however ignoble and iniquitous. The sooner that cbject was attained, the greater would be the facility of reconciling the minds of the Swiss to a change of their condition, by treating them with lenity: which, after plundering it in the first place, they proposed to do afterwards; and convincing them in time, that, excepting the obligation of adhering to France, against its enemies, they still remained their own masters, in every arrangement relating to their domestic affairs.

But exclusive of this prospect, which was in some measure distant, there were objects nearer at hand to set their activity in motion. By executing their designs upon Switzerland, they anticipated similar events that might be in agitation among their enemies, and secured at once the numerous party already formed there in their favour, and which would supply their armies with ample reinforcements. They would become masters of the Swiss arsenals, which were in excellent order, and abundantly replenished with all manner of stores ; and, what was of more importance, they would come into the possession of those immense hoards of money deposited in the public treasury, and of those contributional levies, which, in a country of so much opulence, must prove very considerable and of which they would not, therefore, be tardy in making the requisition.

Inducements such as these were sufficient to excite the cupidity of much more scrupulous politicians than those at the helm of the French republic. These indeed had an answer in readiness to every objection that could be made to their conduct. This was, the necessity they were under of having recourse

to all the means, without exception, that lay within their reach, for the preservation of their coun try from the multitudes of either open or concealed enemies, that environed it on every side, and that had started up in the very extremities of Europe. They had, by their victories, and the terror of their arms, dissolved the formidable coalition that had literally threatened to annihilate the republic, and enslave the French nation to its former despotism. But this dissolution was merely ostensible: it still subsisted in the hearts of those who had formed it, and would revive with additional rancour, were France to slacken its exertions to keep them in constant depression. In this critical position, the rulers of the republic must feel themselves under the strictest obligation to seize every opportunity of strengthening their hands, and of weakening those of their adversarics, whether avowed or concealed, without being punctilious in the choice of means.

This manner of arguing was justly reprobated by those who looked upon political integrity as an indispensable requisite in all true statesmen. The absence of this qualification rendered the public intercourse between nations nugatory, tended to convert men into unprin cipled impostors and ruffians, and to degrade, promiscuously, the character of every man employed in the service of the state. The motives alleged by the French, in justification of their measures, cut asunder all the bands of political society. Such was the reply of those who felt the necessity of conducting, with truth and candour, the diplomatic correspondence of nations.

CHAP.

English, and thereby to prepare their minds for a coincidence with the views of their rulers, an artifice, no less feeble than disgraceful, was employed by the directory.

A letter was forged by their direction, pretended to have been written by lord Malmesbury. Herein he was made to acknowledge, that he had no real intentions to conclude a peace with France, and that he considered it as on the point of a counter-revolution that would render all treating unnecessary: the royal party was predominant in the councils, and the nobility and clergy exerted an influence over the people, that was daily increasing. All he had to do, therefore, was to gain time, by protracting the negociatios under various pretexts.

After publishing this clumsy for gery, as an instance of English duplicity, they issued a proclamation against the British government, accusing it, in their usual manner, of being the artificer of all the mischiefs and calamities occasioned by the war at London, they said, are fabricated the evils that desolate Europe, and it is there they must be terminated.

This proclamation was followed, shortly after, by a circumstantial and virulent representation of the plan attributed to England, in order to exercise a tyrannical monopoly of the commerce of the whole world, and thereby to render all nations tributary to its avarice. It

contained the most atrocious accusations, and described the English as a people lost to all moral principles, and labouring to sacrifice mankind, every where, to their mercenary views.

Behold, it said, with how much art the treacherous policy of Eng

land extends its baneful influence over every part of the globe. It enslaved Corsica, under pretence of making it free, and seized upon Toulon in the name of Louis XVII. It deceived Naples into a pernicious alliance, and domineered at Leghorn, under commercial pretexts. It subsidized, against France, the royal keeper of the Alps; and it paid the pirates of Algiers for their depredations on the Ameri cans, as it had done the savages of America for scalping them. It founded a colony at Sierra Leone, not from motives of philanthropy, as it ostentatiously pretended, but solely from views of profit. Through the same avidity, it carries on that inhuman trade on the African coast, which robs parents of their children, and separates husbands from their wives. It invades India, under pretences of trade, and oppres ses its sovereigns, under the name of ally. It penetrates artfully, under the said denomination, into China, whence it endeavours to exclude all other nations. After having lost, through its pride and oppressions, the vast colonies it had founded in North America, it has found means to recover them, through bribery and corruption. They are now become its debtors and tributaries, and they have broken those ties, and abandoned those connections, that would have secured their honour and independence. It now aims at converting the chair of their president into a throne for one of the sons of George III.! Its political specu lations embrace the precedents of past times, to apply them to the present and to future periods, in order to secure for ever the subserviency of the universe, to the deep

