to defcend to the illiberality of fanatics, and call one another names. Neither is it adviseable for them to force their experiments upon mankind. Rational beings fhould be guided by reafon. When a new government is recommended, or an old one defended, let the arguments be laid down plainly and fairly, void of all declamation, fatire, or wit. The one scheme is not to be tried because it is new, nor the other retained becaufe it is old; but if the former be evidently much better than the exifting ftate of things, and therefore would compenfate for the great difficulty and trouble of a change, then alone could it deserve any attention; or if, on the contrary, the old establishment fhould appear to answer its purpose well, or to be capable of amending itfelf, the hazard of fupplanting it by another is by no means advifeable.

A few plain fober confiderations of the above complexion, free from all political cant, fuperftition, party aggravations, and interested deceptions, would, I am perfuaded, have kept old England perfectly fafe from the beginning, without having recourfe to dangerous palliatives, fuch as raifing a horror of innovation, and op

pofing the rage of party against party, and fect againft fect, which have fo often been tried with fuch very bad and even fatal fuccefs. And well they may, for they are only making ufe of the follies of mankind. What a reproach is it upon our fpecies that we fo often addrefs ourselves to thefe follies, rather than to our nobler faculties and principles !

I little thought I should ever have written fo much upon any political fubject; for the fmall benefit I have always perceived to be derived to the wisdom, happiness, or honefty, of thole who intereft themselves much in thefe matters, has rather deterred me from the ftudy of partial politics. The general great interefts of truth and humanity are indeed a worthy and exalting enquiry. Hiflory, as it ferves to devolpe thefe, is a noble study; and a good man may in fome measure be indemnified for fullying his mind with the contemplation of court intrigues, and wearying his patience with the fquabbles of heroes, to learn why all his fellow creatures are not happy, and how they may have a chance of becoming fo, even in spite of their own mistaken endeavours.

AFFAIRS OF FRANCE,
Continued from Page 234,

AT the fitting of Sunday, Feb. 23, a - fingular incident occurred :

A young female citizen, who ferved in the army, demanded to return, and join her colours. The prefident anfwered, Be a wife and a mother.'

On Wednesday, Feb. 26, appeared before the convention, the crew and officers of the frigate la Surveillante, who teilified their approbation of the decree which condemns to death every commander of a ship of war who fhall furrender his veffel to the enemy. They fwore that their frigate should never enter an English port, while they fhould be ftationed on board her.

The fame day, St. Juft, in the name of the committees of public fafety and general welfare, made a report on the means adopted by the two committees, as a re

medy to the imprisonment of persons whe call themselves patriots.

In the courfe of a very eloquent fpeech St. Juft met with many tokens of applause. He dwelt with particular force on the laimentations of the aristocrats, who cry out pitcoufly at the punishment of their relations, while the death of patriots is a matter of perfect indifference to them.

There are, faid he, in Europe four millions of prisoners, of whom you do not hear a word; and we leave at liberty our moft determined enemies. Louis XVI, caufed to perish, in 1787, at Paris, in the ftreets St. Hypolite and Melce, more than eight thousand Frenchmen, and the calamity was scarcely mentioned. Under the monarchy 400,000 men were taken up every year, and 1530 fmugglers were

hanged.

hanged. Under that odious government each fucceffive year faw about 3000 men broken upon the wheel; and the revolutionary tribunal is calumniated for having condemned to death, in the courfe of one year, 300 mifcreants.

Those who are for the liberty of ariftocrats are against the republic. We are called upon to be indulgent, and we conduct ourselves as if we had never been betrayed.

Our object fhould be to prevent any perfon from ill treatment, and every patriot throughout the whole republic, from perfecution.'

After this preamble, St. Juft, in the name of the two committees, propofed, and the convention decreed, as fallows: 1. The committee of general fafety is invested with the power of letting at liberty arrested patriots.

2. All who require to be fit at liberty fhall be obliged to give an account of their conduct fince 1789.

3. The property of patriots is facred and inviolable.

4 The goods of those who fhall be found enemies to the republi: fhall be fequeftrated for the ufe of the republic; their perfons fhall be detaired till the end of the war, and then they fhall be banished for ever.

As the proceedings of the convention are not always of equal inportance, many fucceffive days will often contain nothing fufficiently interesting for narration. But about the middle of Mirch, all Paris was alarmed with the rumeurs of a confpiracy to effect a counter-revolution. Hebert, Ronzin, Vincent, Momoro, and others, all heretofore diftinguished as popular characters, were fuddenly arrested by order of the committees of public fafety and general welfare, on a harge of being concerned in this confpiracy. The revolutionary tribunal was likewife ordered to proceed immediately to the trial of Bazire, Chabot, Julien of Touloufe, Fabre d'Eg lantine, and Delauny of Angers, arrested Lome time betore, on the charge of having preferred their private intereft to the ge neral welfare of the repubise. Nothing can be more indefinite than this charge and there are numerous courtiers and fea tors, no doubt, in every country, who would tremble, if, on fuch a charge, they were liable to be expofed to the very femous confequences which attend fuch an accufatio in France.

