COMMENTARIES, 28 DECEMBER 1787

gether in the high-priest; place the great Doctor in the shoes of Aaron,
with this single restriction, that he never set up a golden calf for the
people to worship.7 Appoint the great attorney seer, generalissimo of
the United States, and agree to the celestial constitution.
I am conscious, Mr. Greenleaf, that I shall be derided by sceptics, but
I despise their derision. I have established my creed upon the rock of
truth, and the man who disbelieves it, must be a disciple of Pyrrho.8
DEMOCRITUS.
P. S. I hope my good friend Dr. Sawney M'Foolish, the Examiner, will
not be angry with me, for employing another physician, to cure me of
my madness. I am sure, he must ken vary weele, that I know he is mickle
learned in quackery, and of the twa, is the stoutest fighter for the con-
stitution, whilk the convention did tak upon themselves to make. I am
glad to see him gie baith the brute and cat a bonny downset. He
needna think otherwise, but I was free frae jocularity, when I tauld him,
I wud make a set of buiks from his writings, whilk wud shaw him a
bennisun to the bairns of Adam; and I donna doubt, but he will be
sick mickle thought of in Europe, that he will be mad- a doctor of
Medicine, since he has found out so important a thing, that Solomon
Gundy9 will throw a man into a fever; and I trust the good people of
America, will be grateful, and reward him with the office of man-mid-
wife to her sacred majesty, the lady Presidentess, under the new gov-
ernment, for his able performances in defence of it.
1. In the postscript to this essay, "Democritus" criticizes "Examiner" for the third
time, the first two times having occurred in the New York Journal on 14 and 21 December
(both above). "Democritus" also comes very close to naming Dr. Charles McKnight as
"Examiner," when he refers to "Dr. Sawney M'Foolish." See "Examiner" I, New York
journal, 11 December (above).
2. The reference is to Philadelphia physician Benjamin Rush's speech of 12 December
in the Pennsylvania Convention in which he declared that Divine Providence was em-
ployed in drafting the Constitution. Two different summary versions of Rush's speech
appeared in the Pennsylvania Herald, 15 December; and in the Pennsylvania Gazette, Phila-
delphia Independent Gazetteer, and Pennsylvania Packet, 19 December. The Herald's version
was reprinted in both the New York Journal and Daily Advertiser on 22 December; while
the other version was reprinted in the Daily Advertiser, 28 December; New York Morning
Post, 31 December; and Albany Gazette, 7 February 1788.
The republication of the latter version in New York City was perhaps the result of
Rush's own efforts. On 21 December Rush wrote to William Irvine, a Pennsylvania dele-
gate to Congress, that "I am reduced to the necessity of doing myself justice from a late
attack upon me in the news paper, by requesting you to publish the enclosed extract
from One of my Speeches in convention in all the news papers in New York.-I am
concerned more for the honor of the cause committed to me by fellow citizens, than for
my own reputation-for as a fool & a madman I am you know Scandal proof in Pennsyl-
vania." (See RCS:Pa., 592-96; and CC:357.)
Rush was also criticized by "A Countryman" VI, New York Journal, 14 February 1788;
and "A Plebeian," An Address to the People of the State of New York, 17 April (both III below).

481