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I Wisdom, Justice, Moderation.” VOL. I. ALBANY, BAKER COUNTY, GEORGIA, JUNE 18,1815. NO. 10. THE PATRIOT, ;; rrBUSHED EVTRT WEDNESDAY HORSIER, BT NELSON TIFT & SETH N. BOUGHTON, Editors and Proprietors. TERMS. TWO Dolltrs per annum, if paid in advance, or Dollars at the end of the year. Vlvertiscnient* not exceeding twelve lines, will ie inserted <)ne dollar for the first insertion, ami 'ifty cents for each continuance. Advertisements ing the number of insertions specified, will K> puUishwl until forbid Ales of Land and Negroes by Executors. Adminis trators and Guardians, are required by law to he advertised in a public gazette, sixty days previous to the day of sale. The sales of Personal Property must be advertised like manner forty days. Nntire to Debtors and Creditors of an estate must • published forty days. Notice that application will be made to tlic Court of Odinary for leave to sell I-and and Negroes, must he published weekly for four months. Monthly Advertisements, One Dollar per square (or each insertion. UTAH Utters on business must be post paid. was induced to turn them over to the Rev. j c<irth, and commanded us to subdue and Mr. Weems, as a man of letters, to put| and govern it ? and for food he bus expess- thcin into proper form. The Maj. was an | ly allowed us to choose from the whole honest, plain-sailing, matter-of-fact son of; range of animated nature, a man, and you may judge of his horror, j It is not in regard to beasts and vermin when he learned by letter front his clerical j alone, that these writers of fiction inculcate friend about the time of publication, that he , a spurious tenderness ; if that were all, we had worked his documents into the shape I would laugh at them and let it pass, but of a military romance to suit the taste of the j they have poisoned the whole-stream of age ! The old soldier was shocked at the j learning with their false and unscriptural thought, that his veracious hisiory was to'doctrines about slavery. They have infu- Fnr the Albany Patriot. FICTION. Jtpurs. Tift Boughton :■— It is, perhaps, a vain attempt for one inin to endeavor to slay the flood of fiction, which threatens this age with all the evils in ihc moral world, which the great deluge of Noah accomplished in the physical; nevertheless, I am resolved, in imitation ol that good man, to preach common sense to this generation for a testimony against it. To such a degree does the taste for it pre vail, that there is reason to fear, that the period is drawing near, when a relish for sober truth will be reckoned decidedly vul gar. Even now, nine pages of every ten in the library and rending room, arc filled with foolish and idle fancies. Look over that splendid collection of magazines on the centre tnbic, and you will find in each, fora frontispiece,a female figure ten times is pretty as a woman ever was, and half naked at that. Oh! it would’nt suit the public taste, if it should be clothed up to the neck and down to I be ankles as every docent female in real life ought to be.— One lag and bosom nl least, must be bare to animate the chaste desires of this flow ery age. Turn them over page after page, be turned into a romance, and complained bitterly, but all to no purpose—the taste of the age prevailed. Some allowance, I sup pose, ought to be made for Homer, Virgil and other ancient writers, as being heath ens, for the extravagant stories which they tell about their wars, the marvelous ex ploits of their heroes, and the rascalities of their Gods; butfor a good Christian, such as Mr. Weems should have been, to mix up the idle spumrings of his own brain with the honest old Major’s authenticated facts, in order to make up a .Military Romance to suit the taste of the age, was indeed inex cusable. My observation teaches nie, that those whose studies, (if it be not a desecration of the word to use it in ditch a connexion,) lie principally in works of imagination, are seldom of any use, either to themselves or others. Judging of every thing by the false standards of the fantastical world in which they have “had their conversation in times past,” they arc the victims of per petual mistakes. The novel-reader lan guishes too for want of excitement, amidst the common incidents and accidents of this prosing world. He must engage in some adventure, plunge into some love intrigue, addict himself to gaming, duelling, or pi racy, in order to strike a chord that will vibrate in unison with his fevered pulse. Much, if not all, of that mawkish ben evolence and tender-heartedness, now so fashionable, have their origin in the same source. Take an illustration from that curious and celebrated novel of ‘Tristram Shandy.’ “ Go—go poor devil,” quoth uncle Toby to the fly that had buzzed about his nose nil dinner time,—“why should I hurl thee ?—This world is surety sed thrin into every school book, down to the primer, so that the child sucks in their hcresicscotemporancously with his mother’s milk. I will trouble you with one extract. “ I would not have a slave to till my soil, To fan me while I sleep, and tremble when I wake, For all the wealth which blood and sinews bought and sold, 1 las ever made. ” Coxrper. and ilfv have nothing but the most im- . . , ,, i . „ , ■ . , , s . , , wide enough to hold both thee and me.” probable and absurd stones about love, and , .. . . rdl that. Their Dramatis Persona: do not act like people of ibis world at all. They arc cvetlastingly in some dreadful scrape or other, and always get out of each and all of them, by some fortuitous and most improbable conjuncture, and by extraor dinary means. A tragical occurrence hap pens to real people, perhaps not more than once in their lives, but these heroes of fan cy lire in the midst of a perpetual scries of catastrophes. Nor do they talk like peo ple of sense. The lover will wander over the dreary mountains, his passion, “ Now rolling, boils in his tumultuous breast, And like a develish engine, bock recoils Upon himself,” delivers his soliloquy in regular heroic measure, beats his breast like Milton’s de vil in despair, and anon prostrates himself upon some hoary cliff, and there complains to the senseless moon, as if she was some teal divinity, about the faithless or hard- heartedness of his lady-love. Forgers, rogues and murderers, by a few touches of valor, generosity and the like, and by art fully creating an interest in their misfor tunes, arc set up as models of imitation. Rob Roy McGregor is an example of this sort. Where is the inexperienced youth, who, upon reading his exploits, would not wish to be just such a scoundrel as he was It is with such stufT the public palate is de lighted. I scarcely know of a greater ob ject of pity, than that of an artless girl, full of sensibility and kindness, who ought 'o be relieving the real woes of her fellow creatures, or darning her own stockings, weeping, till she is blear-eyed, over the made up misfortune* of the heroes of ro mance. But it is said, that no one is de ceived by this kind of writing—all know that it i* fiction, and that it is an elegant recreation; what harm can come of it?— Much every way. The poets and novel ists have vitiated the public taste, given us tt disrelish for the sober realities of truth, erected false guides to human action, and created false standards of excellence.— The following anecdote, in relation to ‘Wceme’s Life of Marion,’ is in point.— Maj. Horry, a compatriot of this distin guished partisan officer, after the death of the latter, collected together a large mess of authentic documents, intending to write the life of his friend and fellow-soldier, but tracts from the poets, in which they have bewailed, in terms I he most lachrymose, the misfortunes of these contnnkcrous ver min. I should place a low estimate upon any man’s sense—lie must be soft-headed as well as tender-hearted, who will not kill a fly in self-defence. For my own part, I live in perpetual hostility with these creatures, and have long since carried the war into Africa. And yet, 1 flatter myself, that no one, not even uncle Toby, can sympathize more sincerely than myself, with every proper object of pity. The ab surdity, not to say wickedness, of indulging such feelings of misdirected tenderness, is strikingly illustrated, in the pity which uncle Toby feels for the destiny of the Great Enemy of all good. “I declare,” quoth my uncle Toby, “ tnv heart would not let me curse the devil himself with so much bitterness.”—“He is the father of curses,” replied Dr. Slop.—“ So am net replied uncle Toby.—“But he is cursed and damn’d already to all eternity,” replied Dr. Slop.—“I am sorry for it,” quoth uncle Toby.” This same uncle Toby was a soldier by profession, performed great exploits, ac cording to his own showing, at the siege of Namur, where he received a wound ; could hew, hack and murder his fellow creatures without mercy; and yet, he had a tear ev er ready for the misfortunes of a fly or the devil Take another example from Thompson the Poet. “—0 And the plain ox, ■fhat harmless, hooeat, guileless animal, Inwbat has he offended ? He whose toil, Patient, and ever ready, clothes the land With all the pomp of harvest; shall he bleed, And struggling groan beneath the cruel hand, Even ofthe clown he feeds T and that perhaps, To swell the riot of the aotnmnal Heart, Won by his labour T " Notwithstanding all this fustian, this Mr. Thompson was a beet-eating Englishman, and I venture it as my opinion, that he was os subject to hunger, and as fond of a good beef-steak, as the poor clown whom he abu ses. For my own part, I think a man may both destroy flies and eat beef, arid yet be a very good Christian, the opinion of the poets to the contrary notwithstanding.