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the French Republic. But France, indeed, as we all know, is "more sinned against than sinning;" and never interferes in the concerns of other Coun"tries !!!"

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TO CORRESPONDENTS.

DECIUS MUS, and A BACHELOR, are received, and shall have a place on the first opportunity.

The fullness of our Paper of this Day, must plead our excuse to A. B. We have complied with his directions.

M. would require more room than we can properly allot to one Article. We would recommend a separate Publication.

N.

N° VIII-MONDAY, JANUARY 1, 1798.

Sit vobis in animo, tueri mænia vestra, nec pati hæc omnia Galliam fieri.

N the necessity of great and unusual exertion in the

ON

present unexampled crisis, we think it superfluous to repeat what has been so often urged, and not once contradicted. Facts indeed speak for themselves; and if they needed any Comments, we should find them every day in the language and declarations of the Enemy. As soon as the last Revolution at Paris had produced the rupture of the Negotiation at Lisle, under circumstances which are fresh in the memory of all Europe; the first step of the new French Government was to avow and proclaim the extent of their views against this Country. They professed it to be their object to dictate, on the Banks of the Thames, such Conditions of Peace as should bumble our Naval Power extort from us a Fine and Ransom sufficient to reimburse their Expences in conquering us and finally secure to their Auxiliaries and Confederates here, the full benefits of a RADICAL REFORM, the particulars of which they have not (any more than Mr. Fox) condescended to explain, but which has on the face of it this recommendation, that it will be the joint work of the Whig Club, the London Corresponding Society, and the French Executive Directory.

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This benevolent Project they intend to execute by means very conformable to the end. They have publicly.

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formed, and (as they term it) organized their " ARMY OF "ENGLAND." Its Advanced Guard is to be formed from a chosen Corps of Banditti, the most distinguished for Massacre and Plunder. It is to be preceded, as it naturally ought, by the Genius of French Revolutionary Liberty, and it will be welcomed, as they tell us," on the

ensanguined Shores of Britain, by the generous Friends "of Parliamentary Reform." In the interval, however, till these Golden Dreams are realized, it is necessary that this "Army of England" should be fed, paid, and clothed. For this purpose, a new and separate Fund is provided (in the same spirit with the rest of their measure) and is to be termed "The LOAN F ENGLAND," to be raised by anticipation on the security and mortgage of all the Lands and Property of this Country. This Gasconade, which sounds too extravagant for reality, is nevertheless seriously announced by a Message from the Executive Directory; and we are told that the Merchants of Paris are eagerly offering to advance, on such a security, the money which is to defray the expences of the Expedition.

While the Enemy are thus insulting us with these Menaces, and dividing their Prey beforehand, there are found persons in this Country, who are recommending the only measures which can render such Menaces serious and formidable, instead of being (as they must be otherwise) contemptible and ridiculous. That the Force and Power of this Country ought to enable us to laugh to scorn these insolent Bravadoes, no man who knows our Means and Resources, and who has the Heart of an Englishman, can doubt. But if we imagine this can be accomplished without great and immediate exertion, we deceive ourselves; and we shall purchase a short inter

val of present ease and indolence at the expence of our future security and of our existence.

Nearly six weeks have now elapsed since a Plan has been in discussion, calculated to raise, within the Year, such a portion of the Supplies as may enable us to make this indispensable Effort, without manifest inconvenience and injury to our Public Credit. The necessity of some such measure has (as we have repeatedly observed in the progress of this discussion) never been contested on any rational ground. No other practicable System has to this hour been proposed.

The present Plan is not, nor, indeed, ever has been, pretended to be free from difficulties and objections. But those difficulties have been obviated and lessened, by a perseverance and patience in modifying and adjusting the details, of which there are few examples, even in any measure of regulation in times of leisure and security. We have been minutely discussing in what instance the proportion of the new Assessment, on each particular class, will exceed the proportion of one-fortieth, onetwentieth, or one-tenth of disposeable Income, on the different classes over whom it is distributed, after totally exempting ALL the Poorer Classes of Society. And all this, while an Enemy is almost at our gates, not demanding the Fortieth or the Tenth as a RANSOM, not offering to discuss the modification of the TRIBUTE which he requires, but devoting our whole Property to Confiscation, and our Commerce, our Power, our Constitution, and our Independence, to ruin.

In this situation, the Partizans of Opposition, even though driven from all their original pretences, are still endeavouring to maintain a clamour against the measure, because they believe it the only one which can save the

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Country. They set out with pretended apprehensions, from the inequality of the Tax, and its severity on particular orders. They saw in it the ruin of the Tradesman, the Mechanic, the Shopkeeper, and various other descriptions. As the discussion has proceeded, it has been proved that many of these objections, even in the original state of the measure, were groundless or exaggerated; but in addition to this, they have had the mortification to see that the special Provisions inserted in the Bill, have afforded distinct relief to almost every description of Persons who were at first apprehensive of its effects; and particularly to the numerous class of the less opulent Housekeepers in populous Towns and in the Metropolis.

Baffled in their original attempt, convinced that they will receive no support from those whose alarms were at first excited by causes very different from theirs, and are therefore now generally subsiding, they have been incautious enough to throw off the Mask. They no longer content themselves with pleading the cause of the Shopkeeper, with objecting to the particular effects of the Tax on this or that description: they express no desire to find or to admit any Substitute to provide for the Public Necessities. But, after declaring that their objections to this measure can be removed by no modification; after showing us, by this declaration, that they are (as we always knew them to be, and as belongs to the true Jacobin Character) wholly indifferent and insensible to the interest of those whose cause they affect to espouse, they proceed, by a short transition, to open to us the real end and object of their Proceedings.

A Public Meeting, pretending to act on behalf of the Inhabitants of this great Metropolis, and convened on the

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