and hectoring threats, are not the effusions of a paragraphist or a pamphleteer: they are the official communications of a public minister, thrown in the teeth of the nation. In less than two months they will be read and commented on by half the civilized world. Those who know the American character will not be deceived; but far the greater part, will set us down as a nation of sharpers or poltroons, who have either not honesty to support our reputation, or not courage to defend it. If there be a man, who, with this reflection on his mind, can wish the government to stoop, and cringe, and sue and beg for peace, to court a repetition of the buffet that yet tingles in our cheek, he may boast about independence, he may even call himself a patriot; but his independence is an empty sound, and he knows no more of the animating glow of patriotism, where affection, duty and honour unite, than the slave knows of the charms of liberty, or the eunuch of the sweets of love.-No; the answer of every man, who loves his country and feels the insult it has received, yet prefers the blessings of honourable peace to the inevitable calamities of war, is, in the words of a good old English king that conquered France and all that France contained:

"The sum of all our answer is but this:
"We would not seek a battle as we are ;
"Yet, as we are, we say we will not shun it:
"And so go tell your masters, Frenchman."

END OF POLITICAL CENSOR. NO. VI.

THE

POLITICAL

CENSO R.

No. VII.

1

REMARKS

ON THE

DEBATES IN CONGRESS,

DURING THE SESSIONS, BEGUN ON THE FIFTH OF DECEMBER, 1796.

5th DECEMBER.

THIS HIS day the Congress met, and a quorum being formed, it was agreed, on the 6th, to inform the President that the two Houses were ready to receive such communications as he might have to make to them.

7th DECEMBER.

The President went to the Representatives' chamber in the usual manner, where the two Houses being assembled, he delivered the following address.

Fellow Citizens of the Senate, and of the House

of Representatives,

IN recurring to the internal situation of our country since 1 had last the pleasure to address you, I find ample reason. for a renewed expression of that gratitude to the Ruler of the Universe, which a continued series of prosperity has so often and so justly called forth.

The acts of the last session, which required special arrangements, have been, as far as circumstances would admit, carried into operation.

Measures calculated to ensure a continuance of the friendship of the Indians, and to preserve peace along the extent

T 4

our