In the following decree, however, which the convention pailed on Sunday, the 16th

of March, the crimes imputed to Chabot and his colleagues are more explicitly ftared:

• The national convention having heard the report of its committees of pub lie welfare and general fafety, accufes Chabot, Delauny of Angers, Julien of Toulouse, and Fabre d'Eglantine, its members, of having fold their opinions, of being the authors and accomplices of the fuppreffion and falfification of the decree of the 8th of October laft, respecting the companies of financiers, and of having fubftituted in its place a false decree, bear ing the fame date, which has been depofited with the committee of the Bulletins.

2. The national convention accufes Bazire of having been privy to the fyitent of corruption, of which Chabot, Julica of Toulouse, Fabre d'Eglantine, and De launy of Angers, became the tools, and of having allo become their accomplices, by not revealing it.

3. The national convention decrees, that all thofe individuals who have been mentioned in the two preceding articles of this decree, be arraigned before the revo lutionary tribunal, to be judged by due course of law.'

After this decree had passed, Couthon thus addreffed the convention: Iannounce to you a fact which may now be revealed without danger, as most of the confpirators are in irons. The latter attempted to convey to the fon of Capet, in the Temple, a letter, containing fifty louis d'ors, to enable him to make his efcape; for it was the intention of those villains to give a new matter to France, and to proclaim king the last male offfpring of the last of our tyrants.'

On Wednesday, March 19, the commons of Paris appeared at the bar of the convention, and their prefident read the following addrefs :

employed by you to unveil the manoeuvres of the enemies of the public weal. Remain firm at your poft: all the authorities of Paris conjure you to do fo, in the name of the public fafety, in the name of the country, in the name of liberty. With refpect to the commune, it again fwears never to abandon you, and to thed the last drop of blood for liberty and equality.'

The prefident answered, that for the laft three days the hall of the convention had refounded with the congratulations of the good people of Paris and the neighbourhood.

The national convention,' said Danton, being fupported by the people, will counteract every plot. The laft has been completely averted; and the convention and the people will take care that all conspirators be brought to punishment. Fear nothing, Frenchmen; never was the republic fo great and glorious. This is the time appointed for its triumph. Men will now judge for what they are made: diftinctions will no longer impofe upon them. I am convinced, that the great majority of the members who compofe the council general of the commons of Paris are ardent patriots. They have my esteem.

I demand that all citizens who have any thing to difclofe, and propofe relative to the new confpiracy, do concert with the committees of public safety and general welfare, who will give an account thereof as foon as poffible. I myself, a gainst whom aristocracy and moderatifin have made fuch malignant efforts, will exert my utmoft;-I, who proffered to you the revolutionary government which you adopted, and which adds to all the promptitude of other governments, the trankness of liberty. But let us feek to jerve the republic. I demand that every thing be referred to the committees of public fafety and general welfare

On Friday, March 21, feveral of the fections, together with the companies of niners and gunners of Paris, congratulated the convention on the difcovery of the confpiracy. The cannoneers of Paris then filed through the hall, congratulated the convention on its vigilance, fwore

eternal attachment to it, and promised that the arms, placed in their hands, fhould never be used by them, but for the defence of the republican government. They of fered as a gift one day's pay.

The fame morning, at nine o'clock, in confequence of the verdict of the revolu tionary tribunal given yesterday, the following perfons were brought from the prifon of the Conciergerie to the Place de la Revolution, where they fuffered under the axe of the guillotine, viz. Hebert, Ronzin, Momoro, Vincent, Du Croquet, Kocq a Dutchman, colonel Laumur, Bourgeois, Mazuel, La Boureau, Ancard, Le Clerc, Proly, Deffieux, Anacharfis Cloots, Pereira, Florent, Armand, Defcoinbes, and Dubuion, convicted of being the authors and accomplices of a confpiracy which exitted against the liberty and safety of the people, and against the exercife of the lawful authority, tending to trouble the state by a civil war, by arming the citizens against each other, the object of which was to diffolve the national reprefentation, to affaffinate its members and the patriots, to destroy the republican government, to feize upon the fovereignty of the people, and to give a tyrant to the fate. Hebert, had been procureur general of the commune of Paris, and had been extremely active against the late unfortune queen, Ronzin was general of the revolutionary army; and Anacharfis Cloots was a Pruffian Baron, a kind of madman, who called himself the orator of the human race, and who had been expelled from the convention with Mr. Thomas Paine, on the fame account, that of being a foreigner.-At the trial of the confpirators, one only, was acquitted. As foon as he was liberated, the prefident of the tribunal embraced him, and placed him at his fide, while the hall refounded with applaufes. Those who fuffered difplayed each a different character. Hebert evinced much weaknets; Monmoro was firm; Ronzin infolent; Ancard impetuous; and Vincent calm and refigned. They denounced Pache, the ci-devant mayor; Henriot, the commandant-general; and Chaumette, the procurator fyndic. Lullier, the procurator-general

