after the publication of the prefent law, and in fifteen days from every other part of the republic.

XVI. After the delay allowed by the preceding article, every individual infcribed upon the lift of emigrants, and not definitively erafed, who fhall be arrested within the republic, fhall be profecuted before a military committee, in order to be tried within twenty-four hours, according to the 2d article of the 4th title of the law 2d Brumaire, 3d year, relative to the emigrants."

The different provifions from the 17th to the 34th are folely relative to the mode of trying and punishing the emigrants and priests.

XXXIV. The decrees of the 1ft of Auguft, and 17th of September, 1793, and 21ft Prairial, third year, which authorise the banishment of the Bourbons, including the widow of Orleans, and the confifcation of their effects, fhall be executed, and all contrary provifions fhall be of no avail. The directory fhall be authorised to determine the place of their transportation, and allow them, out of their eftates, the necessary means of subsistence.

XXXV. The journals, and other public papers, and the preffes in which they are printed, are to be placed for a year under the infpection of the police, which may prohibit them in terms of the 335th article of the convention act.

XXXVI. The law of 7th Thermidor last, relative to private focieties difcuffing political fubjects, is repealed.

XXXVII. Every private fociety difcuffing political queftions, in which principles hoftile to the conftitution of the third year, accepted by the French people, are profeffed, fall be fhut up, and thofe of its members who fhall have profeffed

Tuch principles, fhall be profecuted agreeably to the law of the 27th Germinal, fourth year.

XXXVIII. The laws of the 25th Thermidor laft, and 5th Fructidor, prefent month, relative to the eftablifhment and organization of the national guard, are repealed.

XXXIX. The power of putting a commune in a ftate of Gege is restored to the directory

XL. The prefent refolution fhall be printed, and fent to the council of elders.

The lift of the members ordered to be tranfported being afterwards read, Savary, Boullay, and Tallien, fpoke highly in favour of Normand, and propofed his erafure from the lift, which was accordingly done.

Boullay made a fimilar propofi tion in favour of Thibaudeau. He bore witnefs to his attachment to liberty, and contended that in the report he lately made, he fpoke the fentiments of the committee, and not his own.

Lehardy moved that the council fhould not decide en maße upon the fate of its members, but individually, after hearing every member who might chufe to fpeak for or against their erafure-which was adopted.

Dumont, of Calvados, and feveral other members, fpoke in favour of Doulcet, whofe name, as well as that of Thibaudeau, was ordered to be erafed; Bailly de Torcey, Tarbe, and Noguier Malguay, were alfo erafed. Motions in favour of Duplat and Simeon were rejected, and the name of Ramel, late commandant of the guard of the legislative body, was added to the lift.

The council of ancients concurred unanimously in the refolutions and proceedings of the council of five hundred. On the fol lowing day, on the motion of ge

neral

neral Jourdan (who at this time appears to have been reconciled with the directory), the council of five hundred proceeded to the nomination of proper perfons to fucceed the directors Carnot and Barthelemi. François de Neufchateau, Merlin, Garat, the generals Maffena, Augereau, and Ernouf, Le Charlier, Charles de la Croix, Monge, and Gohier, were returned; out of these the council of ancients made choice of François de Neufchateau as the fucceffor of Carnot; and a fimilar lift being afterwards prefented with only the infertion of the name of Taleyrand, inftead of François de Neufchateau, Merlin, the minifter of justice, was chofen as the fucceffor of Barthelemi.

Such is the outline of this extraordinary tranfaction, on which we shall referve our reflections till the publication of our next volume. By one party it is extolled as the only means of faving the republic "as a great ftroke applied in a great crifis, that crushed in an inftant, and without the lofs of a life, all the hopes of the enemy, and reftored tranquillity to the interior" while, by the oppofite party, it is regarded as a violation of every principle of juftice, as a facrifice to a bafe and tyrannical faction, and as the overthrow of the French conftitution.

