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EXTRACT OF A LETTER TO DR. MICHELL, SENATOR FOR THE STATE OF NEW YORK, WRITTEN IMMEDIATELY SUBSEQUENT TO THE DISCHARGE OF AARON BURR.

WHEREAS time, experience and circumstances, have shewn that the article in the Federal Constitution, which establishes the judiciary, is vague and defective, and requires amend

ment.

According to that article, the judges hold their offices, during, that is, on the condition of good behaviour. Yet the Constitution has not authorised any power to take cognizance of that good behaviour, or the breach of it. Every law, and a Constitution is the supreme law, point out the mode of redress, at the same time that it specifies the offence. But the Federal Constitution is defective in this important particular. This being the case, therefore resolved.

That the following amendment to the article in the Federal Constitution which establishes the judiciary, be proposed to the States severally, for their concurrence therein; that is to say.

That after the words as they now stand in the article," the judges of the supreme and inferior courts shall hold their offices during good behaviour," to add but for reasonable cause, which shall not be sufficient ground for impeachment, the president may remove any of them, on the address of a majority of both houses of Congress.

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It may be proper to observe, that the people of the United States have no share in the appointment of judges, nor any controul over them afterwards. And if their representatives in Congress have no cognizance of judges as to good behaviour, the judiciary may become domineering or dangerous. They lie open to the intrigues of a foreign enemy, or any corrupt party in the States associated with that enemy, or projecting a separation of the Union. It is fair to suppose, that those who formed the Constitution, never thought of this, when they made the judges independent of our own executive.

Your's,

THOMAS PAINE.

August, 1807.

CHEETHAM AND HIS TORY PAPER.*

CHEETHAM is frequently giving symptoms of being the successor of Cullen, alias Carpenter, as Cullen was the successor of Cobbet, alias Porcupine. Like him, he is seeking to involve the United States in a quarrel with France for the benefit of England.

In his paper of Tuesday, Sept. 22, he has a long abusive piece against France, under the title of " Remarks" on the speech of the Arch Chancellor of France to the French Senate. This is a matter that Cheetham, as an adopted American citizen, has no business with; and as a John Bull it is impertinence in him to come here to spit out his venom against France. But Cheetham cannot live without quarrelling, nor write without abuse. He is a disgrace to the Republicans, whose principle is to live in peace and friendship with all nations, and not to interfere in the domestic concerns of any.

Cheetham seems to regret that peace is made on the Continent of Europe, and he shews his spleen against it by the following roundabout scurrilous paragraph.

"The people of France (says he) now breathe the air of peace, under slavery closer, more systematic, military and universal, (Cheetham knows nothing about it) than that with which they were overwhelmed previous to the beginning of the long continued calamity." This is spoken exactly in the character of a stupid prejudiced John Bull, who, shut up in his island and ignorant of the world, supposes all nations slaves but themselves; whereas those at a distance can see, that of all people enslaved by their own Governments, none are so much so as the people of England. Had Cheetham staid in England till this time he would have had to shoulder a musket, and this would have been dreadful to him, for as all bullies are cowards, the smell of gunpowder would be as horrid to Cheetham as the scent of a skunk to other animals.

The danger to which the city of New York was exposed,

* This piece was the cause of a duel between Cheetham and Franks.

by the continual abuse of France in such papers as Cullen's, was, that the French Government might be induced to consider the city of New York as a British colony, such as it was during the revolutionary war, and exclude her from the commerce of the Continent of Europe, as she has excluded Britain. Cheetham is following the footsteps of Cullen.

The French nation, under all its changes of Government, has always behaved in a civil and friendly manner to the United States. We have no cause of dispute with France. It was by the aid of France in men, money, and ships,* that the revolution and independence of the United States were so completely established, and it is scarcely sufferable that a prejudiced and surly-tempered John Bull should fix himself among us to abuse a friendly power.

Sept. 25, 1807.

NOTE TO CHEETHAM.

MR. CHEETHAM,

Oct. 27, 1807. UNLESS you make a public apology for the abuse and falsehood in your paper of Tuesday, Oct. 27, respecting me, I will prosecute you for lying.

