ried into foreign countries, they may freely address themfelves to me, and I will, in the name of his Britannic Majefty, reclaim fuch property, as belonging to his fubjects. You fee, unfortunate people, that your interefts are dear to his Britannic Majefty. In granting the prayers of your countrymen, he does not defire to fubject you instantly to laws to which you are ftrangers. He preferves to you. your ancient cuftoms, where they are not contrary to civil order and the general intereft. He wills only, that neceffary measures of every kind fhould be employed, to compel the flaves to due fubmiffion and obedience, and to oppofe an infurmountable barrier to the fpirit of innovation, and to the meafures which your enemies are confpiring for your ruin. Such are the benign intentions of the King of Great Britain towards you. Compare with them the atrocious acts of the three individuals who are your oppreffors, of men who have ufurped an authority, which could only have been confided to them for the purpofe of deftroying you. Reduce them at once to that infignificance from which they fprang, and which awaits them. Undiftinguished by birth, new Eroftrati, they are known but by their crimes; while thofe who delegated them, aftonished at your patience, and trembling before the combined forces which prefs on every fide, leave them to your vengeance. Men of Colour! Have you fuffered yourfelves to be duped by the declamations of thefe Traitors, boafting to you of Liberty and Equality? Have they not abufed you, in making you hare them with your own flaves? Recover fpeedily from your errors: come and obtain from your fathers and benefactors, an oblivion of thofe ills which you have occafioned, and which otherwife muft lead to your own ruin. Can you imagine that Slaves, fuddenly called to Freedom, i Liberty and Equality, will patiently endure that fuperiority which you wish to exercise over them, and to which you have no title but that founded in the generofity of thofe who gave you freedom? No! Soon overpowered by numbers, your crimes would be punished by the very hands in which you have placed arms. Determine on the enjoyment of thofe privileges which our Constitution grants to People of your defcription in the Colonies or the punishment of your offences. Lay down thofe arms which have been put into your hands for your own deftruction; refume the management of your plantations; or, come and unite yourfelves under our ftandard, to purchafe the remiffion of your faults, by aiding our troops in reducing the Rebel Slaves to obedience. You will, then, under our Government, find a fecure protection-then will you experience thofe fweets, that eafe and calm, which only refult from good conduct. In fine, obey the voice of Nature and of Reafon; avail yourfelves of the moment of indulgence and lenity; it will pafs rapidly away, and when the day of vengeance arrives, repentance will not avert your punishment. Negroes employed in Planting! You who have remained faithful to your Masters, and who have fpurned at the proffers of Traitors and their Agents; you who have feen that the Men of Colour have not granted to their Slaves. that Liberty which you had been taught to expect; reft afured of favour and protection. But thofe Negroes who thall continue fugitives fifteen days after the iffuing of this Proclamation, being unworthy of the pardon I with to grant in my Sovereign's name, will be punished as Rebels. Planters of every clafs! I am bound to thew you, in proper colours, what you have to hope, and what to fear. Iflanders, you require the protection of a Maritime Power. Is there any one more formidable than England? Her fhips cover the feas, and bring her annually from every quarter of the globe riches, the very foul of her na. tional commerce. Her fleets will fecure you from the attacks of Foreign Powers. Your property will no longer become the prey of privateers. The immenfe refources which the commerce of Britain affords, will revive your planting.-Thefe refources will be prefently offered you to repair the ravages made by murder, rapine, and fire; for confidence is coeval with the laws.-Range yourselves then under her Government. Ccafe to bedew your fields with blood. Yield to me the traitors, and those who defpoil you of your property. Point out to me, yourfelves, thofe victims for justice, by abandoning them, and by an immediate I 2 junction HIGH AND MIGHTY LORDS, SEIGNIORS, BURGOMASTERS, &c. AND THE COUNSELLORS OF THE THIRTEEN RESPECTABLE SWISS CANTONS, THE underfigned Minifter Plenipotentiary of his Britannic Majefty thinks himfelf bound to expreis to you the great indignation which he has felt at the new outrage committed against your Excellencies, by thofe vile and ferocious men affembled at Paris under the name of THE CONVENTION. Not having been able to corrupt your brave troops in the fervice of his Moft Chriftian Majefty, and defpairing to make them accomplices in their robberies, thefe factious men have difarmed, plundered, and murdered