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war, and if she has a mind to come and drive off the scoundrels and British emissaries that seek to embroil the United States and France with each other, we will not fortify New York to prevent it. Let those pay the expence of fortifying who expose it to danger. The cheapest way to fortify New York, will be to banish the scoundrels that infest it. When we are a peaceable people, and mind our own business, and let other nations and governments alone, we shall not stand in need of fortifications; but when we give protection and encouragement to foreign emissaries we must expect trouble.

It is but a little time since the British Ministry sent several of its emissaries to some of the states of Germany, to carry on conspiracies against France, and when the French Government found it out they sent an armed force and seized those emissaries. Two of the English ministers resident at those German states had to fly the country. The English minister, Drake, who was at Munich, was one of them. It is not because New York is more remote from France than those states were, that conspiracies can be carried on with greater safety, or ought to be permitted. Two or three thousand French troops would soon scour New York, and carry off a cargo of conspirators. The Feds who encourage Carpenter (this emissary's name is Cullen) are cutting their own throats.

This man, Carpenter, for this is the name he goes by at present, is now a professed British emissary. He has been running over the world in quest of adventures, and he has taken up his residence at New York to carry on his treason against the peace of the United States. In the height of his folly, madness, and ignorance, he has proposed in two or three of his late papers (beginning with that of Oct. 6th) that the United Sates should join England in a war against France and Spain, and enter into an alliance with her. A man never turns a rogue but he turns a fool, and this is aiways the case with emissaries.

Does not this foolish fellow see that all those powers on the Continent of Europe that formed alliances with England have been ruined? The late coalition against France consisted of five hundred thousand men, exclusive of England, and every one of the powers concerned in that coalition has had to repent it. The Emperor of Germany is dismissed from his rank as Emperor. The Emperor of Russia has been beaten into humiliation and peace. The dominions of the house of Austria have been reduced to a narrow compass, and the remaining part obliged to pay tribute. The

King of Naples has lost his dominions. The Elector of Hanover has lost his Electorate.

These are the fruits of forming alliances with England, yet with all these examples of ruin staring us in the face, this emissary of corruption, Carpenter or Cullen, or whatever his travelling name may be, wants the United States to run their head into the fiery furnace of a war on the part of England. This emissary had better pack himself off, for we have those among us who know him.

THOMAS PAINE.

Oct. 11, 1806.

A CHALLENGE TO THE FEDERALISTS TO DECLARE THEIR PRINCIPLES.

THE old names of Whig and Tory have given place to the later names of Republicans and Federalists; by contraction Feds. The word Republican contains some meaning though not very positive, except that it is the opposite of monarchy; but the word Federalist contains none. It is merely a name without a meaning. It may apply to a gang of thieves federalized to commit robbery, or to any other kind of association. When men form themselves into political parties, it is customary with them to make a declaration of their principles. But the Feds do not declare what their principles are; from which we may infer, that either they have no principles, and are mere snarlers, or that their principles are too bad to be told. Their object, however, is to get possession of power; and their caution is to conceal the use they will make of it. Such men ought not to be trusted.

The Republicans, on the contrary, are open and frank, in declaring their principles, for they are of a nature that requires no concealment. The more they are published and understood the more they are approved.

The principles of the Republicans are to support the representative system of government, and to leave it an inheritance to their children, to cultivate peace and civil manners with all nations, as the surest means of avoiding wars, and never to embroil themselves in the wars of other nations, nor in foreign coalitions-to adjust and settle all differences

that might arise with foreign nations by explanation and negociation in preference to the sword, if it can be done-to have no more taxes than are necessary for the decent support of Government-to pay every man for his service, and to have no more servants than are wanted.

The Republicans hold, as a fixed incontrovertible principle, that sovereignty resides in the great mass of the people, and that the persons they elect are the representatives of that sovereignty itself. They know of no such thing as hereditary Government, or of men born to govern them; for, besides the injustice of it, it never can be known before they are born whether they will be wise men or fools.

The Republicans now challenge the Federalists to declare their principles. But as the Federalists have never yet done this, and most probably never will, we have a right to infer what their principles are from the conduct they have exhibited.

