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LETTER THE THIRD.

In this letter, I shall continue my observations on damages generally, and take Morgan Lewis in my way. There are two descriptions of men who cannot suffer damages. The one is the man whose character is already so infamous, that nothing said of him can make him appear worse than he is. The other is the man whose character is so invulnerable, that no reproach against him can reach him. It falls pointless to the ground, or reacts upon the party from whence it came.

The first time Mr. Jefferson was elected president, the majority in his favour was ninety-two to eighty-four. As this majority was small, the factions of the Feds redoubled their abuse, and multiplied falsehood upon falsehood to throw him out at the next election. Their malignity and their lies were permitted to pass uncontradicted, and the event was, that at the next election, Mr. Jefferson had a majority of one hundred and sixty-two to fourteen.

As this is an instance that invulnerable character cannot suffer damage, I leave it to Coleman, Cullen, and Rufus King, to identify the persons of the contrary description; and they may, if they please, draw lots among themselves, to decide which of them shall stand foremost on the list of infamous security from damage.

When Morgan Lewis, in conversation with William Living ston, said that "De Witt Clinton, Judge Comstock, and Judge Johnson, were three of the damnedest rascals that ever disgraced the counsels of a state," the venom and vulgarity of the expression were too visible to do injury, and the character of the man who said it too equivocal to obtain credit. It was not worth the trouble of contradicting. Calumny is a vice of a curious constitution. Trying to kill it keeps it alive; leave it to itself, and it will die a natural death.

Chancellor Lansing's ill judged and ill written address to the public, comes precisely under the head of calumny. He insinuated, in that address, a charge against Governor Clinton,

when he (Governor Clinton) was almost three hundred miles distant from New-York, and when called upon by George Clinton, jun., to explain himself, that the public might know what he meant, refused to do it. Mr. Lansing holds the office of Chancellor during good behaviour, and this is the reverse of good behaviour. The words good behaviour, which are the words of the constitution, must have some meaning, or why are they put there? They certainly apply to the whole of a man's moral and civil character, and not merely to official character. A man may be punctual in his official character, because it is his interest to be so, and yet be dishonourable and unjust in every thing else.

Mr. Lansing should have recollected, that Governor Clinton's long experience in the office of governor, enabled him to give useful advice to a young beginner, and his well known integrity precludes every idea of his giving any other. If Governor Clinton gave any advice to Mr. Lansing on the subject he speaks of, Mr. Lansing ought to have felt himself obliged to him, instead of which he has turned treacherous and ungrateful.

But though men of conscious integrity, calm and philosophical, will not descend to the low expedient of prosecuting for the sake of what are called damages, there nevertheless. ought to be a law for punishing calumny; and this becomes the more necessary, because it often happens that the prosecutor for damages is himself the calumniator. Morgan Lewis' prosecution of Thomas Farmer for one hundred thousand dollars damages, is holding Mr. Farmer up to the public as an unjust man. Maturin Livingston is playing the same game towards Mr. Jackson, one of the editors of the Independent Republican; and the Anglo-Irish impostor, Cullen, who is secured from damage by the infamy of his character, is trying to make three thousand dollars out of Mr. Frank, one of the editors of the Public Advertiser. As the matter stands at present, a rogue has a better chance than an honest man.

There is not a man in the United States, Thomas Jefferson excepted, that has been more abused by this mean and unprincipled faction than myself; yet I have never prose

cuted any of them. I have left them to welter in their own lies. But had there been a law to punish calumny and lying by penalty, and the money to be given to the poor, I would have done it. But as to damages, as I do not believe they have character enough of their own to endamage mine, I could claim none.

April 23, 1807.

THOMAS PAINE.

1

ON THE QUESTION, WILL THERE BE

WAR?

EVERY one asks, Will there be war? The answer to this is easy, which is, That so long as the English government be permitted, at her own discretion, to search, capture, and condemn our vessels, control our commerce, impress our seamen, and fire upon and plunder our national ships, as she has done, she will Not Declare War, because she will not give us the acknowledged right of making reprisals. Her plan is a monopoly of war, and she thinks to succeed by the manœuvre of not declaring war.

The case then is altogether a question among ourselves. Shall we make war on the English government, as the English government has made upon us; or shall we submit, as we have done, and that with long forbearance, to the evil of having war made upon us without reprisals? This is a right statement of the case between the United States and England. ·

For several years past, it has been the scheme of that government to terrify us, by acts of violence, into submission to her measures, and in the insane stupidity of attempting this, she has incensed us into war. We neither fear nor care about England, otherwise than pitying the people who live under such a wretched system of government. As to navies, they have lost their terrifying powers. They can do nothing against us at land, and if they come within our waters, they will be taken the first calm that comes. They can rob us on the ocean, as robbers can do, and we can find a way to indemnify ourselves by reprisals, in more ways than one.

The British government is not entitled, even as an enemy, to be treated as civilized enemies are treated. She is a pirate, and should be treated as a pirate. Nations do not declare war

against pirates, but attack them as a natural right. All civilities shown to the British government, is like pearl thrown before swine. She is insensible of principle and destitute of honour. Her monarch is mad, and her ministers have caught the contagion.

The British government, and also the nation, deceive themselves with respect to the power of navies. They suppose that ships of war can make conquests at land; that they can take or destroy towns or cities near the shore, and obtain by terror what terms they please. They sent Admiral Duckworth to Constantinople upon this stupid idea, and the event has shown to the world the imbecility of navies against cannon on shore. Constantinople was not fortified any more than our American towns are now; but the Turks, on the appearance of the British fleet, got five hundred cannon and a hundred mortars down from the arsenals to the shore, and the blustering heroes of the navy seeing this, fled like a hound with a rattle at his tail. The gallant people of Norfolk and its neighbourhood have sent Douglas off in a similar manner. An Indian who studies nature is a better judge of naval power than an English minister.

In March, 1777, soon after taking the Hessians at Trenton, I was at a treaty held with the five northern nations of Indians at East Town, in Pennsylvania, and was often pleased with the sagacious remarks of those original people. The chief of one of the tribes, who went by the name of King Lastnight, be cause his tribe had sold their lands, had seen some English men of war in some of the waters of Canada, and was impressed with an idea of the power of those great canoes; but he saw that the English made no progress against us by land. This was enough for an Indian to form an opinion by. He could speak some English, and in conversation with me, alluding to the great canoes, he gave me his idea of the power of a king of England by the following metaphor.

When

"The king of England," said he, "is like a fish. he is in the water he can wag his tail-When he comes on land he lays down on his side."-Now, if the English government had but half the sense this Indian had, they would not have sent Duckworth to Constantinople, and Douglas to Norfolk, to lay down on their side.

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