Field, who commanded a schooner sent by the Council of that County to Eustatia for powder, had just arrived, and demanded assistance to unload her. I gave orders for the troops to march, as soon as boats could be had to ferry them across the creek, which the inhabitants procured with amazing despatch. We then marched, with the utmost expedition, to reinforce our guard, which had taken post by the schooner, to assist in discharging her cargo—mostly coarse linens. She then lay seven or eight miles to the southward of our cape. At the time of our arrival, the tender, making sail, bore down upon the schooner: on observing this, the men immediately ran her on shore. Our troops were outgone by the tender, though they marched at the rate of seven miles per hour. Just before our arrival, the tender gave our guard a broadside with swivels and musketry, which they returned. On our junction, a constant fire was kept up for some time, till we perceived the distance too great. We then left off firing, and unloaded the schooner, though several hundred shots were fired at us to prevent it. Our people picked up many of their balls rolling in the sand. The tender despatched one of the barges to the ship for assistance, who made sail immediately, but was soon obliged to come to anchor, for fear of running on the Hen-and-Chickens. About the time the ship turned the cape, the tender anchored within musket-shot of the schooner, and kept up a continual fire with her swivels. We had, by this time, got the swivels in the schooner loaded with grape-shot, and a constant fire, for two hours, was kept up on both sides. We undoubtedly wounded their men, for we perceived some to fall, and others run to their assistance. They made several efforts to purchase their anchor, which were prevented by our fire; but at last they succeeded. Fortunately, however, one of our swivels cut their halyards, and down came their mainsail, which obliged them to anchor once more. At last, the wind shifting, they had a boat to tow them off. We then turned our fire on the boat, where two men were seen to fall; the barge, returning from the ship, joined to tow them out. Our men escaped unhurt. The Militia officers, at Lewes, acted with a spirit which does honour to their country.

TO THE PEOPLE OF PENNSYLVANIA.—LETTER VI.

Philadelphia, April 10, 1776.

In the conclusion of my last letter, I charged the author of Common Sense with perverting the Scripture, in his account of the origin of the Jewish Monarchy. I proceed to offer some remarks in support of that charge.

“Monarchy,” says he, (meaning, probably, the institution of Monarchy,) “is ranked in Scripture as one of the sins of the Jews, for which a curse in reserve is denounced against them. The history of that transaction”—either the transaction of Monarchy, or the transaction of denouncing a curse in reserve—“is worth attending to.”

This confused proposition he endeavours to establish by a commentary upon first Samuel, chapter 8, full as farfetched and ridiculous, as he will probably say mine is upon the prophecy of Mount-Seir. But this matter must be treated more seriously, for the sake of a country in which (God be thanked) the Scriptures are read, and regarded with that reverence which is due to a revelation from Heaven. I must, therefore, endeavour to rescue out of our author’s hands that portion of the sacred history which he has converted into a libel against the civil Constitution of Great Britain; and show in what sense the passage has been universally received, as well by the Jews themselves as by commentators, venerable for their piety and learning, in every Christian country.

The Jews were long privileged with a peculiar form of Government, called a Theocracy, under which the “Almighty either stirred up some person, by an immediate signification of his will, to be their Judge, or, when there was pone, ruled their proceedings himself, by Urim and Thummim, directing what course they were to follow in the publick concerns of the nation.”*

* Lowth’s Commentaries.

But they were of an ungovernable temper, fond of pomp as well as, dominion over their neighbours; and being disgusted with the misconduct of Samuel’s sons, whom, in his old age, he had made his assistant Judges over Israel, they came to him, and entreated him to appoint a King, who might rule their nation, and avenge them of the Philistines, Samuel, deeply afflicted at the impious design they entertained of rejecting the divine Government, prays the Almighty for direction, who authorizes him to hearken to their voice, “for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, (says God,) that I should not reign over them.” He also instructs Samuel to enter a solemn protest against them for their folly and ingratitude, in preferring a human to a divine Government; and to show them the manner of the King that shall reign over them, since they desired a King to judge them like all the nations.

Now, all the nations which they knew, were ruled by Kings, whose arbitrary will stood in the place of law; and it appears also that the Jews, since the day that they were; brought out of Egypt, had still retained a particular hankering after the customs of that country. The Almighty, therefore, by his prophet, not only signifies his displeasure against all such arbitrary rulers, but against every people who would impiously and foolishly prefer such a Government to one immediately under himself, where, in his providence, he might think fit to appoint such an one. And so far I have no difference with our author. But Samuel proceeds further to reason with the Jews, and, in the twelfth chapter, reminds them of the many deliverances which God had given them by the hands of their Judges—Moses, Jepthah, Gideon, &c., having with a strong hand brought them out of Egypt; having subdued the Assyrians, Ammonites, Moabites, and Philistines before them; and that, for all this, they preferred a Government even after the most corrupt models, to his just and righteous Government. And to convince them still further of their folly and ingratitude, the prophet appeals to a signal which he would give them from Heaven. He accordingly calls down an uncommon storm in the midst of harvest, and the astonished multitude cry out, “We have added to our sins this evil to ask us a King.”

Here our author erects his standard, and here he compliments himself with the mockery of triumph. “These portions of Scripture (says he, in all the assurance of infallibility) are direct and positive. They admit of no equivocal construction. That the Almighty hath here entered his protest against Monarchical Government is true, or the Scripture is false.” But I will take the liberty to say, that the Scripture is true, and that: this author’s inference is horribly false; nay, further, that from the whole spirit of the passage, as well as the reason of things, it is to be inferred that the Almighty would have as strongly expressed his displeasure against the Jews, had they rejected his Government for one of their own appointment, whether it had been monarchical or democratical—to be administered by one man or a thousand men.

The author had said before, that Samuel did not show the manner of any “particular King, but the general manner of the Kings of the earth, whom Israel was so eagerly copying after.” If he means to confine himself to these Kings, I have given them to him, to make the best of them. But if he means to argue from particulars to generals, and to make the old Prophet extend his protest against all future Monarchical Governments, such as were to subsist some thousands of years afterwards, however limited and mixed, particularly that of Great Britain, (which must certainly be our author’s meaning, or he proves nothing to his purpose;) I say, then, if this be his meaning, I cannot so easily part with him; for in this lies our whole difference; and the particular case of the Jews cannot be applied to any other nation in this instance, as none else were ever in similar circumstances.

Acherley, in his Britannick Constitutions, (and I think our author borrows some of his principles where they can serve his purpose,) says expressly, “that the nations round about Israel invested their Kings with absolute power; and that it is a wild imagination to say that the Israelitish Kings, who were but copies (of these Kings) should, either in their election or power, be a pattern to Great Britain.” “There cannot be found either in the Old or New Testament, any particular description of the race of men, which are or ever were Kings of this nation.” How, then, can there be a Scripture protest against a race of men who are not even described in Scripture? Mark that, * Common Sense.

*“Mark that, Cato,” is a favourite expression of our author in the character of the Forester.