One of the Paris papers has the following remarkable paragraph: Robespierre and the committees of public fafety and welfare carry all their meafures in triumph; and Danton, in the convention, afferts, that the people ought to have full confidence in them, as the only means of faving the republic. They have hitherto fucceeded to the utmolt of their expectations. Who could imagine that the triumph of Danton (the perfon of moft confequence in the convention, next to Robespierre) should have fuch a melancholy termination as will appear in the sequel?

of

of the department, is faid not to have been implicated in the plot, but to have been put under arreft merely on account of his having inferted in the lift of the jurors for criminal caufes, the names of feveral fufpected perfons. The execution of the nineteen criminals lafted eighteen minutes only.

The next day, a large body of the armed force of Paris filed through the hall, with their commandant Henriot at their head, who spoke as follows:

Citizens Reprefentatives,

You fee before you a part of the armed force of Paris: it will never feparate from the people-never from the conventionnor will it ever ferve any faction. The fteel with which it is armed shall be employed to defend the republican government, of which the convention is the foul and the centre. (Loud applaufes) Continue to labour for our good; punish crimes, tyrants who are the enemies of the people, and ftretch your hands toward perfecuted patriots. Our love and our gratitude fhall be as eternal as liberty, equality, and the republic.' (Honourable mention.)

On Tuesday, March 25, Le Blanc, after having reminded the convention that the British admiral Anfon, had loft eighty men through the uncertainty of a point of aftronomy, prefented a work calculated to correct and fimplify the art of navigation, ́and Sans-Culotife the astronomical science. On Thursday, March 27, Barrere propofed the fuppreffion of the revolutionary army. It has been found,' faid he, that the revolutionary army is a dangerous inftitution, on account of its being more immediately within the power of the general of it. It refembles the army of Cromwell, or the ufurped power of a fenate. You want neither pretorian bands nor janizaries. The fuppreffion was accordingly decreed.

On Sunday, March 30, Barrere obferved, that the recent confpiracy was connected with religious disturbances; to excite which, an effort was made to destroy every moral principle, and to inculcate atheistical doctrines, through the extravagant enterprizes of Cloots, Chaumette, Hebert, &c. against the liberty of worThip. The committee, faid he, is employed in an extensive plan of generation, the refult of which will be at once to banih immorality and prejudices, fuperitition and atheifi; and to found the republic en good principles and morals.

On Monday, March 31, Legendre informed the convention, that four of their members had been arrested by order of the committees of public fafety and general welfare. The celebrated Danton,' faid he, is one of them; I know not the names of the other three. If they are guilty, I will be the first to call for their punishment; but you ought to hear them. I am pure, and I believe Danton to be as pure as myfelf.'

He was interrupted by noise-A member called to the prefident to keep order. The prefident faid, he would not fuffer freedom of fpeech to be infringed; that this day would be glorious to liberty; and that the people and pofterity fhould judge the reprefentatives of the people.

Legendre refumed. He feared that private animofities were going to facrifice men who had rendered great fervices to the revolution. He fpoke of his own connections with Danton; of what Danton had done in 1792, when minifter of juf tice; and concluded with moving that the deputies arrested last night should be heard at the bar. This motion was received with fome applauses.

Fayau thought there ought to be no exception to general rules; and that the laws ought to be the fame for Danton as to other perfons. Men were to be tried by the whole of their conduct, not by their conduct at particular periods. The committees were bound to report the causes of arreft within twenty-four hours, and therefore he moved that the parties arrested fhould not be heard.

Robespierre then rofe. From these difturbances,' faid he, for a long time unknown in this affembly, it is evident that a grand intereft is in queftion, viz. Whether certain men fhall be more powerful than their country? Why elle is this motion, which was rejected when made by Danton in favour of Chabot and Bazire, now applauded by fome individuals? I repeat it, the queftion is, whether or not certain ambitious inen fhall be ftronger than liberty? What then! shall we have made fo many facrifices, only to fall under the yoke of intriguers? Little do I regard the eulogies which people beftow on themselves and their friends. No more do we ask what a man has done at

this or that period; we afk what has been his conduct during the whole of his political career. Legendre pretends not to know the names of the deputies arrefted. Knows he not that Lacroix, his friend, is of the number? He affects ignorance,

because