How to Make a “Patriot”
On this day, a British newspaper called the Middlesex Journal printed the following not-so-complimentary recipe for making a patriot. No doubt they had in mind the rebellious Americans, as well as their supporters in England.
Take two drachms of reason and six ounces of resolution; half a pound of eloquence and a pound of logic; three grains of truth and a pound of falsehood; stir them up together in a quart of opposition, with the necessary ingredients of poverty and distress; strain out all the pernicious juice of principle or honesty, and leave the dregs of treachery to settle at the bottom. Thus, after being boiled in the heat of ministerial vengeance, you will have a MODERN PATRIOT. N. B.—If the least use is made of that attracting weed called pension, the compound will instantly dissolve.
Note: Drachmas and grains were very small units of weight. A grain was a twentieth of a scruple, which was a third of a drachma, which was an eighth of an ounce. Such measures of weight were used by apothecaries (i.e., pharmacists) in concocting medicines and so forth. N. B. basically means “note.” The last sentence in the recipe basically means that money will cause the “patriot” to lose his patriotism.
See what else happened in December 1776
Sources
- Diary of the American Revolution, 1:362.