plans

plans it is continually forming for the success of its interested and selfish views. It pursues the like schemes, in every country in Lurope. It engrosses the productions of Sweden, Denmark, and Russia. It supplants the trade of Holland, and reduces that of France to it; own coasts. It has made of Portugal a mere province of the British dominions; and, proud of its impregnable rock of Gibraltar, it sets the strength and efforts of Spain at defiance. Its gold and intrigues produced the coalition, and still support its remains. It foments the obstinacy of the French counter-revolutionists. It keeps alive the destructive war that enables it to carry on the exclusive trade of the European nations, and to grow rich at the expence of friends and foes. Thus it erects the standard of its oppressive prosperity, on the ruins of monarch es and republics, indiscriminately, and on the general distress and misery of all princes, states, and people, involved in this fatal quarrel.

Such was the substance and purport of the most remarkable passages in this declamatory publication, which, though received with enthusiastic applause by the violent party, that sought and expected nothing less than the conquest of England, was regarded, by judicious people, as the ebullition of political fanaticism, encouraged by persons in power, to the intent of keeping alive the wishes and ardour of the multitude, for the prosecution of the war, in hope of terminating it in the brilliant man Der, with the prospect of which they were led to sooth their heated imaginations.

Nothing was omitted to impress

the strongest persuasion, that this attempt was scriously intended. — Preparations were made in every sea-port. Transport-ships were collected, and seamen assembled from all quarters: the best troops were selected from the different armies, and the most experienced officers set over them. The genius of the most inventive artists was at the same time excited, by the promise of the highest rewards, to contribute to the success of this great enterprize. The general, who was to conduct it, visited every harbour from whence the troops were to embark, and heid conferences, with the expertest mariners, on the most advantageous methods of proceeding, in order to secure a safe and speedy passage, and a favourable landing.

To give the greater weight to these appearances, the directory proposed to raise forty millions by way of loan. The bankers of Paris engaged to fill it, and to wait for reimbursement out of the spoils of England. The speeches made in the councils, on this occasion, by the members, and on the part of the directory, and the addresses presented to the legislative body by the deputies of the commercial classes, were perfectly in that vainboasting style which pervaded all their official discourses and procla mations. The trite comparison of France to Rome, and of England to Carthage, was seldom forgotten in these voient effusions of French enmity to the English nation; and the strongest conviction expressed, that as Carthage had fallen before Rome, England would fall before France.

But notwithstanding this splendid offer, from the monied people

in Paris, the acute speculators in pecuniary matters represented it as a mere illusion. Cash at this time was so scarce, that 4 per cent. was its monthly premium on good security. Of those who made the offer of a loan, three only were real bankers; the others were brokers, and money-agents. It was shrewdly suspected that the offer was made at the instigation of the directory, in order, if possible, to levy a supply upon the credulity of the public, for purposes far different from that which was held out, and which numbers of people began to consider much more in a ludicrous than serious light. The newspapers and other periodical publications were filled with pleasantries and jests upon the projected expedition against England, which cool-headed people unanimously viewed, in the relative situation of both countries, as impracticable.

The French government, nevertheless, persisted in assuming an air of gravity and decision, upon this subject, that effectually imposed upon the multitude. The minister of the interior, in order to animate all classes, directed a musical composition, intitled, The Vengeance of France upon England, to be performed at the different theatres every evening; and, adding baseness to vain boasting, the minister of the police addressed a circular letter to the various districts of the republic, wherein, after urging them to use their utmost efforts to suppress the robberies and murders that were daily increasing every where, he explicitly ascribed them to the machinations of England, which kept in pay those gangs of thieves and assassins that desolated France. Trembling, he said, at the idea of that

army of heroes, which was prepa ring to land upon the English shore, and to revenge the injuries done to France, those perfidious islanders, were using every atrocious means to divert the storm that was threatening them, and filling every part of the republic with blood and civil broils, in order to keep the French employed at home.

The more to irritate all people against the English, reports were spread, that an attempt to poison Buonaparte had been made by their emissaries, and that there was every reason to believe, that general Hoche had perished in that manner, through their means. None, that knew the character of the English, gave the least credit to these infamous tales; but the multitude swallowed them with avidity. It is indeed but too notorious, that no European nation is apter to believe absurdities, of this nature, than the French, notwithstanding its pretensions to superior discernment and sagacity. These, though well founded, respecting the superior and educated classes, can in no wise belong to the inferior, which are as credulous, and easy of belief, as those of the same degree in the most unenlightened countries of Europe.

Certain it is, that the French go. vernment did not lose the pains it took to exasperate the nation against its ancient rivals. The rancour and the rage produced by the numerous falsehoods it propagated, wrought their full effect, and the mass of the people, especially the vulgar and the uninformed, could hardly find expressions of execration sufficiently strong to exhaust their rage against the natives of Britain, and the impatience with

which