* sincere and earnest endeavour to obtain the blessings of Peace, "which he by no means did believe had ever been put in pracstice, or ever taken seriously into contemplation, by His Ma"jesty's Ministers.”—Parliamentary Debates, Morn. Chron. Dec. 5. Who shall decide, when Doctors disagree?

"Happy it is for us (but we are under no obligations to the Mi«nister for that) that the Waters separate this Kingdom from "France, or else the Minister would have completed our de"struction. He would not have dared to have insulted the "French Nation, unless he had been Prime Minister of an "Island!!!"-Morning Post, Dec. 6.

O! the blessings of a clear head! This ingenious Gentleman "apprehends a world of figures here;" but we doubt whether we clearly understand him.

He seems to say, that if Great Britain had not been an Island, the Minister would have ruined it by going to War with France; BECAUSE, if it made part of the Continent, he would NOT have gone to War at all!!!

This is beyond us but we leave these and similar discoveries to the enjoyment of the Corresponding Societies; content with pointing out to the plain sense of the well-disposed, the intolerable stupidity of those Scribblers who, in the Jacobinical Prints, assume the style of superior intelligence, and impudently attempt to convince the world that it lay immersed in ignorance till they kindly undertook the province of enlightening it.

We recommend it, however, to the Party, to look a little more narrowly after their Prints: as Dr. Brodum would say, "there is more reason for this caution than "some men are aware of."

A Correspondent from Hull has called our attention to a Letter addressed to Mr. WILBERFORCE, in the Morning Chronicle of the 17th and 22d November. He expresses

6

presses some surprize that it should have escaped our observation, considering it, very justly, as one long MisREPRESENTATION from beginning to end.

Our Correspondent does us injustice We have not overlooked this Letter.

It would have been unpardonable in us to have passed over wholly, a work upon which so much labour had evidently been bestowed in the writing. Those who have the patience to follow us (we thought there had been none) will soon be convinced that there is at least as much labour in the reading.

But most of our Readers will probably be content with the following specimen:

"Since that period the term Regicide has been applied, without "reserve, by Ministerialists, to the French Leaders in every "stage of the Revolution; and at the very time that Lord MALMESBURY was first sent over with Instructions, a virulent "Pamphlet was published by a man pensioned by, and devoted to, "Government; which, lest its contents should not be read by all, "bore for its title A Regicide Peace,"

Up to this point, we found nothing to reward our pains not that there seems to be any want of will to misrepresent, but a certain want of power to make any distinct representation at all, which wonderfully assuages the virulence of the Writer's intention.

Here he grows more striking; and by dint of concentering two false insinuations and one bad joke, he exhibits, for a moment at least, a semblance of a meaning, upon which it may be proper to make a short remark.

It is insinuated that Mr. BURKE wrote his "Regicide "Peace" at the instigation of Ministers, and expressly to serve their views with regard to the negotiation; and for this purpose Mr. BURKE is described as a man pen"sioned by, and devoted to, Government;" as if his Pension had been the hire of his future services to an Admi

nistration,

nistration, not the well-earned reward of the long, laborious, and honourable, discharge of his public duty to his a falsehood which no Writer who entertained

Country

a decent respect for the would venture to assert and as if he were understood to have spoken at all times, on French affairs particularly, the sentiments of the Ministers; which there is no man commonly conversant with the political transactions of the last two or three years, who does not know to be untrue.

liberal feelings of his Readers,

It is insinuated next, that the views of Ministers, in sending Lord MALMESBURY to Paris, were, that his Mission should prove abortive: And here it is that, feeling how little he could hope to bear himself out by argument, our Author has recourse to a joke. Perhaps the inattentive Reader (since Readers there are besides ourselves) may not have discovered it but the dash before the word "Instructions" is not there for nothing. It implies (if we are not much mistaken), that the Instructions were blank Instructions just as, according to M. TALLEYRAND's Letter (referred to every day by the Morning Chronicle as the true statement of the last Negotiation), the Projet delivered by Lord MALMESBURY was a blank Projet. In truth, the joke is just as good in one instance as the other; and we know not why the Writer before us should be precluded from using it on the present occasion, merely because it happens to have been applied, where it was as little applicable, before.

"Coughing and laughing are among the Ways and Means adopted by "the Minister for raising the Supplies."-Morning Post, Dec. 6. "We are happy to find that the warm Debate on Thursday night "has effectually cured the Minister's friends of their Colds: there was no coughing in the House, as heretofore." Morning Post, December 16.

When

When we read, in the Morning Post of December 5, the famous Speech, de quolibet ente, of a Gentleman whose name has of late been made most indecently, and we must add, most unjustifiably, familiar to the Public (Mr. J. NICHOLLS, Member for Tregony), we were not a little surprized at the number of breaks in it, filled up by the Editor's Insertions in Italics" Here the "House burst into a roar of laughter"" Here the "House was seized with a general fit of coughing" or words to that effect; especially as these breaks were very sparingly, if at all, introduced in the other Papers, And we could not help exclaiming with Falstaff, "Call “ you this backing your friends? a plague upon such "backing!" But the mystery has since been explained by the Paragraphs above cited, and numberless others of the same complexion. It is for Mr. NICHOLLS to consider whether his associates treat him kindly, in laying the foundation for these miserable witticisms at his expence.

The Conductor of the Morning Chronicle, who "dear"ly loves a joke," was so taken with the humour of the first of the two quotations, that he inserted it twice, with a small variation, in his Paper of December 7.

The following Extract of a Letter from Hamburgh, dated November 7, 1797, and inserted in the Leyden Gazette of November 14, will shew to our Readers, that ours is not the only Paper which finds employment in refuting the Mis-statements and Misrepresentations of the Jacobin Prints of this Country; and as the information contained in it has every appearance of authenticity, it may contribute to set the Public right, upon a point on

which no industry has been spared to give a false impression,

Extract of a Letter, dated Hamburgh, November 7, 1797, inserted in the Leyden Gazette of November 14.

"The English Newspaper The Courier, of the 27th of September, "says, the Directory has invited General LA FAYETTE, Messrs. "LA TOUR MAUBOURG and BUREAU DE PUZY, to return to France, "where their fellow-sufferer, ALEXANDER LAMETH, is at pre"sent. This assertion has been repeated in several English, "French, and German Papers. We are, however, authorized to "state, that on the 1st of November the late Prisoners at Ol"mutz, LA FAYETTE, LA TOUR MAUBOURG, and BUREAU DE "Puzy, had not received any such invitation."

The object of the Falsehood here refuted, is obvious. The Misrepresentations which were published with great industry throughout Europe, with regard to M. LA FAYETTE's treatment during his confinement at Olmutz, had excited a certain degree of interest respecting him in this Country-a Country from which, of all others, he had the least claim to respect and commiseration. Το avail themselves of this weakness, and to represent the French Directory as actuated by a spirit of lenity towards one of the first Martyrs of the Revolution (at the very period when that Directory was employed in transporting the proscribed Deputies to Cayenne, and banishing or shooting the unfortunate Emigrants who had returned to France) the Jacobin Prints in this Country, faithful to the views of their Gallic Friends, thought it expedient to propagate this notable instance of Republican Liberality.

It is, however, now formally contradicted, and, as it appears, by the parties immediately concerned. But it will perhaps be a matter of surprize to our Readers to learn, that not only the Prisoners at Olmutz were not invited to return to France, but that the prohibition of their return thither at any time, originated not with the EMPEROR,

but