whom he is otherwise an utter stranger. It is for these reasons, citizen minifter, that I am unable to attribute to the person of M. de Rehausen the refusal of the Directory to acknowledge him in his public character. This refusal appears evidently to announce the intention of difobliging, in the face of Europe, the most ancient friend of France. I hesitate to pronounce a more decisive supposition; it is too repugnant to the known wishes of the Swedes and the French themselves, as likewise to their respective interests; and at the same time, it would be difficult for the enemies of both countries, not to find great fatisfaction in the difunion of which the French republic may have given the signal. It is prescribed to me to declare, that if M. de Rchaufen be not acknowledged, his majesty will be obliged, in support of his dignity, to use reciprocity with regard to citizen Perrochel. This neceffity will otherwise have no influence on the defire which his majesty will always have to strengthen the bands of friendship and good understanding which ought ever to subsist between the two powers. Please, citizen minifter, to accept the affurance of my most sincere attach ment. bassador of Sweden, dated Auguft Article I. The executive directory perfifting in their refusal of admitting M. de Rehausen; they confequently charge the minifter of general police to notify to him the laws of the republic concerning foreigners. II. The executive directory recal citizen Perrochel, chargé d' Affaires, and citizen Marivaux, secretary of legation, and formerly charge d'Affaires in Sweden. III. The executive directory protest, nevertheless, that the Swedish nation may always rely on their sentiments of affection. IV. The minifters of foreign relations and of general police, are charged, each in his capacity, with the execution of the present resolution, which shall be printed with the note. (Signed) REVELLIERE LEPEAUX, president. By order of the executive directory, (Signed) LAGARDE, Secretary. (A true copy.) Official Note from the Minister for Foreign Affairs to the Ambassador (Barthelemy) in Switzerland. THE French government is informed that the English, after having stopped, during the war, under the most frivolous pretexts, every neutral vessel, have just given the most positive orders to the commanders of their thips of war, to seize, indifcriminately, all the cargoes which they may suppose to be destined for the French. Whatever injury France may have sustained from this conduct, the has, nevertheless, continued to to give the only example of the most inviolable refspect for the law of nations, which constitutes the pledge and security of their civilization. But after having long tolerated the offence of this Machiavelian system of policy, the at length finds herself compelled, by the most urgent motives, to have recourse to reprisals against England. The executive directory, therefore, orders all the political agents of the French republic to inform the different governments, that the squadrons and privateers of the republic will act against the ships of every country, in the fame manner in which those governments fuffer the English to act against them. This measure ought not to furprise them, since it would be very easy to demonftrate that it is imperioufly prescribed by neceffity, and is only the effect of a lawful defence. If these powers had known how to make their commerce respected by the English, we should have had no occafion to have recourse to this afflicting extremity. They will recollect, that the French republic, ever generous, proposed to all the belligerent powers to respect commerce; but that this propofition, honourable to the government which made it, and dictated by a most perfect philanthropy, was rejected with pride, by a government accustomed to treat with contempt the most facred laws of humanity, &c. 20th 1 bermidor, (August 7.) Proclamation of the General in Chief of the Army of Italy. Head-quarters at Caftigliona, 19 Thermidor, (August 6,) forth Year. I SOLDIERS, YOU have conquered Italy a second time! In five days you have gained two pitched battles, and five inferior actions; you have taken fifteen thousand prifoners,. three generals, eighty pieces of cannon, two hundred waggons, and fix ftand of colours. Those fierce Hungarians, triumphant last year on the Rhine, are now in your chains, or fly before you. You have crushed in an instant the principal enemy of the republic. So many high exploits ought not to make you proud, but to inspire you with confidence; they ought to teach you never to count your enemies, however numerous they may be. The conquerors of Lodi, of Lonado, of Caftigliona, ought to attack and destroy them. You renew the boafted examples of Marathon and Platea: like the brave Greek phalanxes, the brigades of the army of Italy shall be immortal. Receive then, foldiers, the mark of the fatisfaction of your general; it only precedes that of the whole country, and of rifing pofterity. Brave foldiers, be always impetuous in combats, and vigilant on your posts. Death thrinks trembling from the agile and resolutely brave: how often have you marched to meet it, how often have you seen it fly before you and enter the hostile ranks? It often overtakes the daftard, but never frikes the brave till his hour is come. (Signed) BUONAPARTB. Address transmitted by the French Ambassador at the Hague to the Dutch Convention, the 20th Thermidore, (7th August). BURGHERS BURGMERS REPRESENTATIVES! THE underfigned minifter plenipotentiary of the French Republic has the honour to intimate, that occafions do not offer fo frequently as he could with of giving you publicly a repetition of those af furances of esteem and regard which he daily receives from the executive directory, as well towards your affembly as the people which you represent. This esteem is not limited to those public attestations which France has given to all Europe; nor to those less generally known, to which your commiflion for the management of foreign affairs can also testify. The executive directory is steadily vigilant, is unceatingly busy; and the maxim applied to great undertakings-that all which is done must be esteemed trivial, while any thing remains to be accomplished, feems to have been adopted by the French government in the ratification of her engagements with the Batavian Republic. In that moment, when, during the winter, it maturely and, witely regulated the operations of war, and removed hoftilities far from your dominions, it neglected in no manner to do away your flightest apprehenfions; and the powerful intervention of the French government banished a remaining, but infignificant shadow of counter-revolulionary defigns, which being fanned in your vicinity, afforded fome cause of difquietude. That government now directs its most ardent and zealous endeavours to fecure the political existence of Batavia, and to procure it again a place among potentates, with the rank to which it can with justice afpire. But it views a government wisely and solidly formed, as one of the most certain means of attaining speedily this defired