prominent
errors. Taking, for instance, our own state; the receipts from the
_property_ of the state, such as its canal, common school, literature,
and other funds, necessarily passing through the treasury, the sum total
is made to figure against us, as the annual charge of government; which,
by these means, is swelled to five times the real amount. Every one
knows that the receipts of the canals alone, the moment that the
conditions of the loans effected to construct them shall admit of their
application, will be more than sufficient to meet the entire charges of
the state government twice over; but, by this mystified statement, we
are made to appear the poorer for every dollar of properly we possess!
And yet this is the nature of the evidence that some of our people
furnished to the writers on the French side of this question; a side
that, by their own showing, was the side of monarchy?

But this is not all. A citizen has been found willing, under his own
name, to espouse the argument of the French writers. Of the validity of
the statements presented by this gentleman (Mr. Leavitt Harris, of New
Jersey), or of the force of his reasoning, I shall say nothing here, for
his letter and our answers will sufficiently speak for themselves. The
administration party, however, have thought the statements of Mr. Harris
of sufficient importance to be published in a separate number of their
literary organ, _La Revue Britannique_, and to dwell upon it in all
their political organs, as the production of an American who has been
intrusted by his government with high diplomatic missions, and who,
consequently, is better authority than an unhonoured citizen like
myself, who have no claims to attention beyond those I can assemble in
my argument.[28] The odds, as you will perceive, are greatly against me;
for, in these countries, the public know little of the details of
government, and it gives a high sanction to testimony of this nature to
be able to say it comes from one, who is, or has been, connected with an
administration. Standing as I do, therefore, contradicted by the alleged
opinion (true or false) of Mr. Rives, and by this statement of Mr.
Harris, you will readily conceive that my situation here is not of the
most pleasant nature. Unsalaried and untrusted by my own Government,
opposed, in appearance at least, by its agents, I am thrown, for the
vindication of truth, completely on my own resources, so far as any
American succou