nary state of civilization. The Portugueze Minister, M. d'ARAUJO, who is at Paris for the purpose of arranging the conclusion of the Treaty of Peace, has been suddenly arrested, and his Papers seized. We make no comment on this proceeding, of which the details, and the official justification, are not yet known. On the face of it, it is an outrage, such as till now was unheard of among Nations and if the defence to be set up for it, is that which we find hinted in some of the French Papers (though not, as we have observed, coming avowedly from the Directory) " that M. d'ARAUJO has re"ceived from Portugal, and paid over to unauthorized "persons, sums of money for the purchase of a Peace, "the Directory being no way concerned in the transac"tion, nor privy to it," this pretence will probably turn out to be as false and fraudulent, as the proceeding grounded upon it is insolent and unjustifiable. BUONAPARTE is still at Paris. The Congress at Rastadt apparently waits only for his presence, to begin the system of pillage and confiscation, which is universally understood, and by the French pretty clearly avowed, to be the object of it. A Plan is in circulation at Hamburgh, and has been received and transcribed into most of our English Newspapers, which is said to mark out the nature aud extent of the dismemberment, exchange, compensation, extinction, and creation of States and Countries, which the Directory intend to propose and to carry into effect, for the settlement of their own limits, the punishment of their Enemies, the subjugation of their Allies, and the esta establishment of the final dominion of France over Europe. Whether there be any, and what truth, in this Plan of gigantic innovation, amounting, in fact, to little less than a new distribution of the territory, the revenues, the population, the internal power, and the political relations of half of the Governments of the civilized World, is not yet known. It can only be said as yet, that it is no unnatural end and object of the same principles which have produced in France, and in every Country through which the arms of France have propagated her system, a subversion and confusion of all ranks and orders of men, of all custorns, manners and institutions, civil, religious, or moral, and of all sentiments, relations, and connexions, whether in public or private life - it is no unnatural effect of these principles operating upon a greater scale in the disarrangement of Europe, to subvert and confound whatever they do not utterly abolish, of the moral elements of other Countries; to shake and loosen the links of society, where they have no pretence for breaking them altogether; to unfix the minds of the people, where they have no opportunity or interest wholly or immediately to subdue them; and to transplant the Governments, which it does not suit them instantly to destroy, into soils where they can take no fast root, and where they may hereafter be overturned at leisure, or must fall by their own feebleness, and by their disconnection from all that has hitherto upheld them. All that need be said of this project is, that if it be not the true and genuine, offspring of the French Directory, it is the best impostor that ever passed itself upon the world. It has the gait, and manners, and language, of its pretended Parent to a miracle. The likeness of imitation never before came so near to the resemblance of blood. It may be, nevertheless, that however honestly born, it is not immediately to be acknowledged. And the German Professor who has had the care of ushering it into the world, may have been instructed to pass it for his own, until it has made its way by its own intrinsic merit; then only to have the secret of its nobler parentage revealed, to be instituted into all its rights, and powers, and possessions, when the world shall have grown familiar to it, and have learnt to regard it without apprehension. This has been the constant trick of the French Government, with regard to all its plans of inordinate and incredible ambition and aggrandizement. They have been brought forward in the first instance apparently without authority; then tacitly disclaimed, or relinquished, or explained away; and in the end, when they were considered as a thing passed by and wholly out of consideration, they have been suddenly resumed, vigorously pushed, and successfully executed, while Europe has stood by gaping with astonishment, at what, having once foreseen and apprehended (justly and wisely) it had afterwards persuaded itself to forget as abandoned, or to despise as incredible and impracticable. It may be thus with Europe in regard to the Project of Universal Injustice, Rapine, and Violence, which is here chalked out It may be thus with this Country, in regard to the INVASION So long and loudly threatened — if we let either the length or loudness of the cry confound our judgement or disarm our caution. The French Papers continue to be filled with accounts of the designs of Conquest and Plunder which they have formed against England; and of the preparations which they are making for carrying them into execution.-Loans, Rafts, Air, Fire, Water, are all pressed into the service of the Invaders. Their threats we feel to be in a great degree ridiculous - We know much of their vaunting to be false.Their Loan is not filled; their Rafts are not built To the Air they are welcome, and at Fire and Water we can match them. - --- But let not their folly of the same system of which we have already been speaking; and the reality of the design may be purposely covered by an apparent laxity in providing the means of its execution. At the same time a report is studiously circulated, that it is the intention of France, as soon as she has executed her scheme of continental ambition, to make an offer of Peace to THIS COUNTRY. This has been the un form policy of the Jacobins, both as a Faction and as a Government; there is no plan which they have executed, whether of Vengeance or Ambition, which has not been openly avowed before hand; the Authors of these declarations, uniformly accompanying them by a confidential intimation that they had no intention of acting up to them. When the secret could no longer be kept, and the Jacobins, upon the eve of some decisive blow, were apprehensive of being betrayed by the garrulity and vanity of their partizans, it occurred as an obvious expedient, that their real project might be announced in a Declaration so ostentatious and atrocious, as to create a suspicion of its sincerity; while at the same time a confidential disavowal of it, studiously circulated and whispered about, would meet with credit and belief. In this manner the loquacity of the French Conspirators has served their cause more effectually than the most scrupulous and retentive secrecy could have done. Men have been unwilling to believe in the extent of their own danger, and the depravity of their species. — It was observed by Mr. BURKE, very early in the Revolution, that nothing had contributed more to the ruin of the King, and the Nobility, than that disposition to believe in the possibility of a returning sentiment of humanity or remorse in the minds of their Persecutors. The artifice of accompanying a violent Declaration with an insinuated disavowal, has been already put in practice against this Country, and we must expect to see it repeated. We should not be surprized if the Directory were to tell us confidentially, that they are disposed to treat with such or such Ministers, upon such or such terms They would in the mean while continue their open invectives, and declarations of vengeance, against us; and while, upon the faith of these unauthorized communications, we were looking for security in such domestic arrangements as we might conceive would be most acceptable to our Enemies while we were engaged in party cavils and recriminations, THE ATTEMPT AGAINST THIS COUNTRY WOULD BE MADE. N° |