ECHO.....NO. XII. From the Diary, &c. of April 13, 1793. MESSRS. PRINTERS, IT T is grating to the feelings of the friends of Liberty, to hear dastardly base men, protected by the mild laws of a plentiful Republican Country, come forward in public company, among a free, enlightened, and generous people, whose country heretofore flowed with the blood of Warren, Montgomery, and the rest of Heroes and American Worthies, who gloriously fell, in opposing the unlawful rights of a King; I say shall the refuse of the human species, the enemies of man (I mean the friends and advocates of kings and despots) dare stigmatize the French nation in the hearing of American patriots, with the cruel epithets of murderers, assassins, madmen, regicides, and the like, for decapitating Louis XVI. Do those ignorant prejudiced wretches not remember that the French nation's moderation and partiality to Louis, exceeded every thing that in reason could be expected from a people emerging from the vilest state of slavery, (in which they had been kept for ages past by king-craft and priest-craft united) to the pinnacle of importance and power; have they not sufficiently proved their attachment to him, by erasing from their memories the remembrance of their late bondage and past grievances under a brood of kings, and confirming him in the regal power? In forming their constitution, have they not given him sufficient authority and support? Have they not made the Crown hereditary in his family, if they would prove themselves worthy? Was there any thing necessary for the honour and dignity of the king of a free people, (if such can exist under a king) but was granted him? How has he requited them for their predilection in his favour? Did he not break the solemn oaths he had taken, and sacred vows he had made, to be faithful to the nation, and govern it agreeable to the constitution he had accepted? Did he not openly despise the love of the nation for him, in attempting repeatedly to fly to the enemy? Did he not support the emigrant princes (rather devils) and their army, composed of a species of beings not far distant from the brute creation, raised in the principalities of despots, with an intent to enter France with fire and sword? Patience would fail me, indignant horror would overwhelm me, and the callous heart of a Hessian, or an uncouth Sn, would shudder to enumerate all the arts, plots, hypocrisies, perjuries, murders, conspiracies, &c. &c. that Louis and his base adherents have been guilty of, to effect a counter revolution in favour of despotism, which he well knew could not be done but by the effusion of blood. O cursed thirst for absolute power, thou offspring of hell, and companion of kings, how deceitful are thy false charms to swerve men from their duty to God and man: but nothing is pleasing to God, which is not useful among men, consequently in Louis, (for the first) was verified an old Proverb, " Evil to him that evil thinks," or in other words, he that deviseth the blood of the innocent in his heart, (as Louis did) shall fall by the sword of the just. It is said by some, that Louis is the best King the French had since the reign of Henry IV.-Granted; but that does not prove him a good one, for out of 100 arrant villains, one no doubt is more humane than the rest, though all very bad. Did he not know there was a bastile, an engine of terror to awe his subjects? Why did he not demolish that fabric of cruelty, the grave and receptacle of innocent men doomed to destruction, perhaps men torn from the arms of a beloved wife and the offsprings of affection? In a word, I think Louis has proved himself unworthy of the honour the French intended him, that is, of being their king. And let some of their base calumniators remember, that it is more honourable to put a King to death for good and sufficient reasons, than to sell him for 4d. a man. And let some more of them think that but a few years ago, during the American war, if they had Louis in Old England that they would serve him as they did M. de Lamot, for sending fome trifling information into Ostend, a neutral country. G, Or no Friend to Kings. HARTFORD, MAY 6th, 1793. "Still daring Eсно wakes the tuneful strain, "And Vide ECHO, NO. XIII. How dire, how grating to that lawless clan, In this our land, where freedom sprung to birth, Where in strange union, Law and Peace we meet, Such bold, enlighten'd, generous folks as we, With other chiefs whom I've forgot by name, Where all are equal in the world below. Do not these wretches know that generous nation Old Despotism had fledg'd beneath her wings; Then in depriving him of legal sway, Lest he should take French leave and scud away; Next in confining him with so much care, From the rude peltings of external air; In cutting off his head, to save his life Then why this bluster, why this causeless blame? King, Duke, Stadtholder, President or Mayor; What glorious views inspire a Frenchman's zeal? If good the end the means are sanctified ; |