It is by your talent for abuse and falsehood, that you have brought so many prosecutions on your back. You cannot even state truth without running it to falsehood. There was matter enough against Morgan Lewis without going a syllable beyond the truth.

THOMAS PAINE.

* Six thousand French troops under General Rochambeau, and thirty-one sail of the line under Admiral De Grass, assisted at the capture of Cornwallis at York Town, Virginia, which put an end to the war.

THE EMISSARY CHEETHAM.

CHEETHAM can now be considered in no other light than a British emissary or successor to the impostor Cullen, alias Carpenter, whom Cheetham handed out in his newspaper, as a gentlemanly sort of a man. Cheetham finding the Republicans are casting him off, is holding out signs to be employed as a British partizan.

Cheetham, in his papers of Dec. 29 and 30, has two long pieces about the embargo, which he labours to prove is not laid in consequence of any dispute with England, but in consequence of some imperious demands on the part of France. This John Bull is an idiot in diplomatic affairs. Cheetham says, "Mr. Monroe's dispatches, which were laid before Congress, and which Congress concluded did not authorise an embargo, are dated London, Oct. 10th. In the opinion of Congress, (continues Cheetham) and I venture to say of Mr. Monroe, an immediate war with England was therefore by no means probable."

Cheetham has been so long in the habit of giving false information, that truth is to him like a foreign language.

The President laid the dispatches of Mr. Monroe, of Oct. 10th, before Congress; but as they were in daily expectation of later information by the arrival of the Revenge schooner, and also of the personal arrival of Mr. Monroe, Congress received it as preparatory information, but came to no conclusion on their contents.

Cheetham says, that the Leopard, which brought Mr. Monroe's dispatches, of Oct. 10th, sailed from London on the 16th of October, and thot the Revenge sailed from London for Cherburgh, on the same day, at which time, says Cheetham, there was no probability of an immediate war with England.

In a letter I received from London, dated Oct. 15th, and which I published in the Philadelphia Aurora, and in the York Public Advertiser, the writer, in speaking of the British Ministry, says, "Their cup of iniquity is nearly full, they only want to go to war with America to fill it up; and it is the opinion here (London) that that measure is resolved on. They will make no concessions unless it be to deceive."

The letter is dated one day before the Revenge sailed from London, and I suppose came by the Revenge: yet Cheetham tells his readers there was then no probability of a war with America. Cheetham's information is never entitled to

credit.

When the Revenge sailed with the President's proclamation, and the instructions to Mr. Monroe, the writer of this knows she was ordered to come from London to France. It was expected she would be detained in the two countries about a month, and be back here about the 16th of November.

Her coming from London to France would give Mr. Monroe the opportunity (for foreign ministers do not correspond by post but by express) of communicating to Mr. Armstrong, at Paris, the plans and projects of the British Ministry.

Soon after the arrival of the Revenge at Cherburgh, a French port on the Channel, General Armstrong sent circular letters to the American Consuls in France, to hasten the departure of the American vessels as fast as possible. Several paragraphs in the English newspapers, and which have been copied into the American papers, stated, that the British Ministry intended to seize American vessels coming to, or going from, any port in France. As Mr. Monroe

would get knowledge of this, as well as the writer of the letter to Thomas Paine, of Oct. 15th, he would communicate it to General Armstrong, at Paris; and this accounts for General Armstrong's circular letter, after the arrival of the Revenge schooner from London.

If Britain put her threat in force, that of taking American vessels going to or coming from France, it is probable the French Government will retaliate, and take American vessels going to or coming from England; and this resolution on the part of France, has a natural tendency to prevent American vessels being taken, because Britain, by setting the example, will suffer more by it than France.

The British blockading decree, that of seizing neutral vessels going to or from France, was to have been published on the 14th of November, but the news from London of the 14th, by the Jane, is silent on the subject. The apprehension of retaliation has, most probably, stopped the British Ministry in their career.

Jan. 7, 1808.

(To be continued in a future paper.)

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