Some documents were afterwards prefented by the directory to prove the reality of the royalift confpiracy; and that general Pichegru in particular was engaged in the intereft of Louis XVIII. Thefe papers, though authenticated by the names of Buonaparte and Moreau, were, we confefs, not fatisfactory to us; but whatever might be the guilt of this general, or of any

other who was implicated in the affair, as Englishmen or friends of liberty, we never can approve the infliction of any punishment, in any cafe whatever, without a fair and open trial. Whatever may be the prejudices of fpeculative men in favour of any form of government, we will venture to affert, from the hiftory of our own country, and from obfervation, that the TRIAL BY JURY is a practical improvement in government and jurifprudence which is worth all that fpeculative writers have ever produced, or modern reformers ever attempted in the fcience of politics. And we much doubt, whether to give up in a fingle inftance fo invaluable a privilege, to establish fo bad a precedent, was not a more ferious evil than any of thofe, with which, even taking for granted the statement of the directory themfelves, the republic was threatened.

The event of the 4th of September probably contributed to the abrupt termination of a negotiation which was at this time carrying on at Lifle with the British government for the happy and defirable purpofe of reftoring peace between the two nations. In the courfe of the month of June a propofal having been made on the part of lord Grenville to the French minifter for foreign affairs, for commencing a fresh negotiation, a paffport was granted for a minifter furnished with full powers to negotiate a definitive and feparate treaty of peace, and Lifle was appointed as the fcene of the negotiation. In the beginning of July, lord Malmesbury, the British plenipotentiary, arrived at Lifle; and, after exchanging his powers with the French plenipotentiaries, Letourncur*, Pleville, Pellay, and Maret, had his firft con

ference

ference of bufinefs on the 8th of the fane month: in this conference lord Malmesbury delivered in his project as the basis of the negotiation-the leading articles of which were, that the principle of the ftate of poffeffion before the war fhould be reciprocally adopted as the bafis; and ali conquefts reftored, unlefs fuch as fhould be excepted by the prefent treaty; and that all the conquefts from the French repub. lic by the Britifh fhould be relinquiflied, and only Trinidad retain ed, as conquered from Spain; and Ceylon, and the cape of Good Hope, from Holland; a reftoration of the effects of the stadtholder was alfo claimed, or an equivalent with a compenfation for the lofs of his hereditary dignities.

As the project of lord Malmesbury contained fome particulars concerning which the French plenipotentiaries faid their inftructions did not fully enable them to conclude, they fent them, with their obfervations, to the directory; and, in the mean time, proposed to his lordship (on the 9th) to enter into fome explanation concerning certain other points, the difcuffion of which might facilitate and haften the important bufinefs. On his lordship aflenting to this propofal, the French negotiators objected in the first place to the title of king of France, as ufed by his Britannic majefty, the abolition of which, they afferted, was effential to the full acknowledgment of the republic. The fecond fubject on which they demanded fatisfaction was, as his lordhip juftly remarks, of much greater importance; it was to afk, either a reftitution of the fhips taken at Toulon, or an equivalent for all which were either taken or destroyed in that port. They grounded their claim on the preliminary declarations of lord

Hood on his taking poffeffion of Toulon, and on the 8th article of the declaration of the fections to him. They faid that his Britannic majefty, in acknowledging the French republic, admitted that the fovereignty exifted in that government, and of course the fhips heid only as a depofit by England, till this legal authority fhould be acknowledged, ought to be restored. The third queftion was, as to any mortgage which Great Britain might have on the low countries, in confequence of money advanced to the emperor; and they afked pointedly whether any fuch exifted. On this laft point the British negotiator, without replying to the queftion, informed them that, fuppofing the cafe to exift, the exceptions they required fhould have been stated in their treaty with the emperor. If they had taken the low countries with all their incumbrances, there could be no doubt what these words meant, and that no exception was implied. As to the other questions, he faid they went fo far beyond his inftructions, that he muft make application to his court before he could proceed any fur ther in the negotiation.

In this state the negotiation continued till the 16th of July, when lord Malmesbury received a note from the French plenipotentiaries, informing him that the French government, unable to detach itself from its treaties with its allies, required as a preliminary of negotiation, the reftitution of all his Britannic majefty's conquefts. To this note lord Malmesbury replied, in a conference, after having received fresh inftructions from his court"That he was fure peace on fuch terms would not be heard of."His lordship added every argument in his power to convince them of the unreasonablenefs of the de

mand;

mand; but received for anfwer, that the instructions from the directory on that point were precife and pofitive; and therefore, before they proceeded, they must wait for further orders from the French go

vernment.

