2. The minifters of juftice and of marine are refpectively charged with the execution of the prefent decree, which fhall be printed. (Signed) P. BARRAS, Prefident. Executive Directory. Decree of the 11th Germinal (31ft March). THE HE Executive Directory having feen the reports that have been addreffed to it by the minifter of marine and the colonies during his journey to Breft, and confidering that the want of concert between the operations of the land and naval armies destined for the expedition against England, may impede their celerity and prevent their fuccefs, has decreed as follows: ift. General Buonaparte shall repair to Breft in the courfe of the prefent decade, to take upon him the command of the army of England. 2d. He is charged with the direction of all the forces, both by land and fea, deftined for the expedition against England. 3d. The minifters of war and of the marine, each in his respective fituation, are charged with its execution. (Signed) MERLIN, Prefident. Arret iffued by the Executive Directory on the 25th Feb. 1798. ALL LL English prifoners of war, without exception, shall be confined in prifon; and thefe reprisals fhall laft until the English government, listening to the dictates of humanity, and the law of nations, treats the French prifoners in that manner which has hitherto conftantly been obferved between civilized nations. All the English prifoners fhall be imprisoned in the department of Seine and Oife, Seine and Marne, Aifne and Loiret. The anterior regulation, pursuant to which the above prisoners were to be removed into the interior, to the distance of fifteen leagues from the coaft and frontiers, is hereby annulled. Speech of Garat, the French Ambassador to the Court of Naples, when prefented to his Majesty, on the 8th May 1798. YOU have had evidence, Sire, that the first object of my mif fion is, to maintain the peace which has been established between your Majefty and the French republic. That object is, to cherish all the fentiments of reciprocal confidence, which alone can ean render peace always more permanent and more advantageous between two powers. You likewife have occafion to fee that the principles of the Directory of the French republic, in its relations with the other nations of Europe, are the fame with thofe which, under the French conftitution, unite Frenchmen to Frenchmen-the fame with the principles of juftice. Occurrences which have filled Europe with their fplendour, juftify this teftimony which I bear to the Directory of my republic. The peace which has been granted, at the moment of our higheft glory, and the moft complete developement of our force, to nations which prefented to the victors no longer obstacles to be furmounted, but advantages to be enjoyed; the independence and the liberty which have been bestowed upon nations in the midst of the thunder which threatened them with the yoke of a conqueror; new treaties of alliance formed with governments founded on principles hoftile to the republican fyftem; and that fignal political toleration, the only means, the only pledge of peace to the prefent generation of Europe, established as a part of the conftitution which has for ever fhielded the focial fyftem in France from all dangers, by rendering it more capable of every attack :-fuch, Sire, are the features of the new government of France: they are the attributes of force moderating itself, ftopping even at the point when it is juftice invincible which affigns to itfelf limits which nothing on earth could impofe. Such diftinguished qualities naturally invited to peace with the French republic all the powers which can appreciate and respect virtues fo ufeful to the earth. From this, Sire, it happened that your Majefty was one of the first to fue for peace from France. The time is come, Sire, when, under every government, thofe who govern are known, appreciated, judged by all Europe. The eyes and the ears of nations are now in the palaces of kings, as well as in the national affemblies and directories of republics. This public obfervation, too, penetrating into your heart, there discovers all the fentiments which are the germs of the virtues— that tafte for fimple manners which in every age has diffinguifhed well-formed and elevated fouls, and which must be deeply rooted and original to be long preferved upon a throne; the habit of frequently withdrawing from the vain pomp of a court, to examine into the wants of a people, and to cultivate their affection. Your perfonal averfion for the complicated forms of justice, and your horror for cruel laws, have every where been difplayed in the efforts you have made, from the beginning of your reign, to fimplify the one and to correct the other. The Directory of the French republic, Sire, not only wish to live at peace with you, but invite you to unite, by all the bonds of amity, the people whom you govern, and that whofe laws they administer; adminifter; but, between nations as between individuals, friendthip fuppofes or produces a reciprocal exchange of benefits. The treaties by which you are already united with my republic, doubtlefs, Sire, will produce, and it is the wifh of the Directory that they fhould produce, treaties which fhall open between the two nations a communication of their refpective riches. An enlightened policy dictates fuch a conduct; and nature, by placing the two nations on the fhores of the fame fea, prefcribes it. Anation which, above all others, would have little intercourfe with that fea, were not, or ought not, every fea the common domain of all nations; a nation, which, by the genius fuited to its fituation, might share with France the glory and the happiness of being the light and the example of the world, and which, mifled, or hurried away by its government, has attempted to convert that which it calls liberty into the means of impofing fervitude on every king, and every people; this nation, by the defpotifm of its commerce, has too long fuppreffed all kinds of commercial intercourse between Naples and France. This defpotifm approaches its termination, and the defire you must feel to fee the people of the Two Sicilies increase in every fort of profperity, which fo benignant a climate and fo fertile a foil ought to enfure, muft induce you, Sire, to connect their industry with the industry. of France, by which it may be improved and fertilized, rather than with that of England, by which it is extinguifhed. It is by the diffufion of bleffings that governments fucceed