Eaton Family - Benjamin Eaton - A Voice of '76

I found this article on 21 May 2022 at https://yesteryearsnews.wordpress.com/tag/benjamin-eaton/

This article reads as:

The Newburgh Gazette brings us the following eloquent letter from the last of the "Life Guards of Gen Washington." Let the freemen of America heed the hones warning of this venerable patriot. Let all who are able to enlist for the war adopt the advice of this aged veteran, and enroll themselves as the Life guards of the country. -Alb. Adv.

To the Descendants of Revolutionary Soldiers

An old soldier of the Continental Army asks for the last time to speak to his countrymen. During the suffering services of the Revolution I was in sixteen engagements, and was one of the little band who volunteered under Sullivan to destroy the "Six Nations of Indians." I was one of that small company selected as the Life Guard of Gen. Washington - but two of us are now living. I was at the tough siege of Yorktown, at Valley Forge, Monmouth, and in thirteen other hard battles, and saw Cornwallis surrender to our old General. My service ceased only with the war.

After all this hardship and suffering, in the street when I go out in my old age to see the happiness I have helped to give you, I am pointed

at as a British Tory - yes, a British Tory - I have said nothing when I have been told so, but have silently thought that my old General would never have picked out a Tory to form one of his Life Guard, nor would a Tory have suffered what I suffered for you. This abuse has been shamefully heaped upon one of your old soldiers because he is what he was when the war broke out, and what Washington told us we must always be when he shook HANDS with us as we all were going home.

I was a Whig in the Revolution, and have been one ever since, and am one now. As a Whig I enlisted for the whole WAR was in favor with the other whigs of Thomas Jefferson, went with the party for James Madison, was in favor of the last war, and to be consistent in my last vote, must give it for Gen. Harrison. He is a brave man, and was never known wherever he has been to take a penny from his neighbor or Government, that was not fairly his own. - We have trod over the same ground fighting for liberty. His father, [(]he was one of us in the Revolution) signed our Independence roll, and then we all went out together to fight for it, and we proved it was true.

It really appears to me that this cannot be the same government that our old soldiers helped Washington to put up here. We fought to have a government as different from any in Europe as we could make it. - Well, we done it, and until lately things have gone on smoothly and Europe was beginning to get ashamed of the way she made slaves of her subjects by making them work and toil for seven poor cents a day with a Standing Army over them to force them to it. But our President now tells the people that things have gone wrong since he Old war and that there are twenty-two miserable Governments in Europe where the Kings wear crowns, the rich people wear silks and the poor people rags, that we must fashion after them if we want to be happy and prosperous! -

We had English laws here once and they were the best in Europe, but we could'nt stand them and we put them under our feet. We used to work for mere nothing then, and we cannot do it again. Working for a few cents a day may do for slaves, but not for freemen whose liberty cost more blood, slaves, but not for freemen whose liberty cost more blood, than liberty ever cost before, why, the very first thing that started the old war, was the Standing Army, that the King kept quartered upon us, we told him that we wanted no soldiers quartered upon us, we told him that we wanted no soldiers over us in time of peace, but he refused to mind us, and I saw Lord Cornwallis surrender up a part of them to honest George Washington. Our President now proposes to have a standing force - what for? - Beware.

Thom's Jefferson never asked for armed men to re-elect him, or elevate his successor. James Madison asked for them only, in the time of the late war, and warned the people when he left his office, to be careful about keeping soldiers in time of peace.

Our streets are filled with idle men who were active laborers once, when employment was to be had. The men of enterprise who once employed them have been ruined by government. And now these hones, but unemployed laborers are told by the government, that when the go to work again, they most do it for a few cents a day - that labor must be as cheap here, as it is among the slaves of Cuba, or the slaves of Europe. Ambition and ignorance on the part of our Government have shut up our shops and stores, scuttled our ships, filled our streets with idleness and bankruptcy, and given no encouragement to the farmer as he looks at his grain. Are not these things so?

You know they are, and I have no motive in saying what may be false - I am too far advanced for office, or any thing else but death - it will soon be here. - My little pension, and I thank you for it, will soon stop, and I go home with the rest of the Life Guards. -

There is but one remedy only for the safety of the country I have saved. Put other men to stand at the tiller, and round of cables, and you will soon be back on the old Constitutional track. Gen. Harrison is honest, he never deceived you, and he never lost a battle, and the People wont let him lose this. Accept my advice, and you all have my blessing - my advice is, that all of you become the Life guards of your country, and my blessing is that your old age may have less fears for liberty than mine.

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