perfonal imprisonment! If the laft were adopted, the ftipulation would become nugatory; and, by depriving those who are the subjects of it of the protection of Government, it would amount to a virtual confiscation and banishment; for they could not have the benefit of the laws against thofe who fhould be aggreffors.

"Should it be faid that they may receive protection" without being admitted to a full enjoyment of the privileges of citizens; this must be either a matter of right under the treaty, or matter of grace in the Government. If the latter, the Government may refuse it, and then the objection prefents itself, that the treaty would by this conftruction be virtually defeated; if matter of right, then it follows that more is intended by the word liberty, than a mere exemption from imprisonment, and where fhall the line be drawn-not a capricious and arbitrary line, but onc warranted by rational and legal conftruction?

"There is a very fimple and conclufive point of view in which this fubject may be placed. No citizen can be deprived of any right which the citizens. in general are entitled to, unlefs forfeited by fome offence. It has been feen that the regular and conftitutional mode of afcertaining whether this forfeiture has been incurred, is by legal procefs, trial, and conviction. This ex vi termini fuppofes profecution. Now, confiftent with the treaty, there can be no future profecution for any thing done on account of the war. Can we then do by act of Legislature, what the treaty difables us from doing by due courfe of law? This would be to imitate the Roman General, who having promised Antiochus to restore half his veffels, caufed them to be fawed in two before their delivery; or the Platææ, who having promised the Thebans to reftore their prifoners, had them firft put to death, and returned them dead.

"Such

"Such fraudulent fubterfuges are juftly confidered more odious than an open and avowed violation of treaty.

"The uti poffidetis, each party to hold what it poffeffes, is the point from which nations fet out in framing a treaty of peace; if one fide gives up a part of its acquifitions, the other fide renders an equivalent in fome other way. What is the equivalent given to Great Britain for all the important conceffions she has made? She has given up the capital of this State, and its large dependencies. She is to furrender our immenfely valuable pofts on the frontier, and to yield to us a vaft tract of western territory, with one half of the lakes, by which we fhall command almost the whole fur trade; the renounces to us her claim to the navigation of the Miffiffippi, and admits us a fhare in the fisheries, even on better terms than we formerly enjoyed it. As fhe was in poffeffion by right of war of all these objects, whatever may have been our original pretenfions to them, they are by the laws of nations to be confidered as fo much given up on her part; and what do we give in return? We ftipulate that there fhall be no future injury to her adherents among us. How infignificant the equivalent in comparison with the acquifition! A man of fenfe would be afhamed to compare them: a man of honefty, not intoxicated with paffion, would blush to lifp a queftion of the obligation to obferve the ftipulation on our part.

"Suppofe Great Britain fhould be induced to refufe a further compliance with the treaty, in confequence of a breach of it on our part, what fituation fhould we be in? Can we renew the war to compel a compliance? We know, and all the world knows, it

*The English reader fhould pay great attention to paffages like this.

is out of our power. Will thofe who have heretofore affifted us, take our part? Their affairs require peace as well as ours, and they will not think themfelves bound to undertake an unjuft war, to regain to us rights which we have forfeited by a childish levity, and a wanton contempt of public faith *"

Notwithstanding,

* It is, indeed, very true, that it was out of the power of America and her allies, to renew the conteft; and it is not lefs true, that it was out of their power to have continued the conteft. At the very moment when GENERAL CONWAY'S [a General indeed!] motion paffed the House of Commons; at the very moment when his Majefty was thus compelled to act upon the defenfive against his rebel fubjects; at that moment, the army which lay at New-York, placed under proper commanders, and two millions of money, in honeft hands, would have re-eftablished his authority from New-Hampshire to Georgia.

Under the conviction of these truths, we angrily afk, why was peace made on fuch terms? It was unaccountable at the time; but, latterly, facts have leaked out, that, by little and little, explain the mystery. DOCTOR PRIESTLEY, in the fummer of 1799, publifhed ten letters to his neighbours, the inhabitants of Northumberland, in the State of Pennsylvania. These Letters, which MR. JOHNSON, of St. Paul's Churchyard, has taken good care not to republifh, contain many precious confeffions, amongst which is the following, which certainly throws great light on a very dark tranfaction:

;

"From the commencement of the American war I wished for the "independence of this country, being firmly perfuaded that it would "be for the real advantage of England, as well as of these States "and this is now, I believe, almoft univerfally acknowledged to "be the cafe. I am equally well perfuaded that it would be for "the benefit of the people of England (I do not fay for the glory "of the Monarch) to have nothing to do with the dominion of "the Eaft or the Weft Indies. I once mentioned this opinion to "Sir George Saville, adding, that it would have been much better

for England never to have had the poffeffion of Gibraltar, and "that it would be good policy to give it up. He said that he had often thought fo too, but that the opinion was fo unpopular that he had not dared to avow it.