end; and the executive directory cannot conceal its opinion, that it is time, by a powerful and lafting band, to faften together again the bundle which runs the risk of being difperfed, and loft for want of these properties. Such would quickly be the inevitable consequence of an order of things, which should permit the burgher to adore exclufively his city or his province, looking on the country at large as a step-mother, for whom he has no love, to whom he owes no allegiance, and whose lawful rights he misconceives. " It is time"-these are the words of the executive directory, "it is time, for the interests of the Batavian Republic, and for our contract with her, that the new order of things, expected by all the friends and lovers of liberty, should take place; and that all opposite pretenfions should give way and disappear before a conftitution triumphing over federalism and aristocracy. And it falls within the pale of our department to labour, in concert with the Batavian people, to establish their independency, by haftening the approaches of their revolution to the object which is its ultimate aim. These sentiments of the executive directory might be easily explained by examples which the national hif tory affords-yes, by what has happened under our own eyes-were it not likely to produce the most painful recollections. They afford you, you, burghers reprefentatives, the too certain proof that an unequal combination of particular powers never form a bulwark of national strength. Let the burghers, then, who are animated by a fincere wish to fee the cause of liberty triumph, receive this most positive affurance, that the French government will applaud and encourage their endeavours; and will confider itself indebted to them, as it were for a new ally, whenever it shall feel the auxiliary aid of a state conftituted on the immoveable bafis of harmony and indivifibility -of a state, which she can, with more confidence, present to her friends and her enemies; particularly to the treacherous English, with whom we must quickly contend; who, viewing with indifference the miseries of Europe, under shelter of the advantages of their commerce, for these last four years, have, by their dealings with rage-blinded Austria, rather conspired their own deftruction than our's. Place yourselves, then, in a condition, burghers reprefentatives, from this time henceforward, to defeat the chance-computations of their infamous politics; and introduce a conftitution which will develope your national strength, and fucceed federal anarchy, which destroys power by dividing it: form of government the most defective and calamitous which your greatest enemy could with to impose on you. E. NOEL. a Meffage from the Executive Directory to the Council of Five Hundred, on the 6th Fructidor, (August 23d.) Read in a Secret Committee. CITIZENS LEGISLATORS, THE Directory can no longer leave you ignorant of the afflicting details which they receive from all. parts relative to the fituation of the troops ftationed in the interior of the republic. For feveral months has their conftancy been put to the teft by the most painful privations; and bewailing their diftrefs, the directory have admitted more than once that refignation with which French foldiers forget their wants, when those of their country are put before their eyes. As long as the directory could flatter themfelves with feeing the end of so critical a fituation in the amelioration of the finances, they propped up the courage of the troops by hopes, and shut up in their own bosom all uneafiness; but the evils are too great to be any longer concealed; and however painful fuch a difclosure may be, it is impoffible any longer to deny it to the alarming circumstances by which it is exacted. Pay, that facred debt of the republic to those who devote themselves for her, has not been made for feveral months regardless of the urgent requests of government: the treafury could not fecure that part so interefting to its service, and the penury of its means ought alone to be reproached. All the bargains are suspended by the impoffibility under which the treasury labours to fulfil the engagements made with contractors: provifions begin to he exhausted, and there remains no hope of renewing them: every where almost it has been forced to have recourse to requifitions; but this meafure, the use of which is fatal, furnished but infufficient resources, and to execute them is dangerous above all in those departments, troops 1 was ments, where civil war has only left to agriculture great ravages to repair. In several parts of the republic, the fubfiftence of the compromised; d; the diftributions were rarely made in the proportions determined by the law, and often were they suppressed for feveral days; the fervice of the magazines, which has only been fupported till now by the officers of that branch, is on the point of failing in all the departments. In short, this is the confession most painful to the directory. There are hofpitals where it has been found necessary to deny the fick foldiers the nutriment neceffary for the recovery of their health. Discouraged by the disorganization of all branches of the service, the officers abandon their posts, to fly from the complaints which persecute them, and which they are unable to answer. In several places, funds defigned for other purposes were carried off by force from the public treasury, to fupply the wants of the troops, and those illegal measures found an excuse in the imperious law of neceffity. Every day courier follows courier, to bring to the directory and to the minifter at war the intelligence of fome misfortune, or the fear of fome new danger. The directory conjure you, citizens representatives, to bestow the whole of your attention upon the afflicting picture which they present to you, and to occupy yourselves respecting the fources for fupplying the public treasury with the means necessary for the fubfiftence of the troops in the interior; the exactest economy shall direct the use of those funds, and fome reforms which the directory prepare, will foon diminish the consumption and the wants. REVELLIERE LEPAUX, presi. Proclamation of the Executive Direc- (12 Fructidor, August 29). LET true patriots, let the friends of order rejoice! It is in vain that anarchy and royalism unite their efforts to shake the firebrands of difcord, and to dissolve the republican government. Their endeavours shall be fruitless. Some hundred villains, tranfported with rage at being prevented from exercising their robbery and their domination, no longer hoping to excite the people to infurrection, but by alarming them for liberty, have last night spread through the streets badges of ariftocracy, and stuck up royalist proclamations. Armed with fabres, guns, and pistols, they meanwhile scoured the various parts of this great commune. They attempted to excite alarms by the found of fire-arms. They every where exclaimed that the royalifts had rallied to massacre all the patriots. They invited the people to their assistance. They imagined that, in the midst of this diforder, they mould |