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.