one fourth, and therefore the present population of the state of New-York is, Ditto of Pennsylvania, Ditto of New-Jersey, 732,560 753,181 264,648 And the total population of all the states is, 6,637,197 To find what portion of 12,000,000 is paid by the state of New-York, say, as 6,637,197, the total population, is to 12,000,000, so is 732,560, the population of New-York, to the portion it pays of that sum, and Pennsylvania pays 37,317 more impost revenue than the state of New-York pays. But the case with New-York is, that she exports and imports for a large part of the southern states, and also for a part of the eastern states, and this increases her collection of impost revenue to more than three times the amount of what she pays herself. It is this that enables her merchants, many of which are British or British agents, to carry on trade. They sell imported articles to other states with the impost duty upon them, and receive that impost duty either in money or in produce, time enough to make a second voyage with it before they pay it into the treasury of the United States. The capitals of those merchants are made up, in a great nieasure, of the impost revenue that rests in their hands. It is by the blunders of such men as Mr. Hale, who belongs to the Federal faction of blundering politicians, that matters of this kind are brought to light. The blunders of one man often serve to suggest ideas to another man. The impost revenue collected at the port of New-York is estimated at more than 4,000,000 dollars, about 3,000,000 dollars of which is drawn from other states, and the remaining 1,324,426 is paid by the population of New-York, which, as before said, is 37,317 less than is paid by Pennsylvania. Mr. Hale's proposal is, to demand of the government of the United States the appropriation of a sum equal to the impost revenue of the port of New-York; as if all the impost revenue collected there was paid by the state. I have now placed be. fore his eyes the folly as well as the injustice of his proposal, and I have also done it to prevent other people being imposed upon by such absurdities. Mr. Hale concludes his string of resolutions with the fol lowing: 66 · Resolved, As the sense of this Legislature, that no nation, however enlightened, populous, or enterprising it may be, can maintain a respectable standing as a commercial nation, without the protection and support of a respectable navy." In the first place, this resolve is conceived in ignorance and founded on a falsehood. Hamburgh has carried on a greater commerce than any town or city in the European continent, Amsterdam excepted, and yet Hamburgh has not a single vessel of war; and on the other hand, England, with a navy of nearly one hundred and forty sail of the line, besides frigates almost without number, is shut out by land from all the ports on the continent of Europe. Navies do not protect commerce, neither is the protection of commerce their object. They are for the foolish and unprofit able purpose of fighting and sinking each other at sea; and the result is, that every victory at sea is a victory of loss. The conqueror, after sinking and destroying a part of his enemies' fleet, goes home with crippled ships and broken bones. The English fire the Tower guns, and the French sing Te Deum. But Mr. Hale, in order to have completed his work, should have added another resolve, and that should have been about the expense of a navy; for, unless the United States have a navy at least equal to the navies of other nations, she had better have none, for it will be taken and turned against her. The navy of one nation pays no respect to the navy of another nation. The expense of the English navy for 1806, according to the report of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in March of that year, was upwards of 68,000,000 dollars. The portion of the expense which the state of New-York would have to pay as her quota towards raising what Mr. Hale calls a "respectable navy," would be 8,000,000 dollars over and above the impost revenue of 1,324,426, and therefore Mr. Hale should have finished with a resolve to the following purport: "Resolved, As the sense of this Legislature, that the farmers and landholders of the city and state of New-York ought most cheerfully to pay, and this legislature has no doubt but they will pay, the sum of 8,000,000 dollars, annually, over and above the impost revenue, as the quota of this state, towards raising a 'respectable navy' to fight either the French navy, the Spanish navy, the English navy, or any other navy." As trees cannot be voted into ships by a resolve of the Legislature, it is first necessary to settle about the expense of a navy, and the manner in which that expense is to be defrayed, before they resolve about building a navy. Count the cost is a good maxim. Mr. IIale has begun his work at the wrong end. COMMON SENSE. April 3, 1807. THREE LETTERS TO MORGAN LEWIS, ON HIS PROSECUTION OF THOMAS FARMER, FOR ONE HUNDRED LETTER THE FIRST. THE proud integrity of conscious rectitude fears no approach, and disdains the mercenary idea of damages. It is not the sound, but the ulcerated flesh that flinches from the touch. A man must feel his character exceedingly vulnerable, who can suppose that any thing said about him, or against him, can endamage him a hundred thousand dollars: yet this is the sum Morgan Lewis has laid his damages at, in his prosecution of Mr. Farmer, as chairman of a meeting of republican citizens. This is a case, abstracted from any idea of damages, that ought to be brought before the representatives of the people assembled in Legislature. It is an attempted violation of the rights of citizenship, by the man whose official duty it was to protect them. Mr. Farmer was in the exercise of a legal and constitutional right. He was chairman of a meeting of citizens, peaceably assembled to consider on a matter that concerned themselves, the nomination of a proper person to be voted for as governor at the ensuing election. Had the meeting thought Morgan Lewis a proper person, they would have said so, and would have had a right to say so. But the meeting thought otherwise, and they had a right to say otherwise. But what has Morgan Lewis, as governor, to do with either of these cases. He is not governor jure divino, by divine right, nor is he covered with the magical mantle which covers a king of England, that He can do no wrong; nor is the go vernorship of the state his property, or the property of his family connexions. If Morgan Lewis could be so unwise and vain as to suppose he could prosecute for what he calls damages, he should prosecute every man who composed that meeting, except the chairman; for, in the office of chairman, Mr. Farmer was a silent man on any matter discussed or decided there. He could not even give a vote on any subject, unless it was a tie vote, which was not the case. The utmost use Mr. Lewis could have made of Mr. Farmer, would have been to have subpoenaed him to prove that such resolves were voted by the meeting; for Mr. Farmer's signature to those resolves, as chairman of the meeting, was no other than an attestation that such resolves were then passed. Morgan Lewis, in this prosecution, has committed the same kind of error that a man would commit, who should prosecute a witness for proving a fact done by a third person, instead of prosecuting that third person on whom the fact was proved. Morgan Lewis is, in my estimation of character, a poor lawyer, and a worse politician. He cannot maintain this prosecution; but I think Mr. Farmer might maintain a prosecution against him. False prosecution ought to be punished; and this is a false prosecution, because it is a wilful prosecution of the wrong person. If Morgan Lewis has sustained any damage, or any injury, which I do not believe he has, it is by the members composing the meeting, and not by the chairman. The resolves of a meeting are not the act of the chairman. But in what manner will Morgan Lewis prove damages? damages must be proved by facts; they cannot be proved by opinion-opinion proves nothing. Damages given by opinion, are not damages in fact, and a jury is tied down to fact, and cannot take cognizance of opinion. Morgan Lewis must prove, that between the time those resolves were passed, and the time he commenced his prosecution, he sustained damages to the amount of one hundred thousand dollars, and he must produce facts in proof of it. He must also prove that those damages were in consequence of those resolves, and |