under the idea that we can alter it when we please, will be sporting with fire-brands, arrows and death. It is a system which must have an army to support it, and there can be no redress but by a civil war. If, as the federalists say, there is a necessity of our receiving it, for heaven’s sake let our liberties go without our making a formal surrender. Let us at least have the satisfaction of protesting against it, that our own hearts may not reproach us for the meanness of deserting our dearest interests. Our present system is attended with the inestimable advantage of preventing unnecessary wars. Foreign influence is assuredly smaller in our publick councils, in proportion as the members are subject to be recalled. At present, their right to sit continues no longer than their endeavours to secure the publick interest. It is therefore not an object for any foreign power to give a large price for the friendship of a delegate in Congress. If we adopt the new system, every member will depend upon thirty thousand people, mostly scattered over a large extent of country, for his election. Their distance from the seat of government will make it extremely difficult for the electors to get information of his conduct. If he is faithful to his constituents, his conduct will be misrepresented, in order to defeat his influence at home. Of this we have a recent instance, in the treatment of the dissenting members of the late federal convention.(26) Their fidelity to their constituents was their whole fault. We may reasonably expect similar conduct to be adopted, when we shall have rendered the friendship of the members valuable to foreign powers, by giving them a secure seat in Congress. We shall too have all the intrigues, cabals and bribery practiced, which are usual at elections in Great Britain. We shall see and lament the want of publick virtue; and we shall see ourselves bought at a publick market, in order to be sold again to the highest bidder. We must be involved in all the quarrels of European powers, and oppressed with expense, merely for the sake of being like the nations round about us. Let us then, with the spirit of freemen, reject the offered system, and treat as it deserves the proposition of men who have departed from their commission; and let us deliver to the rising generation the liberty purchased with our blood. AGRIPPA. Agrippa, XV. The Massachusetts Gazette, (Number 402) TUESDAY, JANUARY 22, 1788. TO THE MASSACHUSETTS CONVENTION. _Gentlemen_,