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COMMENTARIES, 25 FEBRUARY 1790
encourage and promote every useful art, afford her peace at home,
and render her respectable abroad.
1. Reprinted: Boston Gazette, 22 February; New Hampshire Spy, 24 February; New York
Daily Advertiser, 5 March; Pennsylvania Packet, 12 March; and Charleston City Gazette, 19
March.
New York Daily Advertiser, 20 February 17901
Extract of a letter from Newport, (Rhode-Island) Feb. 11.
"At present our island and state may not improperly be called the
Botany Bay2 of America, the receptacle of the seditious, the disaffected,
and the bankrupts of other states, an Augean stable, whose accumu-
lated filth will take some modern Hercules3 at least thirty years to clear
away; for we are still in hopes there is virtue and magnanimity enough
among us to remove some time or another, the mass of pollution col-
lected in this state in the course of the last six years. The sons of Belial4
are numerous amongst us, tho' there are some hopes of their refor-
mation in as much as Dr. I-       T   -5 and Co. have published some
letters in which they assert that should the general government be wisely
and prudently administred they make no doubt its subjects may be the
richest and happiest people on earth, which (says T-) is my sincere
prayer. &c. What a lovely, immaculate creature is this Dr. I- T-
and lo! he prayeth! ["]
1. Reprinted: Stockbridge, Mass., Western Star, 2 March; Pennsylvania Packet, 18 March.
The writer of this letter is attacking John Taylor, a Massachusetts Antifederalist who had
recently moved to Smithfield, R.I. For Taylor, see Philadelphia Federal Gazette, 6 August
1789, note 4 (RCS:R.I., 566). For Taylor's defense of himself, see "John Taylor," Newport
Mercury, 15 February 1790 (Mfm:R.I.).
2. A reference to the British penal colony in Australia.
3. According to myth, King Augeas was the largest owner of cattle in Greece and each
night all of the animals were confined to the stables, which created massive filth. Hercules
is fabled to have cleaned Augeas' stables in one day.
4. See "A Friend to Rule and Order," Providence Gazette, 15 March 1788, note 1 (RCS:R.I.,
139).
5. The Stockbridge, Mass., Western Star, 2 March, reprint changed "I- T-" to
"JOHN TAYLOR."
A Freeholder
Newport Herald, 25 February 1790
TO THE HONORABLE THE DELEGATES OF THE STATE CONVENTION.
To the Delegates of a free people, the Address of a Freeholder can-
not be displeasing, especially at a period when the State is convulsed
by parties, and the public decision is called for on a question that is
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