LIBERTY OF THE PRESS.

The Author of the following Paper never writes on principle without communicating to the Public something which, if not new, is told in a new way. The Liberty of the Press is a subject of the first importance. He would gratify me, and I have no doubt render an essential service to the community, by publishing at large his thoughts upon it. Cheetham, of Oct. 20, 1806.

Of the term Liberty of the Press.

THE writer of this remembers a remark made to him by Mr. Jefferson concerning the English newspapers which at that time 1787, while Mr. Jefferson was Minister at Paris, were most vulgarly abusive. The remark applies with equal force to the Federal papers of America. The remark was, that "the licentiousness of the press produces the same effect as the restraint of the press was intended to do. If the restraint, said he, was to prevent things being told, and the licentiousness of the press prevents things being believed when they are told." "We have in this state an evidence of the truth of this remark. The number of Federal papers in the city aud State of New-York are more than five to one to the number of Republican papers, yet the majority of the elections, go always against the Federal papers, which is demonstrative evidence that the licentiousness of those papers are destitute of credit.

Whoever has made observations on the characters of nations will find it generally true, that the manners of a nation, or of a party, can be better ascertained from the character of its press than from any other public circumstance. If its press is licentious, its manners are not good. Nobody believes a common liar, or a common defamer.

Nothing is more common with printers, especially of Newspapers, than the continual cry of the Liberty of the Press, as if because they are printers they are to have more privileges than other people. As the term " Liberty of the Press" is adopted in this country without being understood I will

state the origin of it, and show what it means. comes from England and the case was as follows:

The term

Prior to what is in England called the revolution, which was in 1688, no work could be published in that country without first obtaining the permission of an officer appointed by the government for inspecting works intended for publication. The same was the case in France, except that in France there were forty who were called censors, and in England there was but one called Impremateur.

At the revolution the office of Impremateur was abolished and as works could then be published without first obtaining the permission of the government officer, the press was, in consequence of that abolition, said to be free, and it was from this circumstance that the term Liberty of the Press arose. The press, which is a tongue to the eye, was then put exactly in the case of the human tongue. A man does not ask liberty before hand to say something he has a mind to say, but he becomes answerable afterwards for the atrocities he may utter. In like manner, if a man makes the press utter atrocious things he becomes as answerable for them as if he had uttered them by word of mouth. Mr. Jefferson has

said in his inaugural speech, that "error of opinion might be tolerated when reason was left free to combat it.” This is sound philosophy in cases of error. But there is a difference between error and licentiousness.

Some lawyers in defending their clients, for the generality of lawyers like Swiss soldiers will fight on either side, have often given their opinion of what they defined the liberty of the press to be. One said it was this; another said it was that, and so on, according to the case they were pleading. Now these men ought to have known that the term, liberty of the press, arose from a FACT, the abolition of the office of Imprimateur, and that opinion has nothing to do in the case. The term refers to the fact of printing free from prior restraint, and not at all to the matter printed whether good or bad. The public at large, or in case of prosecution, a jury of the country will be the judges of the matter.

Oct. 19, 1800.

COMMON SENSE.

THE EMISSARY CULLEN, OTHERWISE CARPENTER.

IN Cullen's emissary paper clandestinely entitled "The People's Friend," of October, is a piece signed Hamilton, in which several notorious falsifications are made from a publication of mine, entitled Communication, in the (New York) American Citizen, of October 11, and the falsifications thus made are imposed upon the public as literal extracts from that communication.

On Saturday, October 18, I made a written copy of those falsifications, and desired a friend of mine to call on Cullen, or Carpenter, or whatever his travelling name may be, and read the said falsifications to him, and also a note written by myself in my own name, asking him if he was the writer of those falsifications, and of the piece signed Hamillon, from which I had copied them, or to declare who the writer of them was.

The gentleman who undertook to see Carpenter upon this business called at his (Carpenter's) printing-office the next day, but could get no intelligence of him. He then left word with the person in the office that he would call again the next day, Monday, and that he had something to communicate to Mr. Carpenter. The gentleman called accordingly, but Carpenter was not to be found. He left the same message for the next day, Tuesday, and called the third time, but Carpenter was not to be found. He then inquired of the persons in the office who appeared to belong to it, where Carpenter lived or lodged. They said they did not know, but they believed it was a good way off. They also told him he might leave his message with them; but as the gentleman's business was to see Carpenter, and to read a message to him from me, and as he found after calling three times that Carpenter kept himself obscured, he came away, and I desired him to call no more.

