Accounts from Halifax state, that Admiral Berkeley has alledged in writing, that "his orders (to Douglas) were not issued until every application to restore the mutincers and deserters (as he calls them) had been made by his Britannic Majesty's ministers, consul, and officer, and had been refused by the government of the United States."

If this account be true, it shows that Berkeley is an idiot in governmental affairs; for if the matter was in the hands of the British minister, who is the immediate representative of his government, Berkeley could have no interference in it. That minister would report to his government the demand he made, if he made any, and the answer he received, if he received any, and Berkeley could act only in consequence of orders received afterwards. It does not belong to subordinate officers of any government to commence hostilities at their own discretion

I now come to speak of the politics of the day, as they rise out of the circumstances that have taken place.

The injustice of the British government, and the insolence of its naval officers, is no longer to be borne. That injustice, and that insolence, grows out of a presumption the British government has set up, which it calls "the right of search." There is not, nor ever was, such a right appertaining to a nation in consequence of its being in war with another nation. Wherever such a right existed, it has been by treaty, and where no such treaty exists, no such right can exist, and to assume the exercise of it is an act of hostility, which if not abandoned, must be repelled until it be abandoned. The United States cannot even cede such a right to England, without ceding the same right to France, Spain, Hoiland, Naples, Italy, and Turkey, or they will take it, and the United States must take the consequence. It is very difficult matter, and requires great political wisdom, for a neutral nation to make a treaty during a time of war with one belligerent nation, that shall not commit her with the other. The best way then, since matters are come to the extremity they are, is to resist this pretended right of search in the first instance. The United States are able to do it, and she is the only neutral nation that is able.

We are not the diminutive people now that we were when the revolution began. Our population was then two millions

and an half, it is now between six and seven millions, and in less than ten years will exceed the population of England. The United States have increased more in power, ability, and wealth, within the last twenty or twenty-two years, than she did for almost two hundred years before, while the states were British colonies.

She owes this to two things, independence, and the representative system of government. It was always the ill-judged and impracticable system of the British government, to keep the colonies in a state of continual nonage. They never were to be of full age, that she might always control them.

While the United States have been going forward in this unparalleled manner, England has been going backward. Her government is a bankrupt, and her people miserable. More than a million of them are paupers. Her king is mad, and her parliament is corrupt. We have yet to see what the present new elected parliament will be. There is one man in it, whom I proudly call a friend, from whom there will be great expectations; but what can one honest independent member do, surrounded by such a mass of ignorance and corruption as have for many years past governed that unfortunate nation.

The great dependance of England has been on her navy, and it is her navy that has been her ruin. The falsely imagined power of that navy, (for it was necessary it should be amphibious to perform what was expected from it,) has prompted the ignorance of her government into insolence towards all foreign powers, till England has not a friend left among nations. Russia and Sweden will quarter themselves upon her purse till it becomes empty, and then very probably will turn against her.

Depending on her navy, she blockaded whole countries by proclamation, and now. Buonaparte, by way of justifiable retaliation, has blockaded her by land from the commerce of the western part of the continent of Europe. Her insolent and imbecile expedition to Constantinople, has excluded her from the commerce of urkish Europe and Turkey in Asia, and thrown it into the hands of France-and her outrageous conduct to us will exclude her from the commerce of the

United States. By the insolence of the crew of her navy, the is in danger of losing her trade to China; and it is easy to see that Buonaparte is paving his way to India by Turkey and Persia. The madness of the British government has thrown Turkey into the arms of France. Persia lies between Turkey and India, and Buonaparte is forming friendly connexions with the Persian government. There is already an enchange of ambassadors. Buonaparte is sending military officers into Persia, and will, with the consent of its government, raise an army there, and attack the English monopoly in India. If France holds her connexions with Turkey and Persia, England cannot hold India.

It is in this wretched chaos of affairs, that the mad government of England has brought on herself a new enemy, by commencing hostilities against the United States. She must be ignorant of the geography of America, or she would know that we can dispossess her of all her possessions on the continent whenever we please, and she cannot, with safety, keep a fleet in the West Indies during the hurricane months. Buonaparte will find employment for every soldier she can raise, and those she may send to the continent of Europe will become prisoners. There never was an instance of a government conducting itself with the madness and ignorance the British government has done! This is John Adams' stupendous fabric of human wisdom!

That the British government will disown giving hostile instructions to Berkeley I have no doubt. It is the trick of old governments to do so, when they find themselves wrong, and pay some scape-goat to bear the blame. But this will not be sufficient. The pretended right of search and the impressment of our seamen must be abandoned. Three thousand of them have been impressed by British ships to fight against France. The French government has shown a great deal of patience in not complaining of it, for it is a great injury to her, and must be redressed, or worse consequences will follow.

I have said, in the former part of this essay, that it is a difficult matter, and requires great political wisdom, for a neutral nation during a war, to form a treaty with one belligerent na

tion that shall not commit her with the other. I will now give an instance of it.

In 1794, Washington sent Mr. Monroe as Minister to France, and John Jay to England, and gave them contradictory instructions. By the treaty that then existed between the United States and France, "Free ships made free goods." So that English property on board American ships was protected from seizure by France. John Jay made a treaty with England, which Washington and the stupid senate of that day ratified, by which free ships DID NOT make free property, and that French property on board American ships could be seized by England. This of consequence vacated the free article in the treaty with France, and she availed herself of it, and the United States lost the carrying trade of both nations. There is a jesuitism in Jay's treaty, which says, that the question whether free ships make free goods shall be taken into consideration two years after the war. It is now more than two years since that war, and, therefore, it forms an item with the matters to be now settled with the English government.

The British government have been so long in the habit of insolence, that she has not the sense of seeing when the power of being insolent ceases. She ought to see that the power of France by land is far superior to her power at sea. France, by land, can blockade the commerce of England out of Europe and India, and the English navy can do nothing to prevent it. Of what use is it to "rule the waves," if you cannot put your foot on shore? If it was a contest for fisheries, the most powerful navy would decide; but as it is a contest for commerce, it is land force that decides, and navies are out of the question.

If the British government were wise, she would cease the pretended right of search of her own accord, for it brings her into endless trouble. It makes all nations her enemy. Every nation detests the piratical insolence of England, and none more so than the United States. The spirit that is now raised, cannot be appeased until reparation is made for the past, and security be given for the future.

New-York, Aug. 14, 1807.

COMMON SENSE.

ROYAL PEDIGREE.*

GEORGE the Third, who was the grandson of George the Second, who was the son of George the First, who was the son of the Princess Sophia, who was the cousin of Anne, who was the sister of William and Mary, who were the daughter and son-in-law of James the Second, who was the son of Charles the First, who was a traitor to his country and decapitated as such, who was the son of James the First, who was the son of Mary, who was the sister of Edward the Sixth, who was the son of Henry the Eighth, who was the cold-blooded murderer of his wives, and the promoter of the Protestant religion, who was the son of Henry the Seventh, who slew Richard the Third, who smothered his nephew Edward the Fifth, who was the son of Edward the Fourth, who with bloody Richard slew Henry the Sixth, who succeeded Henry the Fifth, who was the son of Henry the Fourth, who was the cousin of Richard the Second, who was the son of Edward the Third, who was the son of Richard the Second, who was the son of Edward the First, who was the son of Henry the Third, who was the son of John, who was the brother of Richard the First, who was the son of Henry the Second, who was the son of Matilda, who was the daughter of Henry the First, who was the brother of William Rufus, who was the son of William the Conqueror, who was the son of a whore.

* Supposed to be Mr. Paine's.