EXTRACT. THE DOMESTIC DUTIES OF A WIFE. "TO fuperintend the various branches of domeftic management, or, as St. Paul briefly and emphatically expreffes the fame office, to guide the houfe,' is the indifpenfible duty of a married woman. No mental endowments furnish an exemption from it; no plea of improving purfuits and literary pleatures can excufe the neglect of it. The task must be executed either by the mafter or the miftrefs of the houfe; and reafon and fcripture concur in affigning it unequivocally to the latter. Custom alfo, which in many inftances prefumes to decide in plain contradiction to thefe fovereign rules of life, has, in this point, fo generally conformed to their determination, that a husband who fhould perfonally direct the proceedings of the housekeeper and the cook, and intrude into the petty arrangements of daily œconomy, would appear in all eyes except his own, nearly as ridiculous as if he were to affume to himself the habiliments of his wife, or to occupy his mornings with her needles and work-bags. "Are you then the mistress of a family? Fulfil the charge for which you are refponfible. Attempt not to transfer your proper occupation to a favourite maid, however tried may be her fidelity and her fkill, To confide implicitly in fervants is the way to render them undeferving of confidence. If they are already negligent, or dishonest, your remifsnefs encourages their faults, while it continues your own lofs and inconvenience; if their integrity is unfullied, they are ignorant of the principles by which your expences ought to be regulated; and will act for you on other principles, which, if you knew them, you ought to difapprove: they know not the amount of your husband's income, or of his debts, or of his other incumbrances; nor, if they knew all thefe things, could they judge what part of his revenue may reafonably be expended in the departments with which they are concerned. They will not reflect that fmall degrees of wafte and extravagance, when they could eafily he guarded againft, are criminal; nor will they fufpect the magnitude of the fum to which finall degrees of waite and extravagance fre. quently repeated, will accumulate in the courfe of the year. They will confider the credit of your character as intrufted to them; and will conceive that they uphold it by profufion. The larger your family is, the greater will be the annual portion of your expenditure, which will, by these means, be thrown away; and if your ample fortune inclines you to regard the fum as fcarcely worth the little trouble which would have been required to prevent the lofs, confider the extent of good which it might have accomplifhed, had it been employed in feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. Be regular in inquiring, and punctual in examining your weekly accounts: be frugal without parfi mony; fave, that you may distribute. Study the comfort of all under your roof, even of the humbleft inhabitants of the kitchen: pinch not the inferior part of the family, to provide against the cofts of a day of fplendor; confider the welfare of the fervants of your own fex, as particularly committed to you; encourage them in religion, and be active in furnishing them with the means of inftruction. Let their number be fully adequate to the work which they are to perform, but let it not be fwelled, either from a love of parade or from blind indulgence, to an extent which is needlefs. In thofe ranks of life where the mind is not accustomed to continued reflection, idleness is an ever-failing fource of folly and of vice. Forget not to indulge them at fit feafons with vifits to their friends, nor grudge the pains of contriving opportunities for the indulgence. Let not one tyrannize over another: in hearing complaints be patient; in inquiring into faults, be candid; in reproving, be temperate and unruffled. Let not your kindness to the merito. rious terminate when they leave your houfe; but reward good conduct in them, and encourage it in others, by fubfequent acts of benevolence adapted to their circumftances. Let it be your refolution, when called upon to defcribe the characters of fervants who have quitted your family, to act confcientioufly towards all the parties interested, neither aggravating nor difguifing the truth; and never let any one of those whofe qualifications are to be mentioned, nor of thole thofe who apply for the account, find you feduced from your purpose, by partiality or by refentment. "There is fometimes feen in families an inmate, commonly a female relation of the mafter or of the miftrefs of the house, who, though admitted to live in the parlour, is, in truth, an humble dependant, received either from motives of charity, or for the fake of being made ufeful in the. conduct of