representatives, this superiority was the most distinguished. This last city is seated on the Garonne, or Gironde; and being the centre of a department named from that river, the appellation of Girondists was given to the whole party. These and some other towns declared strongly against the principles of anarchy; and against the despotism of Paris. Numerous addresses were sent to the Convention, promising to maintain its authority, which the addressers were pleased to consider as legal and constitutional, though chosen, not to compose an executive government, but to form a plan for a constitution.

In the Convention measures were taken to obtain an armed force from the several departments to maintain the freedom of that body, and to provide for the personal safety of the members; neither of which, from the fourteenth of July, 1789, to this hour, have been really enjoyed by their assemblies sitting under any denomination.

This scheme, which was well conceived, had not the desired success. Paris, from which the Convention did not dare to move, though some threats of such a departure were from time to time thrown out, was too powerful for the party of the Gironde. Some of the proposed guards, but neither with regularity nor in force, did indeed arrive; they were debauched as fast as they came; or were sent to the frontiers. The game played by the revolutionists in 1789, with respect to the French guards of the unhappy king, was now played against the departmental guards, called together for the protection of the revolutionists. Every part of their own policy comes round, and strikes at their own power and their own lives.

The Parisians, on their part, were not slow in taking the alarm. They had just reason to apprehend, that if they permitted the smallest delay, they should see themselves besieged by an army collected from all parts of France. Violent threats were thrown out against that city in the assembly. Its total destruction was menaced. A very remarkable expression was used in these debates, "that in future times it might be inquired, on what part of the Seine Paris had stood." The faction which ruled in Paris, too bold to be intimidated, and too vigilant to be surprised, instantly armed themselves. In their turn they accused the Girondists of a treasonable design to break the republic one and indivisible, (whose unity they contended could only be preserved by the supremacy of Paris) into a number of confederate commonwealths. The Girondin faction on this

account received also the name of fede ralists.

Things on both sides hastened fast to extremities. Paris, the mother of equality, was herself to be equalized. Matters were come to this alternative; either that city must be reduced to a mere member of the federative republic, or, the Convention, chosen, as they said, by all France, was to be brought regularly and systematically under the dominion of the common-hall, and even one of any of the sections of Paris.

In this awful contest, thus brought to issue, the great mother club of the jacobins was entirely in the Parisian interest. The Girondins no longer dared to show their faces in that assembly. Nine tenths at least of the jacobin clubs throughout France, adhered to the great patriarchal jacobiniers of Paris, to which they were (to use their own term) affiliated. No authority of magistracy, judicial or executive, had the least weight, whenever these clubs chose to interfere; and they chose to interfere in every thing, and on every occasion. All hope of gaining them to the support of property, or to the acknowledgment of any law but their own will, was evidently vain, and hopeless. Nothing but an armed insurrection against their anarchical authority, could answer the purpose of the Girondins. Anarchy was to be cured by rebellion, as it had been caused by it.

As a preliminary to this attempt on the jacobins and the commons of Paris, which it was hoped would be supported by all the remaining property of France, it became absolutely necessary to prepare a manifesto, laying before the public the whole policy, genius, character, and conduct of the partisans of club government. To make this exposition as fully and clearly as it ought to be made, it was of the same unavoidable necessity to go through a series of transactions, in which all those concerned in this revolution, were at the several periods of their activity, deeply involved. In consequence of this design, and under these difficulties, Brissot prepared the following declaration of his party, which he executed with no small ability; and in this manner the whole mystery of the French revolution was laid open in all its parts.

It is almost needless to mention to the reader the fate of the design to which this pamphlet was subservient. The jacobins of Paris were more prompt than their adversaries. They were the readiest to resort to what Lafayette calls the most sacred of all duties, that of insurrection. Another era of

holy insurrection, commenced the thirty-first of last May. As the first fruits of that insurrection grafted on insurrection, and of that rebellion improving upon rebellion, the sacred irresponsible character of the members of the Convention was laughed to scorn. They had themselves shewn in their proceedings against the late king, how little the most fixed principles are to be relied upon, in their revolutionary constitution. The members of the Girondin party in the Convention, were seized upon or obliged to save themselves by flight. The unhappy author of this piece, with twenty of his associates, suffered together on the scaffold, after a trial, the iniquity of which puts all description to defiance.

The English reader will draw from this work of Brissot, and from the result of the last struggles of this party, some useful lessons. He will be enabled to judge of the information of those, who have undertaken to guide and enlighten us, and who, for reasons best known to themselves, have chosen to paint the French revolution and its consequences in brilliant and flattering colours.-They will know how to appreciate the liberty of France, which has been so much magnified in England. They will do justice to the wisdom and goodness of their sovereign and his parliament, who have put them in a state of defence, in the war audaciously made upon us, in favour of that kind of liberty. When we see (as here we must see) in their true colours the character and policy of our enemies, our gratitude will become an active principle. It will produce a strong and zealous co-operation with the efforts of our government, in favour of a constitution under which we enjoy advantages, the full value of which, the querulous weakness of human nature requires sometimes the opportunity of a comparison, to understand and to relish.

Our confidence in those who watch for the public will not be lessened. We shall be sensible that to alarm us in the late circumstances of our affairs, was not for our molestation, but for our security. We shall be sensible that this alarm was not ill-timed-and that it ought to have been given, as it was given, before the enemy had time fully to mature and accomplish their plans, for reducing us to the condition of France, as that condition is faithfully and without exaggeration described in the following work. We now have our arms in our hands; we have the means of opposing the sense, the courage, and the resources of England, to the deepest, the most craftily devised, the best combined, and the most exten

sive design, that ever was carried on since the beginning of the world, against all property, all order, all religion, all law, and all real freedom.