The Federalists opposed the suppression of the internal taxes laid on in the stupid, expensive, and unprincipled administration of John Adams; though it was at that time evident, and experience has since confirmed it for a fact, that those taxes answered no other purpose than to make offices for the maintainance of a number of their dependents at the expence of the public. From this conduct of theirs we infer, that could the Federalists get again into power, they would again load the country with internal taxes.

The Federalists, while in power, proposed and voted for a standing army, and in order to induce the country to consent to a measure so unpopular in itself, they raised and circulated the fabricated falsehood that France was going to send an army to invade the United States; and to prevent being detected in this lie, and to keep the country in ignorance, they passed a law to prohibit all commerce and intercourse with France. As the pretence for which a standing army was to be raised had no existence, not even in their own brain, for it was a wilful lie, we have a right to infer, that the object of the Federal faction in raising that army, was to overthrow the representative system of Government, and to establish a Government of war and taxes on the corrupt principles of the English Government; and that, could they get again into power, they would again attempt the same thing.

As to the inconsistencies, contradictions, and falsehoods of the Federal faction, they are too numerous to be counted. When Spain shut up the port of New Orleans, so as to ex

"clude from it the citizens of the United States, the Federal faction in Congress bellowed out for war, and the Federal papers echoed the cry. The faction, both in and out of Congress, declared New Orleans to be of such vast importance, that without it the Western States would be ruined. But mark the change! No sooner was the cession of New Orleans and the territory of Louisiana obtained by peaceable negociation, and for many times less expence than a war, with all its uncertainties of success, would have cost, than this self-same faction gave itself the lie, and represented the place as of no value. According to them, it was worth fighting for at a great expence, but not worth having quietly at a comparatively small expence. It has been said of a thief that he had rather steal a purse than find one, and the conduct of the Federalists on this occasion corresponds with that saying. But all these inconsistencies become understood, when we recollect that the leaders of the Federal faction are an English faction, and that they follow, like a satellite, the variations of their principal. Their continual aim has been and still is, to involve the United States in a war with France and Spain. This is an English scheme, and the papers of the faction give every provocation that words can give, to provoke France to hostilities. The bugbear held up by them is, that Buonaparte will attack Louisiana. This is an invention of the British emissary, Cullen, alias Carpenter, and the association of the Federalists, at least some of them, with this miserable emissary, involves their own characters in suspicion.

The Republicans, as before said, are open, bold, and candid in declaring their principles. They are no skulkers. Let, then, the Federalists declare theirs.

Oct. 17, 1806.

COMMON SENSE.

LIBERTY OF THE PRESS.

The Author of the following Paper never writes on principle without communicating to the Public something which, if not new, is told in a new way. The Liberty of the Press is a subject of the first importance. He would gratify me, and I have no doubt render an essential service to the community, by publishing at large his thoughts upon it. Cheetham, of Oct. 20, 1806.

Of the term Liberty of the Press.

THE writer of this remembers a remark made to him by Mr. Jefferson concerning the English newspapers which at that time 1787, while Mr. Jefferson was Minister at Paris, were most vulgarly abusive. The remark applies with equal force to the Federal papers of America. The remark was, that "the licentiousness of the press produces the same effect as the restraint of the press was intended to do. If the restraint, said he, was to prevent things being told, and the licentiousness of the press prevents things being believed when they are told." We have in this state an evidence of the truth of this remark. The number of Federal papers in the city and State of New-York are more than five to one to the number of Republican papers, yet the majority of the elections, go always against the Federal papers, which is demonstrative evidence that the licentiousness of those papers are destitute of credit.

Whoever has made observations on the characters of nations will find it generally true, that the manners of a nation, or of a party, can be better ascertained from the character of its press than from any other public circumstance. press is licentious, its manners are not good. lieves a common liar, or a common defamer.

If its Nobody be

Nothing is more common with printers, especially of Newspapers, than the continual cry of the Liberty of the Press, as if because they are printers they are to have more privileges than other people. As the term "Liberty of the Press" is adopted in this country without being understood I will

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