them. Europe will never forget the noble facrifice of fo many generous Swifs who died in defending Louis XVI.; it will never forget the cruelties which thofe canibals made them fuffer! Stained with the blood of your brothers, and of a vir. tuous King, your Friend and Ally, and of his auguft fpoufe, and of an infinite number of innocent victims--authors of a mot terrible war, which they undertook with the hopes of extending their tyranny over all Europe, at the moment when they have reached the Jaft point of atrocity and madnefs, when they multiply more than even their victims, and butcher one another, they have had the hardinefs to call them felves your Ally; they have not blushed to mention your Treaty with the Sovereign whom they brought to the fcaffold; they have fhewn a defire to ftrengthen their connection with you. Objects of univerfal execration, they have had the impudence, High and Mighty Lords, to make for you alone, of all Europe, this difgraceful exception! What connection can fubfift between the freedom of the Swifs, and that horrible anarchy to which they have prostituted its name? What common tie can there be between a People, good, virtuous, religious, and the friends of Morals and Juftice, and Atheists, enemies of God and Man, thirsting for blood and pillage? whofe crimes for thefe five years paft have exceeded a thoufand times the crimes of former ages! You know, High and Mighty Lords, that in their efforts to propagate their infamous doctrines beyond the limits of France, they have not refpected your happy Country. You can never forget the intrigues of their eminaries to destroy all respect for your Laws! Nobody can believe, that thefe promoters of difcord and anarchy, in attacking every principle of civilization in Europe, have any intention of preferving them in your States; or that they have renounced the project of exciting internal diffentions in them, when an opportunity offers. The ra vages which they have exercised in the Low Countries, in Savoy, and the Bithepric of Bale, and wherever they have penetrated, under the Friends of the People, prove fufficiently what may be expected from their teftimonies of Friendship! There cannot fubfift a durable peace between the wife Councils of the Helvetic States and fuch plunderers.-What then is the end of their perfidious careffes? They wish to conceal the dangers which threaten you, they have the hopes, no doubt chimerical, of corrupting your Citizens, in diminishing the horrors with which they infpire them, to be able at a future period to furprize you amidst a fatal fecurity. name of The The Minifter of his Britannic Majefty will not decide, whether Juftice, and the true intereft of a State, permit it to remain neuter, against thofe who would again reduce it to barbarifm, in a war of almost all the Powers of Eu rope-in a war where not only the exiftence of every established Government, but even that of kind of property, i at ftake. He wit only obferve, that neutrality itfelf will not authorize any correfpondence, directly or indirectly, with the Factious or their Agents. When two legitimate Powers are at war, the connection of a State with either of them cannot injure their refpećtive rights; but the prefent war being carried on againft Ufurpers, any correspondence with them by a neutral State would be an acknowledgment of their authority, and confequently an ROB. STEPH. FITZGERALD, Done at Berne, Nov. 30, 1793. PROCLAMATION of his Excellency the GEORGE WASHINGTON, PRESIDENT vileges and powers; these are therefore to declare, that I do no longer recognize the faid Antoine Charbonet Duplaine as Vice Conful of the Republie of France in any part of thefe United States, nor permit him to exercise or enjoy any of the functions, powers, or privileges allowed to the Vice Confuls of that Nation; and that I do hereby wholly revoke and annul the faid Exequatur heretofore given, and do declare the fame to be abfolutely null and void, from this day forward. THE Sieur Antoine Charbonet Duplaine, heretofore having produced to me his Commithion as Vice Conful for the Rupublic of France, within the States of New Hampshire, Maffachufetts, and Rhode-Iffand, and having thercon received from me an Exequatur, bearing date the 5th day of June 1793, recognizing him as fuch, and declaring him free to exercife and enjoy fuch functions, powers, and privileges, as are allowed to Vice Confuls of the French Republic by the Laws, Treaties, and Conventions in that cafe made and provided; and the faid Sieur Duplaine having, under colour of his faid office, committed fundry incroachments and infractions on the Law of the Land, and particularly having caufed a veffel to be refcued with an armed force out of the cuftody of an Officer of Juftice, who had arrefted the fame by procefs from his Court, and it being therefore no longer fit, nor confiftent with the refpect and obedience due to the Laws, that the Sicur Duplaine fhould be permitted to continue in the exercife and enjoyment of the faid functions, pri In teftimony whereof I have caufed thefe Letters to be made patent, and the Seal of the United States of America to be hereunto affixed. Given under my hand this 10th day of October, in the year of Our Lord 1793, and in the Independence of the United States of America the Eighteenth. GEO. WASHINGTON, By the Prefident, THOMAS JEFFERSON. New York, O&. 