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fuitable to the magnitude of the fubject, fhould the Executive Directory deem it expedient to addrefs itself to this effect, to the laudable Helvetic body.

(Signed)

Berne, 11th Oct. 797.

MORLOT, Chancellor.

Letter from M. Ochs, Envoy from Bafle, to his Conflituents.

Magnificent and gracious Lords,

THIS is probably the last time that thefe antiquated titles fhall ftrike the ears of your excellencies. I cannot diffemble the pleafure I have in renouncing them myfelf, and in cherishing the hope that the endearing title of citizen is foon to fucceed them.

I confider the revolution in Switzerland as completed. The different cantons, their dependencies, and fome of their allies, will, I hope, foon form a democratic and reprefentative republic. Threats, boaftings, irregular measures, which may be thought ingenious and firm, petty fhifts, miferable intrigues, may perhaps retard the crisis, and even render it troublesome: but thefe means will not prevent the revolution from being carried into effect. The decree is paffed. Deftiny feems to have declared the end of all degrading aristocracies.

It is honourable for my canton to be the first which gave the example to Switzerland. It will be glorious for it to have commenced partially the general revolution, without anarchy, and without convulfion: if any man, from obftinacy, rafh engagements, or from principles of pride or felfifhnefs, be difpofed to refift the torrent, to irritate the minds, or to provoke the paffions of his fellow-citizens, and to ftain the pailage from the ancient regimen to the new order of things, let him remove from our frontiers! He will fpare himfelf remorfe, and us regret.-I have been informed of the efforts which feveral worthy magiftrates, and a great number of privileged citizens, have continued to make, fince my departure, to haften our particular revolution. Their names fhall be ever engraven on my heart; and I greatly rejoice, that in a fhort time a perfect equality established among us will not permit them any longer to fufpect that the fentiments I entertain for them are in the smallest degree connected with the hope of their protection. I am also informed of the rapidity with which our fubject ftates, which, thank Heaven, will foon ceafe to be fo, proceed in the career of their emancipation. They are, as it were, electrified. They have ceafed to fear, or to be the dupes of our fineft exhortations. They be gin to believe that the great nation does not love our ariftocracy, that its government is not divided in opinion with refpect to us.

They

They are no longer perfuaded that a hundred thoufand Ruffians are marching towards the Rhine, or that the caufe of oligarchies is the caufe of God. They feel that they are men, and recollect that their ancestors and themfelves have done every thing for us, and that we have done nothing for them. They have difcovered that they want a guarantee for the future, and that this guarantee can only be found in the equality of political rights, a constitution refting on that bafis, and, above all, new elections. Our fecret council has, indeed, written to me, that our fubjects defire to remain as they are; but I cannot easily believe that men of common fenfe, provided they are free to fpeak what they think, would feriously manifeft the defire of remaining hereditary fubjects, and that in a kind of fubjection of which there exifts not even any example in the monarchies of Europe. Befides, I have, received addreffes which demonftrate the contrary: they remind me of the opinions which I have always profeffed, and conjure me to feize, like a real tribune of the people, the favourable opportunities for emancipating the petitioners. I have also been correctly informed of the progrefs which the minority of the magiftrates have fucceffively made, and which for fome time feemed to be decifive. I have experienced from this inexpreffible joy; but I learn with regret that much valuable time is loft in deputations, commiffions, and frivolous conceffions, wifhed to be made with principles: that a mental refervation prevails; that hopes are entertained of continuing in place, and, in a word, that a new influence appears to have arifen from the diet of Arau; a diet which completely deceived the expectation of every true Swifs as well as foreigners; a diet which, during the three weeks it has been affembled, has fet itself against every thing it ought to have performed. Again, and for the last time, I fpeak to you on the real interefts of the country. I tell you, that the light of fimple common fenfe, the force of circumstances, the regeneration of primitive ideas, the public and general good, an infinite number of political confiderations, and particularly the principles of eternal justice, impose upon you the duty of acquiefcing, without delay, in the wishes of your fubjects, and in the councils of the magiftrates and citizens who have proved themfelves their defenders. Declare, then, by a formal decree,

ift. That there are no longer any fubjects.

2d. That each village, burgh, and fection of towns, fhall form a primary affembly, and immediately elect reprefentativesone for each fifty perfons who have reached the age of twentyfour years.

3d. That thefe reprefentatives, affembled at Bafle, fhall form a particular conftitution, to remain in force until the fentiments of the other parts of Switzerland be known,

4th.

4th. That they fhall establish, in the mean time, while the conftitution is preparing, fome provifional committees for maintaining order, and managing the prefent bufinefs; and, finally, that each of you charge yourfelves to prefent to those appointed for the above purpofe, the act of refignation of all your places, without any referve whatever.

I am anxious to be before you in this tranfaction. I declare, therefore, that I renounce every hereditary privilege; that henceforth I confider our fubjects as fellow-citizens; and that I am ready to depofit in the hands of the reprefentatives of the people every power, authority, command, prefidency for life, or otherwife, with which I am invefted. The influence which a declaration fo precife may have in the prefent circumstances, will, perhaps, ll up the measure of the complaint which the ariftocracy have been accumulating againft me fince the 14th of July 1789, expecting the great day of their vengeance. I am not ignorant of their malevolence; but the more the aristocracy hate me, the more I love myself.

Citizens,

(Signed, &c.)

MANIFESTO.

OUR UNION FORMS OUR POWER.

