declamation against us, which they afterwards carefully retail to all Europe.

Whether this be so important a step towards Peace, as the Morning Chronicle represents it, we doubt:-certainly we should have livelier hopes of it, if we could once find the Enemy copying less freely from that Print.

Subscriptions.

"We admire a MARIUS sitting upon the ruins of Carthage, when "we are shocked at the idea of BELISARIUS begging from door to “ door.”—Morning Chronicle, Feb. 8.

This indecent allusion to the humiliating situation of Mr. Fox, might, we think, have been spared; but the Pere du Chene was born for the destruction of his friends.

He printed Lord MOIRA's Letter, and thereby subjected his scheme of castle-building to the derision of the Public.

He collected the ribaldry of HORNE TOOKE into one disgusting mass, and thereby spoiled the sale of his Book.

He published a triumphant detail of the Duke of NORFOLK's famous Harangue; and when he found he had raised a general outcry against His Grace, stupidly republished it, corrected into nonsense, and thereby turned our anger into contempt.

In a word, such and so numerous have been his blunders, that we seriously recommend a daily Committee, à la mode de Paris, to examine every Paragraph before it is sent to the Press. Why should the Jacobins cut down their own Vineyards!

IF our Readers will turn to the Introduction to our First Number, they will find that we not only professed to detect the current LIES of the Day, but also to trace out, and confute, such as, having unaccountably gained a partial

partial credit on their first appearance, are now confidently appealed to by the Domestic Enemies of this Country, as a justification, or at least a palliation, of the subsequent enormities of France.

Matters of a temporary nature have hitherto prevented us from executing this important part of our Plan; but we have never lost sight of it;—and we are now enabled to present our Readers with a complete and incontrovertible refutation of a FORGERY, which, to the disgrace of common sense, has had more success than the Jacobinical fabricators of it probably ever ventured to hope or expect.

We cannot conclude without thanking the Corres pondent to whom we owe this valuable Paper. We hope we shall often have to congratulate ourselves and our Readers on his Favours-Favours which, while they materially aid our well-meant endeavours, contribute in no small degree to adorn them.

As there is nothing which the ENGLISH JACOBINS have more at heart, than to cast a veil over the aggression of France in the present War; so, in the pursuit of this favourite object, they are neither sparing of their labour, nor at all scrupulous in their choice of means.

See the Collection of State Papers relative to the War against France, published by DEBRETT, vol. i. p. 1.

Among

Among many other instances of misrepresentation and I falsehood employed for this purpose, a curious specimen of JACOBIN FORGERY may be seen in the Collection of State Papers on the War, published by DEBRETT: the first page of which exhibits a pretended Treaty of Pavia, between Austria, Russia, Prussia, and Spain, containing a detailed and most extraordinary Plan for dismembering France, and dividing among themselves a large part of Europe. The object of this Fabrication cannot be mistaken the conclusion which it is intended the Reader should draw from it, is evidently this, that France, in successively attacking all those Powers, and in afterwards declaring War, without any visible provocation, against Great Britain and Holland, was in fact acting defensively, and resisting a pre-concerted and long prepared aggression against herself.

The Forgery is, however, so gross and clumsy, that it is not easy to conjecture what Class of Politicians it was meant to deceive,

The Treaty is alledged to have been concluded in July 1791, at Pavia, a town in Italy, and it is signed “LEOPOLD," "PRINCE NASSAU," "Count FLORIDA

The mere comparison of these Dates and Signatures, would alone abundantly suffice to detect the imposture; since of the four persons there named, it may be easily ascertained that only two were in any part of Italy in 1791; and that no one of the four was at Pavia.

The Names, however, contain other obvious and indisputable proofs of Forgery. For instance, who is there so ignorant, as not to know that the Signature of a Sovereign is never interchanged in a Public Instrument, with those of the Ministers of the Princes with whom he

treats?

treats? This blunder is decisive. The next is not less so. Any person acquainted with the usages of the Continent, must know that Prince Nassau is not the true Signature of the person here intended. That person is, besides, a Frenchman, a Foreigner in Russia, and could not therefore have been employed to sign any Public Treaty in the name of the EMPRESS, or to fill any diplomatic situation. under her Government, without a breach of a declared rule of Policy, adopted at the first moment of her accession, as a contrast to the conduct of her Predecessors, and never once deviated from, in the whole period of her reign.

Add to all this, that this PRINCE of NASSAU was not in Italy at all in 1791; that in the month of July of that year, instead of negotiating at Pavia, he was cruizing with the Russian Flotilla in the Baltic; — that Count FLORIDA BLANCA was then First Minister in Spain; that the duties of his situation did not allow him to leave that Country; and that from the date of his appointment to that of his disgrace, his journies from Madrid extended only to St. Ildefonso or the Escurial : and lastly, that General BISCHOPS WERDER, the only one of these pretended Plenipotentiaries who was in Italy in 1791, did not then go to Pavia, and certainly signed no Treaties there, or elsewhere, with any Russian or Spanish Minister.

All this, however, though a detection against which the most hardened impostors would blush to defend themselves, is nothing in comparison with the internal proofs of Forgery which the contents of the Articles themselves afford. To judge of these, does indeed require some knowledge of the past, and some general idea of the present state and interests of Europe: and, to persons so qualified, it is presumed that this Forgery was not addressed.

dressed. Otherwise, we should not have heard of Alsace being to be restored to the Empire, or of the ARCHDUCHESS CHRISTINE being selected by the EMPEROR to hold the Hereditary Dominion of Lorraine, and to hold it conjointly with her Nephew; if indeed to those words any meaning whatever can be given. We should not be told, that the KING of SARDINIA is the nearest descendant of the antient Dauphins! or that on such descent he founds, or could found, any claim to Dauphiny. Still less should we find the KING of PRUSSIA stipulating that the House of Austria should keep Bavaria, which it never had, should acquire Alsace and Lorraine, and should make new Conquests on the Porte; and all this precisely at the moment when Prussia and her Allies were arming to oblige the EMPEROR to restore to Turkey the few Conquests he had already made. We should not have found Austria and Prussia contriving how to place a line of RUSSIAN PRINCES on the Throne of Poland, or the three Powers conspiring to make that Throne hereditary; a Revolution the most contrary to all their interests, and the mere apprehension of which, occasioned their subsequent interference, and was the immediate, (though wholly unjustifiable) cause of the final Partition of the Polish Territories.

In addition to all these extravagant absurdities, it is asserted, in a Note annexed to this pretended Treaty, that Great Britain and Holland acceded to it in March 1792, namely, at the very time when the KING of FRANCE actually sent over to this Country M. TALLEYRAND, now Minister for Foreign Affairs at Paris, and his pupil M. CHAUVELIN, charged with a Letter to the KING of ENGLAND, thanking him for his steady adherence to his generous and impartial system of Neutrality; a Letter