"The late Lord Chatham was fond of foreign poffeffions. He was much againft granting abfolute independence to America, "which he faid was the faireft jewel in the crown of the British "Monarch; and his opinion had for fome time great weight with

"the

Notwithstanding, however, that the Legislature of New-York was prevented, by exertions like

thofe

"the Marquis of LANSDOWN, then LORD SHELBURNE. On this "DR. PRICE, who thought as I did on the fubject, agreed with me to write our thoughts feparately on the tubject, and prefent "them to his Lordfhip. We did fo, and fome time after he told 66 me that he had shown my paper to Lord Chatham, but that "he was much offended at it. At the conclufion of the war, how66 ever, the Marquis made no difficulty of granting what he thought not only neceffary, but advantageous to his country, of which "he was then Prime Minifter. Had he continued fo to this day, his liberal and enlightened policy would have faved England, "and all Europe, the horrors of the present most ruinous and im "politic war." Letter V. p. 25.

Here we have a peep behind the curtain. We fee the wires, and obferve their motion. The famous patriot Whig, Sir GEORGE SAVILLE, is here seen in a state of perfect nudity, and the influ ence of the two Sectarian Priests is fully expofed. Had the Doctor confined himself to the independence of the United States, commercial avarice and blindness might have joined in his opinion; but, by making his principle general, by applying it to the Eaft and West Indies, he has, I imagine, deprived himself of all hope of approbation, even from the city of London, whofe regard for the glory of the Monarch" is not much greater than his own.The Doctor and his friends, frem lopping off the East and Weft Indies, and Gibraltar, would, doubtlefs, go to Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, taking Bermuda, Newfoundland, and other like excrefcences, in their way. Having finished their work at a distance, they would come nearer home, where they would prune away Jersey, Guernsey, and Alderney; where, failing round St. George's Channel, they would chop off, en passant, the islands of Wight and Anglefea. The Wefiern lands would require but a flight back-handed ftroke, from which they would raise their axe to hew away Ireland; and thus would they leave us a nice, fnug, compact little nation, entirely unenvied and almost

unknown.

66

It is not true, that the granting of the independence of America was an advantage to England." It was, on the contrary, the greatest evil that ever befell her. It was the primary cause of the prefent war, and of all the calamities which it has brought upon England and upon Europe. If England and the American States had continued united, they would have prevented France from difturbing the peace of the world. That fatal measure, though it has not curtailed our commerce, has created a power who will be capable of affifting France in any of her future projects against us, and whofe neutrality, when France recovers her marine, must be

purchased

thofe of Mr. Hamilton, from purfuing their oppofition to the treaty to the full extent of the wishes of the Whigs, the treaty was violated in that State and in all the others. It was evaded by the most base of fubterfuges. The loyalitis were profecuted and per fecuted, and, in fome inftances, killed *: they were loaded with double taxes, and numerous other vexatious impofitions, and were, in fact, haraffed full as much, if not more, than they would have been if the Congrefs had entered into no ftipulation in their favour.

Thefe proceedings did infinite injury to the nation in general, who were thereby exhibited to foreigners in the light of a people defiitute of government, on whofe engagements, of courfe, no dependance could be placed. Hence arose an univerfal ftagnation of trade and commerce, and all the difcontents with which fuch a flagnation is ever accompanied. The morals of the people too were greatly relaxed, particularly in regard to the payment of debts, and generally in all thofe tranfactions which furnith opportunities for the difplay of honefty or of fraud. The Congress and the State Governments had fet the example of confifcation and of paper-fwindling,

purchased by us at the expenfe, first of commercial conceffions, and, finally, by much more important facrifices. In fhort, it laid the foundation of the ruin of the British empire, which can be prevented by nothing but a wifdom and an energy, which have never yet marked the councils of our Government, in its tranfactions. with the American States.

* Mr. Love, a loyal native of South Carolina, having returned to that State in the year 1784, was taken up by a Juftice of the Peace, and was brought to trial: he was difcharged upon motion made in virtue of the treaty of peace. A gang of the Whigs, whom Judge Burke (in his account of the matter) defcribes as being refpectable for character and fervices," feized him after he was difcharged, mounted him upon a horfe, led him to the skirt of a wood, where they fastened a rope round his neck, which they tied to the limb of a tree, and drove the horfe from under him! Such is the juftice and mercy of Whiggifm!

3

which