— Has not our Maker created us lords of the This poet must have been a man of unu sual fortitude, to lake his siesta in comfort, whilst a swarnt of flics were drinking up the juices of his lips and nostrils. I suspect, however that the truth is, that his fortune gave him the advantage of a dark cool chamber to sleep in; and, that if it had fallen to his lot to hoe cotton under a vcrli- cle sun, all this sublimated sentimentalism would have evaporated, and he would have called louder than ever, for “a boundless contiguity of shade.” The age is thoroughly infected with this nonsense. Old and New England, their hands still dripping with the blood of Africa, have united in a long, loud, deep and pier cing cry about the sin of slavery. With the rage and fury of demons, they denounce us as men-stealers. The charge is false.— They stole the slaves,sold them tons, and warranted the title, and now,forsooth, they turn about and tell us, the transaction was illegaland thccontrnct a nulity. Let them, in the name of common honesty, pay back he purchase money. Nay, they are too mercenary for that; for, of all the schemes of abolition, this, the only honest one, has never been attempted. They make pretty preachers of righteousness with the wages of iniquity in I heir pockets. Oh no ! they cannot buy them from us, that would be ad mitting the validity of our title, which they by no means allow. It accords better with the code of morals of these new lights, who pronounce the Bible an imposture if it sanc tions slavery, to provide means and organ ize societies to steal them again. They are seeking to carry out, on a grapd scale, the system which Murrell, the celebrated land-pirate, practised in a small way. His method was, to steal slaves and sell them, reslcal and sell them several times, under a pledge to place them at last in a free State and divide the profits with them. It would seem that the intellect of even the illustrious Jefferson, was biased by these poetical fancies about slavery; for, in the Declaration of Independence, he advances the absurd dogma, that all men arc created free and equal—a doctrine wholly at war with scripture, hisiory, and observation.— Nevertheless, it embodied in a plausible ad eaptandem form, the dreams of the crack- brained poets ; and wonderful have been ils effects. It flashed across the Atlantic like a meteor, and kindled the fires of the French Revolution that swept over Europe, desolated the fairest portion of the earth, and left that Continent a smouldering ruin It is constantly read in every grove and temple in the the nation, upon the recur rence of our great political festival, until it has waked up the demon of abolition, who, summoning Envy, Fanaticism, Bigotry and Intolerance as his ministers, is battering down the fabric erected by our ancesters, at so great a cost of blood and treasure, and threatens to make our beloved land, desolation and an astonishment; a hissing and a curse.” O! for an interregnum of so ber thought—one age in which man might listen to the voice of reason and the voice of God. Does not observation teach us, us, that from the Deity down to insensate matter, there is a regular graduation of spiritual and animated existence, with pow er and authority on one band, and subor dination and dependence on the other ? In the beginning, God gave Adam authority over his wife, and upon her enjoined obedi ence. When the Abolitionists have suc ceeded in their present designs, consistency will require, that they shall next coll their Maker to an arcouut for this. Surely, if the rough and hardy slave ought not to serve and obey his master, neither ought the tender and gentle wife her husband.