No. VII.

Extract from the French Official Paper, La MONITEUR, of March 2, 1803.

A person of the name of Peltier has been found guilty, before a court of justice, at London, of printing and publishing some wretched libels against the First Consul. It is not easy to imagine why the English, Ministry should affect to make this a matter of so much éclat,

As it has been said in the English news. papers, that the trial was instituted at the demand of the French Government, and that the French Ambassador was even in the court when the Jury gave in their verdict; we have authority to deny (démentir) that any such things ever took place. The First Consul was even ignorant of the existence of Peltier's libels, till they came to his knowledge in the public accounts of the proceedings at this trial,

All the civilised nations of Europe, have, in the system of their mutual relations and dependencies, certain reciprocal duties to fulfil, which they ought to respect so much the more, because a different conduct, which fails not to

have,

have, in every country, its partisans, could tend only to restore the reign of barbarism and anarchy

It is, therefore, not easy to imagine, what interest England can have to encourage, and authorise all those scurrilities of infamy, which the libellers of that country are incessantly propagating; as little easy is it to imagine, why it should afford protection to the French libellers who settled there during the war, as to conceive what useful purpose could be answered by a proceeding of such pomp and ostentation.

The Alien Bill gives power to the English ministry to send strangers out of that country at pleasure. That power the ministry largely avails itself of. Above twenty Frenchmen, who lived in settled residence, and were well known in England, have been, without any formality, sent out of that country. Within these few days, Citizen Bonnecarrere, a chief of battalion of the national-guard at Paris, being at London, to prosecute a suit at law, and having his wife there sick, received orders to quit the country in forty-. eight hours.

We know others, who, after a residence of thirty years in London, have been sent out of the country with equal abruptness and rigour. To what purpose, then, drag, with ostentation, before re

spectable

spectable courts, foreign libellers who are only such as naturally arise in the end of any great political commotion. If Lord Pelham's Under Secretaries should only hint to them to cease to write, they must, per force, obey. Should they not, they might, under the Alien Bill, be sent out of the kingdom.

The King of England owes it to his own personal dignity, and to the honour of the nation, to put an end to the outrages of his subjects against a neighbouring government and nation with which he is at peace, and to which he gives the presence of an Ambassador, not less exalted in rank than amiable and respectable in his personal qualities.

Yet it is to be acknowledged, that these pro ceedings, however useless in other respects, have afforded an occasion to the Judges who presided at the trial, to evince, by their wisdom and impar, tiality, that they are truly worthy to administer justice in a nation so enlightened, and estimable in so many respects,

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No. VIII.

Extract from the French Official Paper, LE MO NITEUR, of August 9, 1802.

THE Times, which is said to be under ministerial inspection, is filled with perpetual invectives against France. Two of its four pages are every day employed in giving currency to the grossest calumnies. All that imigination can depict, that is low, vile, and base, is by that miserable Paper attributed to the French Government. What is its end? Who pays it? What does it wish to effect?

A French Journal edited by some miserable emigrants, the remnant of the most impure, a vile refuse, without country, without honour, sullied with crimes which it is not in the power of any Amnesty to wash away, outdoes even the Times.

Eleven Bishops, presided over by the atrocious Bishop of Arras, rebels to their country and to the church, have assembled in London. They print libels against the Bishops and the French clergy; they injure the Government and the Pope, who have re-established the peace of the gospel amongst 40 millions of Christians.

The

The Isle of Jersey is full of Brigands, con demned to death by the tribunals for crimes committed subsequent to the peace; for assassinations, robberies, and the practices of an incendiary.

The treaty of Amiens stipulates, that persons accused of crimes, of murder, for instance, shall be respectively delivered up. The assassins who are at Jersey are, on the contrary, received. They depart from thence unmolested, in fishing-boats, disembark on our coasts, assassinate the richest proprietors, and burn the stacks of corn and the barns.

Georges wears openly at London his red ribband, as a recompense for the infernal machine which destroyed a part of Paris, and killed thirty. women and children, or peaceable citizens. This special protection authorizes a belief, that if he had succeeded he would have been honoured with the Order of the Garter.

Let us make some reflexions on this strange conduct of our neighbours.

.

When two great nations make peace, is it for the purpose of reciprocally exciting troubles, or to engage and pay for crimes? Is it for the purpose of giving money and protection to all men who wish to trouble the state? And as to the liberty of the press, is a country to be at liberty to speak of a nation, friendly, and newly reconciled,

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