An emissary is always a skulking character. His business is lying and deceiving. He shuns the public, and is afraid that every inquiry about him is for the purpose of apprehending him.

The publication of mine, entitled Communication, in the American Citizen of October 11, which Cullen, or Car

* Mr. Walter Morton.

N

penter, in his paper of October 23, has falsified, what was written to impress on the mind of the people of New York, some apprehension of the danger to which they might expose themselves and the city by giving protection and encouragement to the emissary of one belligerent nation to the injury of another belligerent nation.

The United States profess to be a neutral nation, and as such she cannot harbour an emissary of either of the belligerent nations. If that emissary be demanded by the party injured, the nation harbouring him must give him up, or take the consequence. Nations do not settle their disputes by law-suits; for there is no court to try such disputes in. They complain first of some real or supposed injury, and if it is not explained or redressed by the Government they complain to, they redress themselves; for nations, with respect to each other, are like individuals in a state of nature. We have no laws respecting emissaries, and therefore emissaries are a sort of outlaws, that must take just what fare or fate they meet with. They are not entitled to protection. They violate, like spies, the laws of hospitality, and expose to danger the place that harbours them.

In the piece entitled Communication, before spoken of, I stated that the British Ministry sent emissaries to some of the States of Germany to carry on conspiracies against France, and that when the French Government found it out, they sent an armed force and seized those emissaries, and that two of the English Ministers resident at those German States had to fly the country. Drake, the English Minister at Munich, was one of them. "It is not," said I, "because New York is more remote from France than those States were that conspiracies can be carried on with greater safety, or ought to be permitted. Two or three thousand French troops would soon scour New York and carry off a cargo of conspirators." Carpenter, among other falsifications, has falsified this passage, which was a caution against the danger of harbouring him, and made it into an invitation for two or three thousand French troops to come over and plunder the "merchants." If Carpenter should be prosecuted and convicted of lying, he cannot complain his sentence is hard. But lying is so naturally the mother tongue of an emissary, that truth is to him like a foreign language. The cases I stated with respect to emissaries sent by the British Ministry to Germany ought to have put the Federalists of New York on their guard, for their own safety sake, not to countenance or encourage Carpenter. This

was the more necessary for the men calling themselves Federalists to do, because their own political character is very doubtful. They have never declared what their principles are, or for what purpose they are federalized. Their language is abuse instead of argument; and as far as their conduct discovers their motives, for as to principle they have none, their leaders are an English faction disaffected to the peace of the United States.

Carpenter came to the United States about the same time that Pitt, whose meanness was equal to his ignorance, sent his emissaries into Germany. Carpenter is the successor of Porcupine, he is his equal in blackguardism but not in wit. The one had talents, the other is a fool that has not talents enough to be a knave. I am not entering into a contest with this emissary. I am exposing him, and putting the Federalists, or rather those who have been deceived by that faction, on their guard against him, and having done so I leave them. The Republicans have nothing to fear. They are not the abettors of conspiracies against a friendly power. THOMAS PAINE.

Oct. 28, 1806.

COMMUNICATION ON CULLEN.

As it happens that Duane, the Editor of the Philadelphia Aurora, knows the emissary Cullen, who goes by the name of Carpenter, and is the Editor of a paper in New York, which, emissary like, he calls the People's Friend, I send you some extracts from the Aurora of October 28, respecting this emissary. The extracts are as follows:

"Two of the Anglo-Federal Editors of New York have fallen upon their new associate, Cullen, (who calls himself Carpenter.) Cullen has let out his English agency too openly, and Coleman tells him so he does not blame Cullen for wishing or endeavouring to promote an alliance, of fensive and defensive, with England, but for letting the thing out so openly, and thereby opposing the feelings and interests of the country, the worst effect of which he considers to be the ruin of the Anglo-Federal party. The New York Commercial Advertiser is also very hard on Cullen's English devotion, and fairly takes the ground in opposition to this English emissary. Cullen feels it, and comes forth in