— And still they have but entered upon their task; for I am credibly informed, that the birch is still in uso, both by parents and school masters, in the very pimctwn salient of abolition, and I would respectfully sug gest to these reformers, whether the chil dren of this enlightened generation should not be allowed to flog those grey-headed oldtyrants, their fathers and mothers, with in an inch of their lives, as some atonement for the many ages of oppression under which they have groaned. And where is the pedagogue that will escape ? Not one of them will have a whole skin. But until such time as their case conics up regularly for trial, as an earnest of what is in reserve for them, and by way of recreation for the reformers and diversion for the boys, the little urchins ought to be encouraged to turn them out every Easter, tie their hands be hind them, and duck them in the horse pond. All these reformations being accomplish ed, I suppose the next measure will Ire, in raise some of the quadrupeds to an equality ! with us ; for, where is the reason why an ass should serve and obey liis master if the slave should not l It is apparent, front the foregoing quotations, that Thompson thot’ thqjpx, “that honest, harmless, guileless animal,” a very clever gentleman ; and I, myself, heard an enthusiast say, that he believed his horse would participate with him in the resurrection, and that he never prayed for himself in wichh ho did not also pray for Old Bald. In what respect arc men bom equal? Not in intellect, goodness, form, size, strength, or beauty. Not in rank and privilege ; for sonic arc born kings, others earls, dukes, counts, gentlemen, citizens, subjects and slaves. There is no practical sense in which men are now, or ever have been equal; and it follows that this notion of equality, which the poets inculcate, is altogether hypothet ical—a mere abstraction. Perhaps they mean that God ought to have made them equal. “ But who art thou, O ! man, that repliest against God ? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus ?” Were Moses, Saul, David, Solomon, and an host of others, whose lives are given in the Sacred Wri tings, created to a mere equality with their brethren ? Were Esnu and Jacob born equal 1 “ For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, it was said unto her, the elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have 1 hated.” This dogma of the equality of all men, is set up by the abstractionists as fundamental—a great truth by which all our conduct is to be regulated. Had this doctrine jrecn true, would ottr Creator have failed to tell us so, in the abundance of his revelations ? On the contrary, He did, Himself, set up many distinctions, such as kings, law-givers, judges and slaves; defined their several duties and prerogatives, and enjoined obe dience upon all. Nql looking through po litical spectacles, but with my natural eyes, 1 cannot perceive why the arguments a- gainst slavery, may not be urged, with sim ilar, if not equal force, against nil subordin ation and all authority, conjugal, parental, majcsterial, civil, military, regal, imperial and divine. It is yet a mooted question, wlial is the best form of government, and the truth doubtless is, that no one form is adapted to all men, but that they require modifications according to their manners, customs, religion, modes of thinking and degree of civilization. Our government is, no doubt, the best that could be devised for us, because we are a people of piety, in telligence and good sense ; or rather, wc should be, could wo only cut ourselves loose from the leading-strings of the poets and novelists; but how does such an one suit the half-civilized Spaniards of Mexico and South America t Let their perpetual civil wan, their ensanguined plains and blood-dyed rivers answer. How does shell a form of government suit the sable propri etors of St. Domingo, or how would it suit the Savagesof Dahomey, Ashante, and the Golah country, or their half-civilized de scendants in the United Slates 1 Slavery is strictly a question of government, and the main point to be settled, so far as we are concerned, is, whether it is, A is not best adapted to to the condition ofthe Africans in the United States. What other form, let me ask, could have wrought so great an improvement in their condition in so short a time ? Compare the state of our slaves, in regard to order, intelligence and piety, with that of those left in their native country, and con any man lay his hand upon his heart and deplore the day however he may abhor the “cause, man ner and instrument” of it, in which the African became the slave of a Christian master ? In his own country, he not only endures all the miseries which attend up on the lowest state of barbarism, but he is not even charmed and flattered with the name of freedom. Mongo Park, who tra velled over Africa, about half a century ago, for (lie purpose of exploring the couise ot the Niger, declares that “ the slaves in Africaare nearly in iheproportion of three to one to the freemen.” They nre divided into petty kingdoms, and blood and rapine ore the order of the day. They have no secu rity of life or properly. War is the general rule, and peace the exception. How supe rior is their condition here. Blessed with all the sacred ministrations and consola tions of the trite religion, they worship their ' Maker as Conscience impels , blessed with peace, they sleep secure ; relieved ofoli the care of government, exempt from all the hardships and privations ot the soldier, and from all the horrors of war, their persons protected front injustice and their little pro perty from violence, fed, clothed, and n r- sed in infancy, sickness and old age , vhat ■nan in his senses, will rise upand say, they have gained nothing bv exchanging black & savage, for while and Christian masters 1 And what is the price which the slave pays for all these blessings ? 