Page images
PDF
EPUB

as the person who is to fill the vacancy; and they predict, with the same confidence, that FRANCOIS DE NEUFCHATEAU will be the person to go out by lot. The Councils are now occupied, by order of the Directory, in framing other Decrees equally violent and unconstitutional, for over-awing the Electoral Assemblies in all the Departments.

BUONAPARTE is, by most Journals, stated to have left Paris, for the purpose of inspecting the situation, and expediting the arrangements of the Army of England. Other Papers maintain, that he is still in Paris: a third class fairly avow, that they do not know whether he is there or no. Perhaps one of the most singular features in the present state of the Public Mind in France, is the utter incapacity to fix their attention or admiration on any one object, however conspicuous; or to express any other feeling than such as is dictated to them by the caprice of their Rulers. BUONAPARTE appears to be almost as much forgotten as if he had never existed.-The Master of the Silver Lion, at Calais, is the only person who seems to think of him with any respect; and he, from the single circumstance of his having praised the accommodations of his Hotel. How the Landlord of the Silver Lion, and the Journalists who maintain that BUONAPARTE has never left Paris, may settle the matter between them, we do not pretend to determine. As little do we attempt to conjecture, whether the incognito thus successfully preserved by BUONAPARTE, has any deeper motive; or may lead to any great event, which will again place him in the foremost rank of observation, at the same time that it may change the whole fice of public affairs in France,

[blocks in formation]

The Directory have announced the hostile entry of their Army into ROME. We must wait to hear from other quarters, the details of violence and rapine which have marked the final extinction of that Government; whose anxious and wretched existence, the most humiliating concessions, the most abject supplications, the most implicit devotion to the pleasure of France, have not availed to preserve.

-

In other ages of the world, the History of the conduct of France towards this feeble and unresisting Enemy stained as that conduct has been with every circumstance of injustice, insult, and cruelty; with every thing that could aggravate conquest, and embitter subjection-would have excited universal horror and astonishment throughout Europe, and united against the French Name and Nation, the sentiments and feelings of every individual, as well as the force of every State, But the French find an advantage in the multiplicity of their crimes in the variety, the enormity, and the perseverance, of their wickedness. While we are yet contemplating one instance of atrocity and oppression, in the overthrow of an inoffensive Government, our attention is called away to the fate which appears to be preparing for other Countries, whether Foes or Friends of the French Directory-whether exposed to the savageness of their enmity, or, what is alike destructive, relying upon the faithlessness of their professed Neutrality, or subjected to the despotism of their Friendship.

That the utter destruction of PORTUGAL is decided in the Councils of the Directory, cannot any longer be doubted. M. D'ARAUJO, the Portuguese Minister (as

-

is announced in all the Papers) is to be brought to trial at Paris for what crime, or upon what pretence, and by what authority, except that of lawless and sanguinary power, is not stated. An outrage thus flagrant, unheard of in the History of Civilized Nations, is a striking lesson to Europe and the World, and teaches us what is to be the lot of every People, who shall want either the spirit to resist, or the strength to repel, the aggression of a Government which acknowledges no Law or Institution Human or Divine, no rule of conduct, no limit of power, but the wild and wicked dictates of its own rapacity and malignity.

The Portuguese (we are credibly informed) have offered to send another Minister, to resume, or renew, the Negotiations for Peace, and to treat for the liberation of of M. D'ARAUJO. The offer has been haughtily rejected. The Great Nation declares itself incensed beyond the possibility of reparation. Its wrath can be appeased only by ruin.

It is but justice, however, to the Directory, to allow, that they have apparently a double motive for the harshness and inflexibility of their determination with respect to PORTUGAL. The crushing an Enemy, would of itself be but a comparatively small temptation, unless it involved in itself the destruction of a Friend. The Paragraphs respecting SPAIN, which find their way into the most violent Paris Papers, and those immediately in the interest and confidence of the Government, though not strictly official Articles, speak in but too plain a language, the designs which the Directory entertain against that unfortunate Country. The Court of MADRID is accused of a partiality to PORTUGAL, Scandalous in the extreme, considering how much it is the interest, or what

003

what is more, the pleasure of FRANCE, that PORTUGAL should be annihilated. Their indisposition to receive a French Army into Spain, for the express purpose of destroying their Neighbours, and regenerating themselves, is represented as criminal in the highest degree. It is moreover averred, that the Naval Battle of the 14th of February, was purposely lost by the Spanish Commander, and not without a hint from his Court to that purpose. The punishment which such a complication of iniquity merits, is left to the imagination of every good Republican.

The accounts of the progress of the French Arms in SWITZERLAND are less decisive than the Directory appeared to have anticipated. Berne still resists with firmness and magnanimity. In no part where resistance has been opposed to them, have the French made any progress. In those parts where they have been permitted to enter as friends, they have not scrupled to exercise all the rights of a Conquering Invader - according to their own most savage interpretation of them. They express great indignation, that those Districts which have not yet yielded them admittance, should resist the propagation of a system so evidently calculated for their advantage.

-

[ocr errors]

If there be yet one man in England hardy enough to assert if there be one blind, perverse, or stupid enough to believe that there is any thing in the views, and policy of the French Rulers, short of the utter and final destruction of every existing Government, and the complete devastation and subjection of every other Country in Europe let him pause on the picture which SwIT

ZERLAND

ZERLAND now exhibits, and on the conduct of France with regard to that Country, as described by the French

themselves.

Not a shadow, or pretence of ground for War, has been assigned not an allusion to any supposed ill-disposition towards France, on the part of the Swiss Government not a hint of the terms on which Hostility might be avoided, or Peace restored. Absolute extermination of the Government unqualified enslavement of the

-

People such are the only sacrifices by which the peaceable and innocent Swiss are required to expiate the crime of having been till now tranquil and happy.

If there be in that Country the spirit and patriotism which every History of former times, and every recent account, gives us reason to believe, we cannot but still indulge the hope, that strength and energy enough may be found, or created there, to resist effectually the farther invasion of the French Armies. We cannot but hope that the Government of BERNE may yet succeed in collecting round itself such a force, as may ensure its own safety; while it will hold out to the World one example at least, of what may be done even with means comparatively small, by Men determined to struggle to the last in the cause of their Country; and if their Country must ultimately fall, rather to bury themselves in its ruins, than to become the tame spectators of its shame, the accomplices and the slaves of its oppressors.

Were it possible to conceive that the Inhabitants of these Kingdoms could read without reflection or advantage, the History of the Nations which are every day falling into rain around them, we should indeed despair

« PreviousContinue »