domestic affairs, or of being a companion to her protectrefs, when the latter is not otherwife engaged or amufed. Have you fuch an inmate? Let your behaviour to her be fuch as the ought to experience: pretend not to call her a friend, while you treat her as a drudge. If ficknefs, or infirmity, or a fudden preffare of occupation, difqualifies you from perfonally attending in detail to the customary affairs of your houfehold, avail yourself of her aflistance: but feek it not from an indolent averfion to trouble, nor from a haughty wish to rid yourself of the employment. While you have recourse to it, receive it as an act of kindnefs, not as the constrained obedience of an Teach the inferior upper fervant. parts of your family to refpcct her, by refpecting her yourself: remember the aukwardness of her fituation, and confult her comfort. Is fhe to look for friends in the kitchen, or in the houfe-keeper's room? Affuredly not. Is the to live an infulted being under your roof? Your benevolence revolts at the idea. Admit her, then, not merely to the formalities, but to the freedom and genuine fatisfactions of intercourfe. Tempt her not, by a referved demeanor, perpetually reminding her of the obligations which fhe is unfortunate enough to owe you, to echo your opinions, to crouch to your humours, to act the part of a diffembler: if fervile affiduities and fawning compliances are the means by which the is to ingratiate herself, blush for your proud and unfeeling heart. Is it the part of friendship, of liberal protection, to harrafs her with difficulties, to enfnare her fincerity, to eftablish her in the petty acts of cunning and adulation? Rather difmifs her with fome fmall pittance of bounty, to fearch in obfcurity for an honeft maintenance, than retain her, to learn hypocrify, and to teach you arro gance, to be corrupted, and to cor- In all the domeftic expences, Examine your own motives to the bottom: if you feel an inward fenfation of uneafinefs, when one of your neighbours is reported to maintain a table more elegant than your own, to furpafs you in the number of fervants, or in the coftlinefs of their liveries; if you feel folicitous for an additional carriage, or, hearing that the equipage of an acquaintance has recently been enlarged; if you are eager to new-model or to decorate a room afresh, when neither ufe nac propriety requires the alteration, becaufe a fimilar step has been adopted in a mansion in your vicinity; if you difcard handfome furniture before it had rendered half the fervice of which it was capable, because fome frivolous lady can no longer bear the fight of the chairs and the window. curtains which have remained two or three tedious years in her drawingroom; your profeflions of being only defirous to do what is requifite in your ftation are mere pretences to deceive others, or proofs that you are ignorant of yourfelf. You are lavish, vain, proud, emulous, ambitious; you are defective in fame of the first duties of a wife and of a christian. Inftead of fquandering, in extravagance and parade that property which ought partly to have been referved in ftore for the future benefit of your offsprings, and partly to have been liberally bestowed for the prefent advantage of thofe whom relationship, or perfonal merit, or the general claims which diftrefs has upon fuchas are capable of removing it, entitle to your bounty; let it be your conftant aim to obey the fcriptural precepts of fobriety and moderation; let Picture it be your delight to fulfil every office of unaffected benevolence. to yourfelf the difficulties, the calamities, the final ruin, in which tradefmen, with their wives and children, are frequently involved, even by the delay of payments due to them from families to which they have not dared to to refufe credit. Subject not yourself in the fight of God to the charge of being acceffary to fuch miferies.Guard, by every fit method of reprefentation and perfuafion, if circumftances should make them neceffary, the man to whom you are united from contributing to fuch miferies, either by profufion or by inadvertence. Is he careless as to the infpection of his affairs? Open his eyes to the dangers of neglect and procraftination. Does he anticipate future, perhaps contingent refources? Awaken him to a conviction of his criminal imprudence. Encourage him, if he stands in need of encouragement, in vigilant but not avaricious forefight; in the practice of enlarged and neverfaiting charity. If your husband, accuftomed to acquire money by profef. fional exertions, fhould become too ittle inclined to impart freely what he has laboriously earned, fuggeft to him that one of the inducements to labour, addreffed to him by an apoftie, is no other than this, that he · may have to give to him that