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ftacles. In fuch enterprises, the name alone of the armies prò mises a triumph, and the juftice of the caufe guarantees it. We do not now boaft of plans of defcent, while we difcufs the means. In the fituation in which France now is, her will is victory. Thus the army of England proceeds to dictate a peace in London! and there, alfo, republicans, you will find auxilia ries. There alfo you will find many men whom reafon has not fo much abandoned as to render them infenfible of the odium due to their government under the English name. There alfo you will find thousands of generous men who long ftruggled to obtain a parliamentary reform: there alfo you will find a multitude of manufacturers who figh for peace, whom the prolongation of the war has reduced to mifery, and who weigh in the balance against their real wants the gaudy deception of royal harangue, the illufions of manifeftoes, and the chimera of conquefts. There alfo you will find the Irish nation, fo long oppreffed, and that bears reluctantly the chains of a court which is fupported by its produce, while it drinks its blood and infults its defpair.

Proceed under these aufpices, brave republicans, to fecond the national and unanimous wifh; conducted by the hero who has fo often shown you the way to victory, you will have with you the wishes of all the virtuous and the juft who exist in the world. Proceed then, and re-establish the liberty of the feas; confine to its juft limits the inordinate ambition of that government which disturbs its own country as it does the universe.

Secure the repofe of the French republic and of the universe. Such is the great object which still remains for you to accomplish. Now that the British government, viewing coolly, and with a ferocious fmile, the difalters of the continent, boafts of its opulence, make it difcharge agreeably to juftice its thare of the expenfes of the war, which it alone wishes to eternize, and which it knows it could terminate by speaking to the French republic in language that could be liftened to, and be believed fincere.

Citizens, you will recognife your own fentiments in the expofition of thofe of the Executive Directory. The fame fpirit animates your faithful reprefentatives. In vain the cabinet of London exhaufts all its efforts to fow among them diftruft and difcord. The 18th of Fructidor has deftroyed their influence, and fince that day the members of the Councils and the Directory prefent the pleafing fpectacle of the most intimate union. All patriots have only the fame interefts. There is in the republic but one opinion and one wifh, and war to the cabinet of St. James's is the cry of France.

How much glory is promifed to the army of England! It is fufficient to point it out to it. To inflame our warriors with invincible enthufiafm, it is only neceffary to remind them of what they have already done. The walls of the strongest fortreffes

have been levelled before them; the greatest generals have not been able to refift them. They have taken prifoners Bender ať Luxembourg, and Wurmfer at Mantua. They made the threecoloured ftandard wave on the banks of the Rhine, and on the hores of the gean fea. After fo many victories, what words can add any thing to the ardour of French foldiers? It is fufficient for them to hear the voice of the country, and to remember their own exploits.

The Executive Directory refolve that this proclamation shall be printed, posted up, and folemnly read in all the communes of the republic, and to all the divisions of the armies, whether by fea or by land. It fhall be inferted in the bulletin of the laws. The minifters of the interior, of war, and of the marine and the colonies, fhall render an account to the Executive Directory of its publication.

L. M. REVEILLIERE LEPAUX, Prefident.
LAGARDE, Secretary General.

Proclamation of Citizen Rudler.

CITIZEN Rudler, commiffioner of the French government in the conquered countries between the Meufe and the Rhine, and the Rhine and the Mofelle, to the inhabitants of the conquered countries: The French republic fights and fubdues her enemies, but fhe does not make an unworthy ufe of her victories. The princes, coalefced against her liberty and conftitution, have been prefumptuous enough to conceive hopes of fubjugating her. She took up arms, fubdued them, and now contents herself in fecuring her tranquillity by bounding her territory within those limits which have been traced by nature. She only wishes to make the people fhe has conquered forget the calamities infeparable from war, and indulge them gradually in a participation of all thofe rights which her own children enjoy. Such are the beneficent wishes of France with refpect to you, inhabitants of thofe countries furrounded by the waters of the Rhine, the Meufe, and the Mofelle; and fuch is the will of its government. The ceffation of hoftilities affords it an opportunity of ameliorating your lot: and it charges me, in its tender anxiety for your welfare, to make you participate in the protection of thofe laws. which govern the French, and which are to fecure your happiness. My heart tenderly fympathizes in this honourable miffion; and if 1 can form any judgment from the mildness of your manners, and the love of liberty, for which you are diftinguished, the fuccefs of my exertions will be fpeedy and fatisfactory.-A territorial divifion, favourable to the fubject, and indifpenfable in itself, will be my first operation.-The administrative and judiciary code