27, 1793, Second Year of the French Republic. CITIZEN GENET, MINISTER PLENI- I HAVE just received, together with your Letter of the 3d inft. the difmiffion of Citizen Duplaine, Vice Conful at Boston, and I haften to declare to you, that I do not acknowledge its validity, because the Conftitution of the United States has not given the Prefident the right which he now appears defirous to exercife. It has empowered him, as First Minifter of the American People, to admit and to receive the Minifters of Foreign Nations, fent to the great American Confederation, and their Confulary Agents, diftributed to the particular States; but, in confiding to him this official function, it has not given him the power of difcharging them, to fend them away, or to fufpend them when once they have been admitted. Such an authority cannot be exerted, Sir; but by the Sovereign of the Agent, or by the one to which he is fent. On the part of their own Sovereign, their recall can only be the object of his parti. cular will, or a confequence of nego ciations begun with him for that object. On the part of the Sovereign to whom he is fent, a difmiffion can be the refult only of an act of regular juftice, or of an arbitrary act. If it is a national act of juftice, the Sovereign fhould be furnished with every poffible light upon fo important an object, that he may be enabled to prove to the Foreign Sovereign, that his Minifter was unworthy of his confidence, and that this difmiffion or fufpenfion was indifpenfible. If it is an act merely arbitrary, it is among the clafs of acts of aggreffion, and becomes a caufe of war; and you know, Sir, that in this refpect the Conftitution of the United States has referved to the Reprefentatives of the People the right of declaring it. I do not recollect what the worm-caten writings of Grotius, Paffendorf, and Vattel fay on this fubject-I thank God I have forgot what thefe hired Jurifprudifts have written upon the Rights of Nations, at a period when they were all enchained. But the fundamental points of your Liberty, and our own, are engraven in my memory in characters not to be effaced, and the Rights of Man are enclosed in my breaft with the fource of life. have inceffantly before my eyes your Conftitution, and our own; and it is becaufe I fully feel the juft and wife intentions of thofe who founded them, that I demand of you, Sir, to ask the Prefident of the United States to procure an examination by the Legislature reprefenting the Sovereign People of Maffachufetts, of the conduct of Citizen Duplaine, in the fame manner as I have demanded an examination of my own in the enfuing Congrefs. I In Governments like ours, political affairs can only be judged by political bodies, and if the Vice Conful Duplaine bas infringed the particular Laws of Maffachuletts, or the general Laws of the Union, which that Government is bound to fupport, to that State the cognizance of a crime against the Majetty of the Nation belongs in the firft inftance, and it is for her officers to announce it to the Federal Government, in orter that the Foreign Agent found to have violated the Laws of the Country, may receive punifhment from his Sovereign it he merits it. I inlift with the more confidence upon this step, Sir, as the Attorney for the diftrict of Boston made three efforts to procure a Bill to be found at the Circuit Court against Citizen Duplaine, and three times a popular and virtuous Jury threw out his complaint, and this Vice Conful was finally acquitted in the most honourable manner. How could, in fact, any room for accufation against him be found, fince he only acted in conformity to the Treaties, to his inftructions, to the decifions of the Federal Government, communicated to all the States, which even truft to the care of the French Confuls the prizes fuppofed to be made within the jurifdiction of the United States, and as he proved incontestably, that he never had any intention of refifting, by force, the orders intimated to him by judicial authority, although they were contrary to the Political rights of the French Nation. GENET. The following is mentioned in one of the Foreign Gazettes to be an official detail of the Incidents which preceded Mr. DRAKE's Departure from GENOA, and the Anfwer of the Republic to that Minifter. MR. DRAKE had prefented feveral Notes urging the Government of Genoa to the coalition against France. Having received only evafive anfwers, but the negociation not having been formally broken off, Mr. Drake fet off on the roth of November, atter having deli vered on the preceding day a Note, in which he ftated that though it had been inferred from his preceding