needeth. If his extensive intercourfe with the world, familiarizing him to inftances of merited or pretended diftrefs, has the effect of rendering him fomewhat too fufpicious of deceit, fomewhat too fevere towards thofe whofe misfortunes are, in part, at leaft, to be afcribed to themselves; remind him that God is kind to the ⚫ unthankful and the evil;' and that what confcience may require to be with-held from the unworthy ought to be dedicated to the relief of indi gent defert. Win him conftantly and practically to remember the words of the Lord Jefus, how he said, It is more bleffed to give than re⚫ceive.' Chap. 12. XXIII. A Letter to General Wash ington, from THOMAS PAINE, Author of the Rights of Man, &c. &c. 8vo. 15. 6d. pp. 77. Symonds. EPITOME OF THE SUBJECT. THIS THIS Letter (including two others to Mr. Washington, and a Memorial to Mr. Monroe) ac cufes the late Prefident of Congrefs of treachery in his private friendfhips, and hypocrify in his public character; and thefe accufations are grounded on the filence of the American miniftry on the subject of Mr. Paine's imprisonment in the Luxembourg, during the convul fions occafioned by the faction of Robefpierre.-It having been hinted to Mr. Paine, that his accepting a feat in the convention, and the title of citizen in France, precluded his claim to citizenship in America, he refutes the idea, by drawing a dif tinction between the member of a convention met for the purposes of forming a government, de novo, and the member of a convention meet ing to put the principles of fuch government in practice:-claffing himself in the former diftinction, he looks on his title, as citizen of France, to be merely honorary, for, he obferves, if academies confer the rank of honorary member upon foreigners, eminent in knowledge, and make them citizens of their li terary or fcientific republics, without affecting or alienating their rights of citizenship in their own country, why fhould not the fcience of government have the fame advantage, by conferring fimilar honours on fimilar terms? - From thefe arguments, he confiders the inactivity of Mr. Washington as a breach of friendhip, which extended to an enormous length; as, in confequence of it, the faction of Robefpierre, conftruing fuch filence into approbation, had, as appeared from their papers, determined to accufe America as well as of France;"Thomas Paine "for the intereft of and, but for the fudden overthrow of that faction, the accufation would have undoubtedly taken place, with confequences fimilar to thofe experienced by one hundred and fixty others, who were accufed, cons demned, and guillotined on the fame evening; it being daily the cuftom, during Paine's impris fonment . Mr. fonment, he obferves, for ten, that errors and caprices of the temper 'can be pardoned and forgotten; but a cold deliberate crime of the heart, fuch as Mr. Washington is capable of acting, is not to be washed away.' The motive, during the above charge, afcribed to the Prefident's conduct is, that, as many improprieties were gaining ground in the fyftem of American government, Mr. Washington knew that Mr. Paine would, on his return to America, endeavour to reform them, and therefore connived at his imprisonment, and perhaps at his intended death, to prevent the inconvenience of his oppofition. The charges of a public nature are, that Wathington's hypocrify has ruined the character, and fenfibly impaired the constitution of America,-that Proceeding to later dates, he fays that the Washington administration, ungrateful and unfaithful to France, has, by what he terms Mr. Jay's treaty of penance and petition with the British government, betrayed the commercial interefts of both France and America to England, and that the minifter penitentiars, (Mr. Jay) by fubftituting fubmiffion for remonftrance, has in fact accomplished a treaty which operates as a loan to the English government, by giving it permiffion to take American property at fea, and pay for it when convenient; which latter period, he fays, may probably not arrive, the bufinefs end in a juggle, and the money never be paid at all.