The Citizens of the Country to the Burgefjes of the Town of Bafle: January 18, 1798. You know that the people of the country require their liberty. It is a right which they derive from God and nature. During an age, this right has been a stranger to the country inhabitants of the canton of Bafle, and we have been obliged to remain filent. We have been compelled to bend our heads under an aristocratic yoke, which the burgeffes of the town of Balle have impofed upon us. How painful this must be to every true Swifs! We well know that your pretended rights are fupported by alienations and titles. We know that the town of Bafle purchafed its fubjects from ruined princes or fanatical priefts: but can you perfuade yourselves that the rights of man are alienable? You know as well as we do, that claims and contracts rest folely on the right of the ftrongeft, and on the force of arms, and that fuch pretenfions have no reality but in the power of maintaining them. Your rights are not hereditary: we never subscribed title-deeds; we never confented to them. We expect that our demand will receive your approbation. You will not oppofe a confederation, which has for its only object the general good, and which may even extend the limits of your civil liberty.. If fome

your

muft

muft lofe, others muft gain. Such is the fate of all revolutions; and none ought to refufe the making of flight facrifices to procure important advantages. We know the fecret of revolutions as well as the force of arms: we know the means of propagating our principles-we leave you to think the reft. For ages it has been our only with to defend our country, at the expense of our blood-be not aftonifhed, then, that we feek our liberty at the fame price. Such is the manifefto which we addrefs to you, and to all the universe. It depends only on you to favour the fuccefs of our enterprise. Reflect on the fpirit of the times, and you will be convinced that an imprudent resistance will occafion more violent means to be ufed, and excavate the abyss which must swallow up our unhappy commune.

Declaration of the Sovereign Council of Berne, on the 31st January 1798.

WE

E being affembled this day, upon oath, to deliberate upon the measures to be taken for the fafety of the country, have perfonally bound ourselves by a folemn oath, and have firmly refolved to defend the country at the price of our property and our blood, to the last extremity, and with all our power against any enemy whatever, and to employ to that end all the means dependent upon us, in concert with our dear and faithful burghers..

Meffage of the Executive Directory to the Council of Five Hundred, on the 9th Pluviofe (Feb. 5).

Citizens Representatives, THE Helvetic oligarchy, which, fince the commencement of

the revolution, has taken fo active a part in all the fecret machinations againft liberty, and in all the plots formed for the deftruction of the French republic, has now filled up the measure of its crimes by violating, in the perfons of feveral of our brave brethren in arms, the moft facred laws of the right of nations. The Executive Directory, in conformity with the 328th article of the conftitution, muft acquaint you with every thing that has paffed, and with the meatures it has taken. The people of the Pays de Vaud, detached from Savoy in 1530, have for a long time groaned under the defpotifm of the governments of Berne and Fribourg. That country, originally difmembered from France, formed under the Savoifian government a feparate province, governed by the ftates, in concert with a ducal bailiff, whofe prerogatives were circumfcribed by conftitutional laws. Thefe laws, even in 1530, were defpifed and trod under foot by VOL. VII.

R

the

the patricians of Berne and Fribourg. In 1544, the Duke of Savoy renounced all pretenfions to that country, but he formally ftipulated that its conftitution fhould be preferved; and on the 26th of April 1565, the French government conftituted itself guarantee of this treaty, and confequently of the political rights of the Pays de Vaud. It is well known with how little delicacy the governments of Berne and Fribourg conftantly violated the focial contract formed between them and the Vaudois, by thefe new treaties. The Vaudois, at different periods, remonftrated against that oppreffion to which they were victims; but force for a long time impofed filence on the multitude, and those among them who difplayed more courage than the reft were profcribed. One of thefe was the brave General Laharpe, who, adopted by the French republic, became one of its moft intrepid defenders, and fealed with his blood, in the plains of Italy, the attachment which he had fworn to it. Liberty, however, was fupported in the Pays de Vaud by numerous and ftrenuous friends, who at length determined to claim the protection due to them from the republic in virtue of the treaties of 1564 and 1565, both as the fubftitute of the ci-devant Duke of Savoy, and as replacing the ancient French government. Scarcely was the report of this claim fpread abroad, when malevolence endeavoured to lay hold of it, and to infinuate in a public journal, that the Pays de Vaud, as a reward for its attachment to liberty, was to be detached from Switzerland, and incorporated with France. Thefe infinuatians, which afcribed to the French republic views of invafion contrary to its good faith, had evidently no other object than to alarm the Vaudois refpecting the confequences of thofe steps which they might take for the recovery of their ancient rights. The Executive Directory took the firft opportunity, therefore, of proving the falfity of them by a decree of the 27th Frimaire, which prohibited the journal that contained them, and by notifying what it had done to all the Helvetic cantons. On the 8th Nivofe following, the minifter of foreign affairs gave an account to the Executive Directory of the claims which had been addreffed to it, for re-establishing the Vaudois in the political rights hitherto guaranteed to them in vain by the treaties of 1564 and 1565; and the Directory the fame day passed a decree, charging the minifter of the republic to the Helvetic cantons, to declare to the governments of Berne and Fribourg, that the members of these governments fhould be perfonally anfwerable for the individual fafety and property of the inhabitants of the Pays de Vaud, who fhould or might in future addrefs themselves to the French republic, to obtain by it its mediation to be maintained or reinftated in all their rights, according to ancient treaties. This determination was the more urgent, fince the government of Berne, as it has itfelf acknowledged by its anfwer to an off

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