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the untutored India us have been debased on purpose by spirituous liquors , &c , in order to obtain their property , and when they have opposed a manly but unsuccessful resistance , they have been overwhelmed by superior forces , and shot like mad dogs , and yet the perpetrators oi acts so unjust and infamous are " a
moral and enlightened nation . " Great God ! how long shall injustice go unpunished , and the indisputable rights of millions be trampled upon under the sacred names of ' liberty , " " freedom , " and " political integrity" ! Thy judgments are a great deep , and thy ways are past finding out !
Though success is not a proof of patriotism , nor failure a criterion of inferior genius , yet these have great weight even with " good men , " as well as with the world in general ; and there are few minds sufficiently strong to appreciate the moral qualities and daring energies of a hero and a patriot
independent of . success . If the names of Sir T . More , Hampden , Sidney , and Russell , ate held in veneration , there are other British heroes who have been equally as intelligent , patriotic , and virtuous , but who are not venerated by " good men , " because they failed . The halo of glory which encircles the brows of Washington , has received considerable lustre
from the success of his efforts , whilst the star of Napoleon has lost something of its well-merited radiance from a Russian winter preventing the full development of his grand designs and generous purposes in behalf of oppressed Europe .
To extol Washington for not seizing upon supreme power and trampling upon his country ' s liberties , is apetitioprincipii . Man is the creature of circumstances , and Washington , as a man , was neither infallible nor above temptation . What his views arid wishes were at the close .
of the contest , I will not pretend to say ; I trust they were as noble and patriotic as represented ; but . if they were otherwise , he could not have become either a dictator or a tyrant . The determinations of the majority of the American people , at that period , were so
decided for republicanism , that no man in his senses durst have attempted to establish royalty ; and Washington had too much regard for his fair fame to sacrifice it in a contest in which he would have infallibly lost his honour , if not his life .
In my defence of h man whom thousands have calumniated , I examined the several charges which have been urged against him , and I am replied to by a
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string of rhapsodies . He who closed the gulph of anarchy , of confusion , and of misery , in France , is represented as having " betrayed the interests of human nature ; " he who restored the unfortunate emigrants , reconciled hostile factions , repelled foreign invasions , and raised France to a point of splendour , of power , and of wealth , unknown before , has " subverted the liberties of his
country ; " he who left sovereigns o& their thrones after their various acts of opposition , sowed the seeds of civil 1 L berty , and made religious bigotry atid persecution fly before him wherever he marched , " sacrificed to false glory all the ties of domestic society , and all th& finer sympathies of their nature ; " he who gave France enlightened laws and liberal institutions , and shook the feudal
prejudices and tyrannies of ages to their foundations , " enslaved his own and other countries ; " he who freely gave millions of his own property , from the savings of his civil list , to the public cause at the period of the * distresses of Fiance , and sacrificed himself , like a celebrated king of Athens , rather thau his country should suffer , even when he had the means of continuing the contest , " is an unprincipled and selfish tyrant . " Miserable men that we are ! To whom are such incohereucies , such palpable absurdities addressed , and upon whom are they intended to operate ? " The author of them must learn that the time is gone by when declamation will pass for reasoning , or prejudice be mistaken for wisdom . " W .
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Mr . Cooke ' s Reply to Mr . Brown ' s Statement . To the Editor . Sir , Newport , May 9 , 1829 . Your Correspondent , Mr . Brown , having controverted some of my statements , I proceed , with your permission , to
substantiate them , having first premised that , in one respect , I have not been so fortunate as my opponent , having been able to find no oasis or green spot amid his misrepresentations ; indeed , as they are only different names for the same thing , if he has discerned one wiiMu the other , we may say of him ,
" None but himself can be his parallel ;' but in a follower of St . Athauasius we must excuse a little mistake on the subject of identity . I stated that « ' many of the oldest and most respectable members of the con-
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436 Miscellaneous Correspondence
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1829, page 436, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2573/page/68/
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