A confiderable delay now enfued; but on the 12th of Auguft one of the French plenipotentiaries informed lord Malmesbury, in confidence, that the delay was occafioned by the neceffity of the French government confulting with its allies; and on the 14th he was given to understand that in four or five days the French minifters would receive their final inftructions. On the 28th of Auguft, however, a fresh caufe of delay occurred in the negotiation; and the French miniRers then informed lord Malmefbury, that the anfwer from Holland was fo unfatisfactory, that the directory had remitted it to the Dutch minifters at Paris, who could not take it upon themselves to alter it in the way the directory propofed, but had been obliged to refer back to their own government for new orders.

While the negotiation continued in this state the important revolution of the 4th of September intervened. The old plenipotentiaries were recalled from Lifle, and Treilhard and Bonnier appointed in their stead. The first conference of bufinefs was held with the new plenipotentiaries on the 14th of September. The French minifters commenced with making the Strongest profeffions of the facere defire entertained by the directory for the return of peace; but the first and most material point, they obferved, to be afcertained in every negotiation, was the extent of the powers with which the negotiators were vefted; theirs, they faid, would

be found to be very ample; and it was neceflary to the fuccefs of their difcuffions that those of the British minifters fhould be iqually fo. They then proceeded to inquire whether lord Malmesbury was authorised to treat on a general principle of reftitution or not. To this queftion the British minifter ftrongly objected; and obferved that from the very nature of the inquiry, he could not allow himself to give full credit to the pacific profeflions of the directory, or agree to what the French minifter had af ferted, that it was calculated at all to facilitate the negotiation. The French plenipotentiaries, on the other hand, perfifted in their affertion, that a direct answer to their queftion was calculated entirely to promote the fuccefs of the negotiation, that it would give it activity, and prevent it from fagnating. They obferved, that it might not be neceffary for him to go to the full extent of his powers; but ftill it was neceffary he fhould be ins vefted with them, in order to bring the fubjects immediately under dif cuffion-Speed, faid they, is our with, and fpeed with peace for its object.

After a long difcuffion which it would be fruitless to detail, lord Malmesbury retired. On the 15th he received a note peremptorily afking whether his powers were fufficient to reftore every poffeffion taken from France or her allies; and, on his answering in the negative, he received on the following day another note requiring him to return in 24 hours, to obtain the neceffary qualifications from his own court: and thus ended this unfortunate negotiation.

As the fubject was canvaffed at fome length in the British pariiament, we forbear to anticipate the

argu

arguments employed on both fides on this interefting fubject, which will be impartially detailed in our fucceeding volume. A negotiation equally fruitless was entered into by the French government with the court of Portugal, and a treaty was actually concluded at Paris, on the 10th of Auguft, with the Por tuguese minifter, the chevalier d'Aranjo. Why the treaty was not carried into execution has never been fatisfactorily explained: and we bave only to remark that its rupture was generally attributed to the court of Lisbon, and was foon after followed by an almoft unprecedented measure-the commitment of the chevalier d'Aranjo as a close prifoner to the Temple.

In reflecting on the prefent politics of Europe, there is little confolatory to the friend of liberty and of mankind. The French government has departed from the grand principle on which they profeffed to enter into war, to indulge in vifionary fchemes of aggrandifement, and to acquire conquefts, which, in the end, will be destructive to themfelves. They forget that the nation only which is happy and at peace

is truly great. They neglect the means of internal greatnefs, peace, and induftry, to purfue a falfe glory which dazzles only to mislead and deftroy.

With respect to ourselves, we are ftill convinced that the return of peace ought to be the principal, the fole object with the British go vernment; and that no colonial ac quifitions can be an adequate compenfation for even a fingle year of war. We are not of that clafs of politicians who are difpofed to defpair of our country. But our finances are deranged, and a feafon of tranquillity is necessary to restore them. Our commerce may not in appearance be diminished; yet, if the expenfes with which it is at prefent burthened be taken into confideration, it can yet fcarcely be faid to be in a flourishing state. Our military arrangements may poffibly be neceffary for the fecurity of the nation; but we are con vinced that they are calculated ultimately to enervate and diminish its induftry, which is the fole advantage Britain poffeffes over other European nations, its guardian, its fupport.

1797.