-The above charges branching out into a variety of minutiæ, we fhall wind up this general sketch by giving, as a fpecimen of the language, the two following extracts, of which the latter concludes, the general letter to Mr. Washington. EXTRACTS. PAINE'S CHARACTER OF GENERAL "A STRANGER might be led to fuppofe, from the egotifm with which Mr. Washington fpeaks, that himself, and himfelt only, had generated, conducted, completed, and eltablished the revolution. In fine, that it was all his own doing. "In the first place, as to the political part, he had no thare in it; and therefore the whole of that is out of the queftion with respect to him. There remains, then, only the military part; and it would have been prudent in Mr. Wafhington not to have awakened inquiry upon that fubject. Fame then was cheap; he enjoyed it cheaply; and nobody was difpofed to take away the laurels, that, whether they were acquired or not, had been given. "Mr. Washington's merit confifted in conftancy. But conftancy was the common virtue of the revolution. I know but of one military defection, But when we fpeak of military character, fomething more is to be understood than conftancy; and fome thing thing more ought to be understood than the Fabian fyftem of doing nothing. The nothing part can be done by any body. Old Mrs. Thompson, the housekeeper of head quarters (who threatened to make the fun and the wind fhine through Rivington of New York) could have done as well as Mr. Wafhington. Deborah would have been as good as Barak. "Mr. Wafhing on had the nominal rank of commander in chief, but he was not fo in fact. He had in reality only a feparate command. He had 10 controul over, or direction of, the army to the northward under Gates, that captured Burgoyne, or of that to the fouth, under Greene, that recovered the fouthern tates. The nominal rank, however, of commander in chief, ferved to throw upon him the Juitre of thofe actions, and to make him appear as the foul and centre of all military operations in America. He commenced his command in June 1775, during the time the Matfachutet army lay before Botton, and after the affair of Bunker's Hill. The commencement of his command was the commencement of inactivity. Nothing was afterwards done, or attempted to be done, during the nine months he remained before Bolton. If we may judge from the refifiance made at Concord, and afterwards at Bunker's Hill, there was a spirit of enterprize at that time, which the prefence of Mr. Wathington chilled into cold defence. By the advantage of a good exterior he attracts refpect, which his habitual filence tends to preferve; but he has not the talent of infpiring ardour in an army. The enemy removed from Button to Halitax in March 1776, to wait for reinforcements from Europe, and to take a more advantageous pofition at New York. "The inactivity of the campaign of 1775, on the part of General Washington, when the enemy had a lefs force than in any other future period of the war, and the injudicious choice of politions taken by him in the campaign of 1775, when the enemy had its greatest force, neceffarily produced the loffes and misfortunes that marked that gloomy campaign. The pofitions taken were either islands or necks of land. In the former the enemy, by the aid of their fhips, could Bring their whole force against a part of General Washington's, as in the affair of Long Ifland; and in the latter, he might be fhut up as in the bottom of a bay. This had nearly been the cafe at New York, and so it was in part; it was actually the cafe at Fort Washington; and it would have been the cafe at Fort Lee, if General Greene had not moved precipitately off, leaving every thing behind, and by gaining Hackinfachbridge, got out of the bay of Berginneck. How far Mr. Washington, as general, is blameable for thefe matters, I am not undertaking to determine, but they are evidently defects in military geography. The fuccefsful fkirmishes at the clofe of the campaign (matters that would fcarcely be noticed in a better fate of things) make the brilliant exploits of General Wathington's feven campaigns. No wonder we fee fo much pufilanimity in the prefident, when we fee fo little enterprize in the general. "The campaign of 1777 became famous, not by any thing on the part of General Washington, but by the capture of General Burgoyne and the army under his command, by the northern army, at Saratoga, under General Gates. So totally diftinct and unconnected, were the two armies of Wathington and Gates, and fo independent was the latter of the authority of the nominal commander in chief, that the two generals did not fo much as correfpond, and it was only by a letter of General (fince Governor) Clinton, that General Wathington was informed of that event. The British took poffeflion of Philadelphia this year, which they evacuated the next, juft time enough to fave their heavy baggage and fleet of tranfports from capture by the French Admiral D'Estaing, who arrived at the mouth of the Delaware foon after. "The capture of Burgoyne gave an eclat in Europe to the American arms, and facilitated the alliance with France. The eclat, however, was not kept up by any thing on the part of General Washington. The fame unfortunate languor that marked his entrance into the field, continued always. Difcontent began strongly to prevail against him, and a party was formed in Congrefs, while fitting at York Town, in Penfylvania, for |