f their
guilt, and an upright conduct make some amends for their high-handed
offences. Should this take place, an injured people may forgive, though
they never can forget them.

Let Numa reflect, that we now have, at the head of government, those men
who were the first to step forth in the great cause of liberty--who risked
their all to acquire the blessings of freedom; though that freedom,
through the influence of such characters as himself, has been often
abused.

The people know their rulers, and have confidence in them: and can it be
supposed, that they would have confidence in those, whose dastardly souls,
in time of danger, shrunk back from the scene of action, and kept secure
in their strong holds? and when peace and independence had crowned the
exertions of far more noble souls, they groped out of darkness and
obscurity, and intruded themselves into places of power and trust?

Can it be expected, that the people should have confidence in such men, or
feel themselves secure under their government? By no means. The bandage is
taken from their eyes--they see and detest them. They have displaced them,
that they may return to their former obscurity, and pass the remainder of
their days in philosophizing upon their conduct. Numa and his coadjutors
may exert themselves all in their power; but they cannot again stir up
sedition and rebellion.

The people now have too much penetration to be led away by their
falsehoods and scandal: they will, it is hoped, ere long, reap the
blessings of good government, under the direction of a wise
administration, and treat in a manner they deserve, every incendiary
attempt against their peace and happiness.

CASSIUS.

Cassius, II.

The Massachusetts Gazette, (Number 371)

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1787.

For the Massachusetts Gazette.

To Numa's long list of evils, which he says, in some of his productions,
are prevalent in the commonwealth, he might have added, that when priests
became Jesuits, the liberties of the people were in danger--in almost all
countries, we shall find, that when sedition and discontent were brewing,
Political Jesuits were often at the bottom of the affair.

Unhappily for Numa, the citizens of Massachusetts are not so blinded by
ignorance, nor so devoted to prejudice and superstition, as the common
people in those arbitrary and despotick governments, where clerical
imposition reigns paramount almost to everything else; where the freedom
of spee