REPRIMAND TO JAMES CHEETHAM.

IF James Cheetham, editor of the New-York American Citizen, thinks to draw me into a controversy with him, he is greatly mistaken. In the first place, I hold him too cheap; and his well known character for abuse and black-guarding, renders any altercation with him dishonourable; and besides this, it would take up too much of my time to put his blunders to rights. He cannot write without blundering, neither can he write truth, of which I will give another instance.

He quotes the following paragraph from the first part of Rights of Man, and then grounds a false assertion upon it.

"Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself, in all cases, as the ages and generations that preceded it. The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave, is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies. Man has no property in man, neither has one generation a property in the generation that is to follow."

Mr. Cheetham having made this short quotation, says, "Mr. Paine here and there glances at the absurdity of hereditary government, but the passage just quoted is the only attempt at argument against it contained in the Rights of Man."

Is James Cheetham an idiot, or has the envy and malignity of his mind possessed him with a spirit of wilful lying?

The short passage he has quoted, (which is taken from the middle of a paragraph,) is on the third, and in some editions on the fourth page of the first part of Rights of Man. It contains a general principle, on which the arguments and statements against hereditary succession are founded in the progress of that work.

If Mr. Cheetham had looked further into the work, Rights of Man, he would have come to a paragraph ending with the

expression, "Hereditary succession cannot be established as a legal thing." The work then goes on to say,

“In order to arrive at a more perfect decision on this head, (that is, that hereditary succession cannot be established as a legal thing,) it is proper to consider the generation which undertakes to establish a family with hereditary powers, apart and separate from the generations which are to follow, and also to consider the character in which that generation acts with respect to succeeding generations.

"The generation which selects a person and puts him at the head of its government with the title of king, or any other distinction, acts its own choice, be it wise or foolish, as a free agent for itself. The person so set up is not hereditary, but selected and appointed, and the generation which sets him up do not live under an hereditary government, but under a government of its own choice and establishment. Were the generation which sets him up, and the person so set up, to live forever, it never could become hereditary succession; and, of consequence, hereditary succession can only take place on the death of the first parties.

"As, therefore, hereditary succession is out of the question with respect to the first generation, we have now to consider the character in which that generation acts with respect to the commencing generation, and to all succeeding ones.

"It assumes a character to which it has neither right nor title. It changes itself from a legislator to a testator, and affects to make its will, which is to have operation after the demise of the makers, to bequeath the government; and it not only attempts to bequeath, but to establish over the succeeding generation a new and different form of government from that under which itself lived. Itself, as already observed, lived not under a hereditary government, but under a government of its own choice and establishment, and it now attempts, by virtue of a will and testament, which it has not authority to make, to take from the commencing generation, and all succeeding ones, the right and free agency by which itself acted."

Now, without giving any further extracts from the work, Rights of Man, on the subject of hereditary succession, what is here given ought to cover James Cheetham with shame for VOL. II. 63

the falsehood he has advanced. But as a man who has no sense of honour, has no sense of shame, Mr. Cheetham will be able to read this with an unblushing front.

Several writers before Locke had remarked on the absurdity of hereditary succession, but there they stopped. Buchanan, a Scots historian, who lived more than a hundred years before Locke, reproaches Malcomb II. king of Scotland, and his father, Kenethus, for making the crown of Scotland hereditary in his family, "by which means," says Buchanan, "the kingdom must frequently be possessed by a child or a fool; whereas before, the Scots used to make choice of that prince of the royal family that was best qualified to govern and protect his people."

But I know of no author, nor of any work, before Common Sense and Rights of Man appeared, that has attacked and exposed hereditary succession on the ground of illegality, which is the strongest of all grounds to attack it upon; for if the right to set it up do not exist, and that it does not is certain, because it is establishing a form of government, not for themselves, but for a future race of people, all discussion upon the subject ends at once. But James Cheetham has not sense enough to see this.

