing all discrimination between men on account of their sentiments about the various modes of church government, or the different LEGISLATURE OF VIRGINIA. FROM WIRT'S LIFE OF HENRY. Debate on the motion offered by Patrick Henry, esq. in the year 1775, to put the colony of Virginia in a state of defence. the compact by which it was' ceded, altogether nugatory, the rights of conscience being immutably personal and absolutely inalienable, nor can the state or community as such have any concern in the matter. For in what manner doth it affect society, which is evidently and solely instituted to prevent personal assault, the violation of property and the defamation of character; and hath not (these relic worship of his own election! How amiable the maining inviolate) any interest in the actions of plan of entrenching, with the sanction of an ordimen-how doth it, I say, affect society what prin- nance, immutable and irrevocable, the sacred rights ciples we entertain in our own minds, or in what outward form we think it best to pay our adoration to God? But to set the absurdity of the magistrate's authority to interfere in matters of religion, in the articles of their faith!” strongest light, I would fain know what religion it is that he has authority to establish? Has he a right to establish only the true religion, or is any religion true because he does not establish it? If the former, his trouble is as vain as it is arrogant, because the true religion being not of this world, On Monday the 20th of March, 1775, the conwants not the princes of this world to support it; but has in fact either languished or been adulterated vention of delegates from the several counties and If the supreme corporations of Virginia, met for the second time. wherever they meddled with it. magistrate, as such, has authority to establish any Their meeting was held in the Old Church, in the religion he thinks to be true, and the religion so town of Richmond.-Mr. Henry was a member of established is therefore right and ought to be this body also. The reader will bear in mind the embraced, it follows, since ali supreme magis-tone of the instructions given by the convention trates have the same authority, that all establish- of the preceding year, to their deputies in coned religions are equally right, and ought to be gress. He will remember that while they recite, embraced. The emperor of China, therefore, hav. with great feeling, the series of grievances under ing, as supreme magistrate in his empire, the same which the colonies had labored, and insist, with right to establish the precepts of Confucius, and firmness, on their constitutional rights, they give the Sultan in his, the imposture of Mahomet, as nevertheless the most explicit and solemn pledge bath the king of Great Britain the doctrine of of their faith and true allegiance to his majesty, Christ in his dominion, it results from these princi- king George the III. and avow their determination ples, that the religions of Confucius and Mahomet are equally true with the doctrine of our blessed Saviour and his Apostles, and equally obligatory upon the respective subjects of China and Turkey, as Christianity is on those within the British realm; a position which, I presume, the most zealous advocate for ecclesiastical domination would think it blasphemy to avow. The English ecclesiastical government, therefore, is, and all the RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS IN THE WORLD, are manifest violations of the right of private judgment in matters of religion. They are impudent outrages on common sense, in arrogating a power of controlling the devotional operations of the mind and external acts of divine homage not cognizable by any human tribunal, and for which we are ac to support him, with their lives and fortunes, in the legal exercise of all his just rights and preroga. tives. He will remember that these instructions contain also an expression of their sincere approba tion of a connection with Great Britain-and of their ardent wishes for a return of that friendly intercourse, from which this country had derived so much prosperity and happiness. These sentiments still actuated many of the leading members of the convention of 1775-they could not part with the fond hope, that those peaceful days would again return, which had shed so much light and warmth over the land; and the report of the king's gracious reception of the petition from congress, tended to cherish that hope and to render them averse to any measure of violence-but Mr. Henry saw things with a steadier eye, and a deeper insight |