established

eftablished in the next place among you, will give birth to a harmony which would otherwife be incompatible with the variety of your fenates, councils, regencies, and your innumerable jurifdictions. Every thing appertaining to flavery is fuppreffed, and the effects of this fuppreflion will be directed by fucceffive and particular regulations. Thus you will enjoy, under this new fyftem, all the dignity of your exiftence. You will be accountable to God alone for your religious opinions, and your civil rights will be independent of them. Whatever they may be, they will be indifcriminately tolerated, equally protected, and he alone will be deemed guilty who thall pervert them for the purpose of deftroying_the_general harmony, and troubling the peace of fociety. The fixth year will be memorable for thefe countries, which have been freed from the oppreffive weight of all those privileges invented by the pride of those who called themselves your lords and masters.. You will also be refcued, from the day on which it began, from thofe tithes which fwallowed up a great part of the fruit of your labours, and from thofe rights which the ufurping fpirit of the feudal fyftem had created. They are profcribed, and fhall no longer be exacted from you. A paternal adminiftration, with powers diftinct from thofe of courts of judicature, will extend its benign influence to you. Juftices of peace will afford you the benefit of conciliatory measures, before you may be compelled to enter into the litigations of courts of law. The law, inflexible in its operation, will never moleft the innocent. The prefent circumstances prevent me from electing your administrators and judges, but be affured that I fhall make choice of the most upright and the most enlightened among you. I will affociate with them, Frenchmen, who, being their elders in the family of freemen, will prove to them fafe and neceffary guides. Should any perfons I may choose, prove unfit for their offices, I fhall be ever ready to attend to complaints against them; but I fhall repel with indignation every fpecies of calumny, and every denunciation which may be directed to the degradation of the conftituted authorities. You may perceive, citizens, by this flight sketch, the great advantages which you are to derive from your new organization, for effecting which, I labour with all the zeal with which my duty, your wants, and your happy inclinations infpire me. Shut your ears against the enemies of your profperity, who would feek to fow the feeds of divifion among you. Receive and follow with one common fentiment the regulations which I am commiffioned to establish among you, and the dawn of your happinefs will thine with refplendent brilliancy. Bonn, December 11, in the fixth Year RUDLER.

of the French Republic.

Buonaparte

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Buonaparte to the Prefident of the Executive Directory.

Paris, 3 Nivofe (23 Dec.), 1797.

HAVE the honour to fend you, Citizen Prefideht, the copy of a letter which I have received from the Dey of Tunis, with the names of eighteen Frenchmen whom he has fet at liberty.

While I was in Italy, I took every opportunity of testifying to our good friends the Turks, marks of the friendship which the French republic entertains for them.

The provifional government of the Ligurian republic has given liberty to all the Turkish flaves, which were employed in the Genoefe gallies, and fent them to their country.

Since we have been in poffeffion of the different islands of the Ionian fea, we have received on the part of the Ali, the Pacha of Janina, the Pacha of Scutaria, the Turks of the Morea, and even on the part of the Divan, not only a kind welcome, but they have, upon every occafion, taken a pleasure in fhowing to us the particular efteem which they have for Frenchmen.

Our ambaffador, Aubert-Dubayet, had no fooner informed the Sublime Porte that our troops were at Corfou, Zante, Cephalonia, &c. than that government fent large cargoes of corn for their fupport.

Our Levant trade will now find a fecure protection from the new poffeffions which we have acquired, and our merchants will hereafter be received by the fubjects of the Ottoman Porte with a peculiar predilection.

(Signed)

BUONAPARTE.

Hamuda, Pacha, Dey, Prince of Princes, and Lord of the wellguarded Town of Tunis, to General Buonaparte, the mighty Warrier of the French Republic, Health, and Length of Days!

WITH the voice of friendship I inform you, that the eight Muffulmans who were on board a prize belonging to our odgiak (regency), which contrary winds drove on the coaft of Leghorn, where they were made flaves, and who were fent to us by your order, have arrived fafe, and filled our breasts with the most lively joy. If fuch an accident fhould occur again, I have no doubt that your benevolent attention will be exercifed in the fame manner, for which I fhall always entertain the warmest gratitude.

Your conful who refides here has alfo informed me, that the agent of the French republic at Leghorn has received orders to provide for the fubfiftence of eighteen flaves, and to fend them

to us.

Το

To return you thanks, and to inform you of thefe matters, ĺ have written this letter, in the middle of the moon of Rebiniltani. HAMUDA,

(Signed)

Pacha, Dey, Prince of Princes, and Lord of the well-guarded town of Tunis.

[The Dey added to this letter a lift of eighteen Frenchmen, who had been taken by Tunisian cruifers in foreign veffels without paffports, and made flaves of. He gave them their liberty, and fent them to France.]

Proceedings at the Sitting of the Executive Directory on the ft Nivofe (Dec. 21), 1797.

THE minifter of the interior informed the Directory, that a deputation of the merchants of Paris folicited the honour of being admitted to an audience, and afked leave to make fome patriotic propofitions relative to the means of procuring the neceflary funds for a defcent on England, and to affure the vengeance of France against the tyrannic government of that island.

The prefident ordered the minifter to introduce the deputation. The Directory, accompanied by the fecretary general and the minifters, and preceded by the fergeants at arms and mellengers of ftate, proceeded into the hall of public audience.

The deputation was introduced by the minister of the interior. It confifted of citizens Lecouteulx, Fulchiron fenior, Fulchiron junior, Jubie, Enfantin, Saillard, Recamier, Hupais, Marnet, Doyen, Decretot, Charlemagne, Defprez, and Barillon.

The deputation was prefented by the minifter of finances, who ftated the object of the miffion in the following terms:

"Citizens Directors-After having fecured the repose of the continent, you have confidered, fince it belongs to the destiny of the republic to make peace with her enemies only at the gates of their capitals, that you ought to fend to England thofe invincible columns which have confined victory to their ftandards, and that general who is as diftinguifhed by his profound knowledge of the general policy of nations as by his military talents.

"The merchants of Paris fee, in this determination, a favourable profpect of the liberty of the feas, and the refloration of commerce. They are convinced that the moment is come to prove to an enemy, who always gives way when clofely preffed, that the French are at last prepared to terminate a war which is only prolonged because a handful of pirates have the barbarity to calculate upon its events as fpeculations, as chances favourable to their interefts.

"The merchants of Paris have become the organ of the public opinion. Each citizen wifhes to give a proof of the confidence he

places

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