Notes that he meant to force the Republic to accede to the coalition, that fuch was not the intention of the King his Master; but that in fact nothing more had been intended than to require fatisfaction for the infult offered by French mariners to an English veffel in the harbour of Genoa; which fatisfaction could be granted by no other means than by fending away the French Minister." The Genoefe Government answered immediately in fubftance as follows: That it learnt with the greatest pleafure, that his Britannic Majefty did not mean to force a free and independent State to renounce a neutrality, which its intereft required that it should obferve; that as to what related to the fatisfaction demanded of the Republic, there could be no pretext for it; as the velfel to which the infult had been offered carried the tri-coloured flag, the Republic could not know that England had any intereft in it: that, on the other hand, a very great infult had been offered by the English caufing armed armed frigates and firefhips to enter the The following is the Subftance of the Article I. THE kingdom of Po land, and Grand Dutchy of Lithuania, with the remainder of the Dutchies, Waywodefhips, Countries and Districts, of which they now confift, being, according to their rights and privileges, an individual whole, fhall conftitute forthwith an indivifible, free and independent Republic, whofe Supreme Power fhall be vested in the Diet. The latter, having conftantly the King at its head, fhall confift of the Senators and the Reprefentatives of the Nobility; and if thus affembled in this lawful manner, it fhall have the fole power of making laws, and the nation fhall only be bound to cbey fuch laws as the Diet hath enacted. The Diet alone can impofe taxes, and fupport therewith an army which must be faithful; it can alone declare war, make peace, and conclude all kinds of treaties, establish and direct colleges or offices of State, fix their duration, chufe their Members, fend Ambaffadors, &c. &c. In fhort, no ordinances fhall be executed in the territories of the Republic, which have not been derived from the States in Diet affembled. The Legislative Power fhall for ever remain feparated from the Executive Power. The Diet can therefore accomplish the execution of all its decrees by the Magiftrates only. No part of the Executive Power fhall order any thing, or act beyond what has been ordained by the laws. 1775, with regard to Proteftants, fhall be obferved. Art. II. The property of the Feudal Right fhall never bo annihilated, and the Sovereignty of the Republic over the Feoffee, fhall conftantly continue. Art. V. The King and Queen of Poland must be Roman Catholics. Should the Queen be of a different perfuafion, and not abjure the fame, the cannot be crowned. Art. III. The Roman Catholic Religion of both rituals fhall be the conftant predominant one in Poland. Art. VI. The Grand Dutchy of Lithuania fhall remain for ever united with Poland, in which refpect the rights of the Union, and other particular rights of that province, thail be preferved. Art. VII. The incorporation of Courland with Crown-Poland and the Grand Dutchy of Lithuania, made in 1569, befides all other Conftitutions. with regard to, that Dukedom, as likewife of the District of Pilthen, fhall be preferved inviolate. Art. IV. The fecetlion from the Roman Catholic Religion to fome other Religion, thall ever be a crime in Poland; and he that thall be convicted thereof, is to be banished the kingdom; at the fame time the Conflitution of Art. VIII. It fhall be permitted to no branch of the Public Power, not even to the Legislative branch, to exchange or cede any poffeffion of the Republic. Treaties of that kind are not only declared void, but every one who fhall propofe them, is to be declared and punished as a traitor to his country. N. B. The fucceffion to the Throne, according to the New Conftitution, is henceforth to be accomplished by the choice of the States. The Act for annulling the Diet of POLAND affembled in 1788, as alf the LAWS which it had paffed, emauating from the laft Confederated DIET, was drawn up in the following manner: NOT to leave to pofterity any traces of the Ordinary Diet opened in 1788, and afterwards converted into a Revolutionary Diet on the 3d of May 1791, we declare, by the unanimous confent of the Republican States affumbled, this Diet as not having exited, and its Decrees of no effect. The Conflitution, the Laws, and all the Decrees made in the courfe of this Diet, having bees the caule of every kind of calamity, and the lofs of thofe immenfe provinces which the Republic has fuffered, we annul and decree, that they fhall not be inferted in our code of Laws: and as this Diet, among other things, reverké the law which forbade the choice of a fucceffor during our life, and the nomination of any one whatever to fucceed to the Crown of Poland, and demanding us to agree to that change, while we, remembering the Pacta Conventa, perfifted in it by energetic reprefenta |