He has got something in his head about Locke, and he keeps it there, for he does not give a single quotation from him to support the random assertion he makes concerning Locke.

"It is to Locke in particular, (says Cheetham,) who wrote his incomparable essay on government in 1689, that we are almost wholly indebted for those political lights which conducted us to our revolution."

This is both libellous and false. The revolutionary contest began in an opposition to the assumed right of the British par liament "to bind America in all cases whatsoever," and there can be nothing in Locke, who wrote in 1689, that can have reference to such a case. The tax upon tea, which brought on hostilities, was an experiment on the part of the British government to enforce the practice of that assumed right, which was called the declaratory act. James Cheetham talks of times and circumstances he knows nothing of, for he did not come here till several years after the war; yet in speaking of the

revolution, he uses the words we, and us, and our revolution. It is common in England, in ridiculing self-conceited importance, to say, What a long tail our cat has got!

The people of America, in conducting their revolution, learned nothing from Locke; nor was his name, or his work, ever mentioned during the revolution, that I know of. The case America was in was a new one, without any former example, and the people had to find their way as well as they could by the lights that arose among themselves, of which I can honestly and proudly say, I did my part. Locke was employed by the first settlers of South Carolina to draw up a form of government for that province, but it was such an inconsistent aristocratical thing, that it was rejected. Perhaps Mr. Cheetham does not know of this, but he may know it if he will inquire.

Mr. Cheetham hypocritically says, "I advise Mr. Paine, as a friend, to write no more."

In return for this civility in words, I will inform him of something for his good, which is, that he has been going down. hill in the opinion of the Republicans for a long time past. Good principles will defend themselves; but the abuse and scurrility in Cheetham's paper has given very general offence to his subscribers. Another complaint is, that his paper is not a newspaper. It does not give the news from Europe till it becomes old in every other paper. There are, perhaps, two causes for this: as a John Bull, he does not like the news from Europe; and as a dabbler in scribbling, he prefers filling his paper with his own stuff.

It is probable he will be called upon, to explain on what ground of compromise (for it has the appearance of a compromise) the intimacy between him and the anglo Irish emissary Cullen, alias Carpenter, began and continued. He is now giving symptoms of becoming a successor of Cullen, as Cullen was the successor of Cobbet. As there is now a well-conducted Republican paper established in New-York, (the Public Advertiser,) Mr. Cheetham cannot have the same range for his scurrility he had before.

Sept. 5, 1807.

THOMAS PAINE.

CHEETHAM AND HIS TORY PAPER.

CHEETHAM is frequently giving symptoms of being the st.ccessor of Cullen, alias Carpenter, as Cullen was the successor of Cobbet, alias Porcupine. Like him, he is seeking to involve the United States in a quarrel with France for the benefit of England.

In his paper of Tuesday, Sept. 22, he has a long abusive piece against France, under the title of "Remarks" on the speech of the Arch Chancellor of France to the French Senate. This is a matter that Cheetham, as an adopted American citizen, has no business with; and as a John Bull it is impertinence in him to come here to spit out his venom against France. But Cheetham cannot live without quarrelling, nor write without abuse. He is a disgrace to the Republicans, whose principle is to live in peace and friendship with all nations, and not to interfere in the domestic concerns of any.

Cheetham seems to regret that peace is made on the continent of Europe, and he shows his spleen against it by the following roundabout scurrilous paragraph.

"The people of France (says he) now breathe the air of peace, under slavery, closer, more systematic, military and uni versal, (Cheetham knows nothing about it,) than that with which they were overwhelmed previous to the beginning of the long continued calamity." This is spoken exactly in the character of a stupid prejudiced John Bull, who, shut up in his island, and ignorant of the world, supposes all nations slaves but themselves; whereas those at a distance can see, that of all people enslaved by their own governments, none are so much so as the people of England. Had Cheetham staid in England till this time, he would have had to shoulder a musket, and this would have been dreadful to him, for, as all bullies are cow

This piece was the cause of a duel between Cheetham and Franks.