known: fupported by you it shall deliver our country. Let the people be called together in all the towns and villages of the Netherlands. Let the example of Haerlem be proposed to them; that town so zealous for liberty, that it has already raised two hundred young men for the navy. Let all the constituted authorities remind the Batavian youth, that their country looks up to them for her defence; they will not be deaf to her call. The time of oppreffion is paft. The fleet of the republic is under the command of true patriots, who do not confider their comrades as flaves, but as fellow citizens. The attention of the representatives of the people will be continually directed to provide for the wants of the mariner, and they will confider the rewarding of heroifm and faithful fervice, as the most pleasing part of their great labours. Let, therefore, fathers exhort their fons; fifters, their brothers; and the people in general, the youth of the country, to acts of heroifm, and to engage in the naval fervice, to maintain the honour of the Batavian flag, and defend their native land. When they shall thus nobly have fulfilled their duty, they will find their reward in our tender care for them and their relatives, in the approbation of every noble mind, and the congratulations and gratitude of all their countymen.

VAN DE CASTEELE.

Manifesto against Great Britain, by the National Alfembly representing

the Batavian Nation.

THE Batavian nation, once more unjuftly attacked by the kingdom of Great Britain, has just taken up

The

arms. This nation, fo often ill treated, oppreffed, trod upon, and pillaged, under the mask of friendship, now animated and excited by, liberty, and at length breathing for the first time after so long an interval, refumes the primitive energy of its brave and valorous character, courageoufly rears its head, and will no longer fuffer its profperity to be undermined by envious neighbours. It will no longer allow itself to be dragged in the dust; and it will cease to be the sport of the infamous and ambitious minifters of England, who, by the dazzle of piratical treafures, blind the English nation, which fancies itself to be free, with respect to the terrible calamities they have brought on Europe, and on the whole of the human race. Batavian people will defend their rights and their independence; they will fave their country from the ruin by which it is threatened. Will Europe still doubt, that the Batavian republic has not rightful. ly drawn the fword from the fheath, when the is conftrained to a just defence? Will Europe ftill doubt that the Batavian republic has been led to the very brink of utter deftruction, by the difaftrous policy of the fame miniftry? Will Europe ftill doubt that the regenerated Batavian republic will not, with the help of its illuftricus ally, vigoroutly repel the arrogant domination of the English cabinet, and will not confolidate the liberty fo dearly and perilously acquired, at the is interefled? the expence even of all by which

When England attempted, by the force of arms, to fubjugate her American colonies, which the bad driven to a jutt infurrection, and when

when the scourge of war extended as elsewhere, cur neutral territory. to other empires, the states general The only mode which could be of the united provinces were careful to observe a strict neutrality; they did not fuffer Dutch vessels to transport any other commodities to

adopted to put a stop to these unprecedented injuries, without, however, breaking with the kingdom of Great Britain, was employ

America, those excepted which ed by their high mightinesses.

were declared free by the express terms of treaties. The most efficacious precautions were carefully taken to prevent war-like stores from being conveyed to the American colonies, as well as to prevent any fraudulent commerce from being carried on withthem; precautions which did not a little shackle and injure our own commerce to the West Indies. It availed the republic, however, but little, to observe the conditions of treaties with exactness, as to what was by them prohibited; the English minifters confulting merely their temporary convenience, went so far as to dispute what these very treaties allowed; they would not fuffer the republic to enjoy those very advantages of treaty which England herself had enjoyed in a fimilar cafe; but violating the rights of nations, they condemned the cargoes as prizes to the crown, and employed the materials in the royal arsenals; other vessels were forfeited by the arbitrary sentences of partial courts of justice. The privateers and armed ships of England, feeing that their piracies were legalized, multiplied their depredations, and the merchant veifels of Holland daily became the victims of their brutalities. Finally, the atrocities of the British minifters were carried to fuch a point, that they no longer respected the flag of the states, but carried a convoy of Dutch vessels into the ports of England, declaring ships richly laden to be lawful prizes, and violating, as well in Europe

This mode consisted in joining with all poffible speed the alliance of the three northern powers, concerted by the empress of Ruffia, and destined to protect, by the force of arms, the rights of the neutral nations, each of them more or less violated by England.

Their high mightinesses, we say, would have acceded to this treaty, had not an obstacle been thrown in the way by the perfidious machinations of the English cabinet. This was the fignal which led England to break every tie, to diftribute letters of marque for making reprisals on the inhabitants of the republic and their poffeffions, and to declare open war againft the United States. A miniftry to which all means were alike, could not want pretexts for that purpose. It was not at the fame time difficult for their high mightinesses to demonftrate the frivolity of all these pretended grievances; but what purpose could this answer with a rapacious, obstinate, and unjuft ministry, which was defirous to revenge on a peaceable ally the loss of the British colonies, and to appease, for a time at least, by the booty obtained by an unforeseen attack, the murmurs of the English nation?

It was foon after learned, that the squadrons and armed veffels of England captured, by virtue of orders already furnished, the Dutch vessels they fell in with beyond feas, without the smallest fufpicion on our fide, and against the faith of treaties.

conftantly every where facrificed is thus that the Batavian nation to those of its ancient rival, even by the perfons appointed to defend its rights, meditated a fundamental regeneration in the form of the government. We shall not retrace how England, knowing that the limitation of the fcandalous ufurpation of power and influence, on the part of the Stadtholder, would also diminish its influence in this republic. How, we say, the British ministry, far from interceding for the Batavian nation, or coming to its fuccour, when legions of foreign troops feized on these countries, committing the most atrocious diforders, pillages, and violences, confidered, on the contrary, this devaftation and this oppression with a malignant fatisfaction; and concurred, when the mischief was completed, in guaranteeing, in a folemn manner, the fyftem off a tyranny which refulted from it.

When the French nation, wearied with the insupportable tyranny of kings, fhook off its yoke, and formed itself into an independent republic, the British minifters thought that they could not have a better opportunity to difinember a part of that fine empire. They accordingly united in the treaty concluded at Pilnitz, on the 27th of August, 1791, by the princes of Germany. The French republic, well knowing that that of the United Provinces of the Netherlands would be constrained by England to take a part in this plot againft its liberty, declared war against the British minifters, as well as againft their subject William V. stadtholder of the Seven United Provinces, and his partizans. It

was once more drawn against its will into this bloody war by its dependence on those same minifters: its treasures were lavished, and its arsenals nearly emptied, to aid the extravagant plans of Pitt and his cabal. Auxiliary English troops were fent to this republic, and when a defeat, sustained near the Meuse by a part of the French army, had procured a momentary advantage, the army of the States was forced to pass the limits of our frontiers, and those of France, and to wage an offenfive war on the French territory. Soon, however, the victorious French repulfed their enemies on all fides, and from day to day the armies of England and the States retrograded towards our frontiers. The republic found itself on the brink of its ruin, fince appearances pointed out that the theatre of war would be removed to the very heart of its provinces, and all the country inundated. Never were the States in so critical a position fince the war with Spain; but this danger brought about their deliverance; Providences defeated the perfidious plans of its enemies, who were defirous rather that the republic should be destroyed than that it should be free. When the froft permitted the croffing of the rivers, the valorous French troops drove before them the Englith bands with fo much speed, that the latter had not time to effect their infernal design; they fled, but their road was traced by fire and pillage. It was nothing but their speedy and precipitate retreat that preferved the republic from a total devaftation. We foon witneffed the ex traordinary