1 answer, moder ate labour. But the poets say, they are purchased at the expense of liberty. And wlial is liberty ? In its broadest sense, it is the right to do, without restraint, whatever one pleases. The world will be in a nice pickle when universal equality and univer sally prevail. sal liberty shall universally prevail. Uni versal ruin will be the result. The restric ted freedom which wc enjoy, is purchased at the expense of many of our natural rights; and, so also, it is by the sarmficc of many of the natural rights of the slave, that these blessings are secured to him. Liber ty is a relative ictm. The English call theirs a free government, but it is a tyran ny compared with ours, and our slaves arc in n state of freedom, compared with that of the English operative and miner. That instnnccsof cruelty and oppression frequent ly occur, I both admit and lament; hut Mint they nre more frequent than in coun tries where voluntary servitude exits, I de ny. One of the most eminent of the Brit ish poets, in a lucid moment, has truly said. “ For just experience tells, in every soil, That those who think must govern those that toil.” Goldsmith. In every country, it is in the power of those who think to govern those wno work; and in every nation, wicked men niny be found who oppress and grind the faces of the poor without mercy. Hunger and na kedness nre tyrants who often drive the peasantry of other countries, to submit to exactions and cruellies which our slaves are strangers to. The English operative, doomed to live on bread ana water, whilst lie labors to the utmost extent of human endurance,cither in the crowded, dork and unwholesome factory, or in the coal mine, a thousand yards deep in the bowels of the earth, where neither the light of Heaven nor the warmth of the sun can ever visit him may boast the empty name of freeman, but he certainly eats tne fruit of the bitter est slavery. Slavery has already done much for the poor children of Canaan, who have been transplanted in this country, and it would have done much more ere‘this, but forlho silly intcrei ference of their exclusive friends the Abolitionists, who have madly essayed to pluck their destiny out of the hands of the Deity. The Christian slave-holder would gladly promote, and rejoice to sen a constant improvement in the intelligence, the morals and the piety of his slaves.— But how nre these great ends to be attain ed, whilst both master nnd slave arc beset with such enemies as the abolitionists? I am no octogenarian, and yet I can well re member, when openly, and without rebukp, slaves were taught to read. But their mis chievous friends have made it necessary'to draw tighter and tighter the cords of slave ry, ond'to shut the door upon all mental improvement. The gradual relaxation of those cords, nnd the continued application of those means which were in use thirty or forty years ago, coupled with the benevo lent scheme of African Colonization, would have d ine infinitely more, in one century, to elevate nnd bless the children of that burning clime, than has been achieved through all the dreary ages since God said, “ cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall lie be to his brethren.” But I will not allow myself to discuss thisquestiori further: It is unnecessary for us, and should it meet the eye of .an Abo litionist, it would, I fear only moke him gnash his teeth and curse the louder. I have already digressed much further than 1 intended, ns my only design in the outset was to call your attention to some of the evils which we were threatened with, and ethers which we were alreadv suffering, from the deluge of fiction in v bich we aro drowning, ana, lest I should fatigue you I will notice, very briefly, only one other evil, viz., the waste of lime. If the hours; days, months and years, that are now squander ed upon novels and poetry, were devoted to solid learning, who can compute the accel eration that would be given, to all. those arts and sciences that promote the perina-