in tranquillizing the anxieties of nations; and the examples both of ancient and modern times bear witnefs, that violence has never preferved a government for any length of time, but that it has rapidly produced their ruin, and multiplied their falls. Even in the very enthusiasm of its infant liberty, the French republic beheld the fhocking fyftem of terror on the point of overwhelming liberty, and all the hopes it infpired in the blood of Frenchmen: and at the present day, when generofity and clemency have difplaced that hideous fyftem; now that the enemies of our laws are no longer condemned by them only to live under other laws, all the virtues, and all kinds of profperity, begin to dawn upon France under the influence of this mild regime. This language, Sire, is the language the most confonant to that goodness which is faid to be fo congenial to your heart-and it is alfo a language that becomes the reprefentative of a republic, become all powerful by the means of liberty, and wife by the dictates of its misfortunes. The Directory was defirous to addrefs this language to your Majefty. It has chofen me to be the interpreter of its will at your Majefty's court-it is not because they fend me fauntering under the porticos of favour and ambi-. tion, that the Directory has inclined their attention to make VOL. VII. choice M choice of me for this extraordinary miflion; I have but rarely lived remote from the peaceful filence of the country, or from the lyceum or the porticos of philofophy; and when the course of revolutions, and the will of a republic, fend me to refide at your Majefty's court, invefted with a title, and charged with a miffion which may prove ufeful to several states, imagination recalls to the mind the memory of thofe antique times when, from the bofom of the Grecian republics, philofophers, whofe celebrity was borrowed only from their powers of thought, arrived in thefe very regions, on this very continent, on thefe very iflands, to exprefs their wishes for the happiness of the human race: many of them fucceeded in doing much good, and all were anxious to do it. The wishes I breathe can have no other object; nor have I received a miffion of a different nature from the Directory of the French republic. Such are the wishes which should be poured into the hearts of all governments, by every voice that can addrefs itfelf to the human breaft, in the name of heaven, and in the name of nature: and in these realms, where you reign amidst the moft ftriking and aftonishing phenomena of the heavens and of the earth; in this land, a magnificent pile, ruins accumulated by the revolutions of the globe; in the view of these volcanos, whofe ever open and ever fmoking mouths make us reflect on the burning lava which they have vomited, and which they will again vomit; it appears to me, Sire, that under whatever denomination of government we may live, whether republican or monarchical, we ought to feel the most ardent impatience to fignalize, by fome folid and durable benefit to mankind, an existence which is so transitory and precarious. Speech addreffed to the Queen of Naples, on the 20th Floreal (9th May), by Citizen Garat, Ambafador of the French Republic to the Court of Naples. Madam, I YESTERDAY laid before the King of the Two Sicilies, his Majefty, your husband, the intentions of the Directory of my republic, refpecting the maintenance of peace and good underftanding, and I received the wifhes of his Majefty for the continuation of that harmony which is fo neceffary for the prefervation of his power. You, Madam, will be pleafed to cherish in the heart of your husband fuch fentiments as may likewife contribute to your perfonal happinefs and tranquillity. France is accustomed to difcover in the princes of the Houfe of Auftria, a great number of the principles and those views which she is anxious to convert into inftruments for bringing to perfec tion focial order, and promoting the happinefs of nations. Your brother, the Emperor Jofeph, when scarcely feated on the Imperial throne, impreffed on the general mind throughout his vaft dominions, a philofophic movement which made fuperftition tremble to its deepest foundations, and prepared the introduction of several ufeful changes in every branch of administration; and this head of the Empire was proud to boast of having drawn his information and his knowledge from the philofophical writers of France. Leopold, his and your brother, Madam, exhibited, in very circumfcribed dominions, the most illuftrious examples to the imitation of great empires; and France may well claim the right of thinking that he was not inactive or unanxious in promoting the good which mankind has derived from the economical principles adopted by that Prince, who took a pleasure in bearing her this honourable teftimony. Thefe recollections, Madam, are the only ones which I fhall find deeply engraven on your heart. The ambaffador of the French republic entertains a hope that the pacific communications which he has juft made, will drown the remembrance of prejudices that arofe from events ill related in France itself, and ftill more disfigured by all the tongues that have repeated them in Europe: by partaking in these truly auguft fentiments with your husband, you will render yourself ftill more dear to his heart, and you will concur, Madam, in perpetuating between two nations, a peace which may influence, in more than one refpect, the peace of all the other nations of Europe. PROCLAMATION. Petersburgh, May 15. BE it hereby known to all whom it may concern, to all Europe, and the whole world, that his Imperial Ruffian Majefty, Paul I. has ordered the following proclamation to be iffued by me, Prince Alexander Befborodko, firft minifter and chancellor of his Imperial Majefty : In confequence of the notification of the Executive Directory of the French republic, of the 23d of Nivofe, in the 6th year, importing, "That if any fhip be fuffered to pass through the Sound with English commodities, of whatever nation it may be, it fhall be confidered as a formal declaration of war against the French nation," his Imperial Majefty, Paul I. has been gracioufly pleased to order twenty-two fhips of the line, and two hundred and fifty gallies, under the command of Admiral Krufe, and M. de Litta, Knight of Malta, to proceed to the Sound, to protect trade in general against the manifeft oppreffion of the Directory, as fuch a proceeding is evidently contrary to the rights of M 2 nations. |