The reader is requested to attend to the part of this pamphlet which relates to the conduct of the jacobins, with regard to the Austrian Netherlands, which they call Belgia, or Belgium. It is from page seventy-two to page eighty-four of this translation. Here the views and designs upon all their neighbours are fully displayed. Here the whole mystery of their ferocious politics is laid open with the utmost clearness. Here the manner in which they would treat every nation into which they could introduce their doctrines and influence is distinctly marked. We see that no nation was out of danger, and we see what the danger was with which every nation was threatened. The writer of this pamphlet throws the blame of several of the most violent of the proceedings on the other party. He and his friends, at the time alluded to, had a majority in the National Assembly. He admits that neither he nor they ever publicly opposed these measures; but he attributes their silence, to fear of rendering themselves suspected. It is most certain, that whether from fear, or from approbation, they never discovered any dislike of those proceedings, till Dumourier was driven from the Netherlands. But whatever their motive was, it is plain that the most violent is, and since the revolution has always been, the predominant party.

If Europe could not be saved without our interposition, (most certainly it could not) I am sure there is not an Englishman, who would not blush to be left out of the general effort made in favour of the general safety. But we are not secondary parties in this war; we are principals in the danger, and we ought to be principals in the exertion. If any Englishman asks whether the designs of the French assassins are confined to the spot of Europe which they actually desolate, the citizen Brissot, the author of this book, and the author of the declaration of war against England, will give him his answer. He will find in this book, that the republicans are divided into factions, full of the most furious and destructive animosities against each other: but he will find also that there is one point in which they perfectly agree-that they are all ene mies alike, to the government of all other nations, and only contend with each other about the means of propagating their tenets, and extending their empire by conquests.

It is true, that in this present work, which the author professedly designed for an appeal

French as the academy would in former times have tolerated. He writes with great force and vivacity; but the language, like every thing else in his country, has undergone a revolution. The translator thought it best to be as literal as possible; conceiving such a translation would perhaps be the most fit to convey

the author's peculiar mode of thinking. In this way the translator has no credit for style; but he makes it up in fidelity. Indeed the facts and observations are so much more important than the style, that no apology is wanted for producing them in any intelligible

manner.

**THREE sorts of anarchy have ruined our affairs in Belgium.

The anarchy of the administration of Pache, which has completely disorganized the supply of our armies; which by that disorganization reduced the army of Dumourier to stop in the middle of its conquests; which struck it motionless through the months of November and December; which hindered it from joining Bournonville and Custine, and from forcing the Prussians and Austrians to repass the Rhine, and afterwards from putting themselves in a condition to invade Holland sooner than they did.

To this state of ministerial anarchy, it is necessary to join that other anarchy which disorganized the troops, and occasioned their habits of pillage; and lastly, that anarchy which created the revolutionary power, and forced the union to France of the countries we had invaded, before things were ripe for such

a measure.

Who could, however, doubt the frightful evils that were occasioned in our armies by that doctrine of anarchy which under the shadow of equality of right, would establish equality of fact? This is universal equality, the scourge of society, as the other is the support of society. An anarchical doctrine which would level all things, talents, and ignorance, virtues, and vices, places, usages, and services; a doctrine which begot that fatal project of organizing the army, presented by Dubois de Crance, to which it will be indebted for a complete disorganization.

Mark the date of the presentation of the

system of this equality of fact, entire equality. It had been projected and decreed even at the very opening of the Dutch campaign. If any project could encourage the want of discipline in the soldiers, any scheme could disgust and banish good officers, and throw all things into confusion at the moment when order alone could give victory, it is this project, in truth so stubbornly defended by the anarchists, and transplanted into their ordinary tactic.

How could they expect that there should exist any discipline, any subordination, when even in the camp they permit motions, censures, and denunciations of officers, and of generals? Does not such a disorder destroy all the respect that is due to superiours, and all the mutual confidence without which success cannot be hoped for? For the spirit of distrust makes the soldier suspicious, and intimidates the general. The first discerns treason in every danger; the second, always placed between the necessity of conquest, and the image of the scaffold, dares not raise himself to bold conception, and those heights of courage which electrify an army and insure victory. Turenne, in our time, would have carried his head to the scaffold; for he was sometimes beat: but the reason why he more frequently conquered was, that his discipline was severe: It was, that his soldiers confiding in his talents, never muttered discontent instead of fighting.-Without reciprocal confidence between the soldier and the general there can be no army, no victory, especially in a free government.

Is it not to the same system of anarchy, of equalization, and want of subordination, which has been recommended in some clubs, and defended even in the Convention, that we owe the pillages, the murders, the enormities of all kinds which it was difficult for the officers to put a stop to, from the general spirit of insubordination; excesses which have rendered the French name odious to the Belgians? Again, is it not to this system of anarchy, and of robbery, that we are indebted for the revolutionary power, which has so justly aggravated the hatred of the Belgians against France?

What did enlightened republicans think before the tenth of August, men who wished for liberty, not only for their own country, but for all Europe? They believed that they could generally establish it, by exciting the governed against governors, in letting the people see the facility and advantages of such insurrection.

But how can the people be led to that point? By the example of good government established among us; by the example of order; by the care of spreading nothing but moral ideas among them; to respect their properties and their rights; to respect their prejudices, even when we combat them; by disinterestedness in defending the people, by a zeal to extend the spirit of liberty among them.

This system was at first followed.* Excellent pamphlets from the pen of Condorcet prepared the people for liberty; the tenth of August, the republican decrees, the battle of Valmy, the retreat of the Prussians, the victory of Jemappe, all spoke in favour of France; all was rapidly destroyed by the revolutionary power. Without doubt, good intentions made the majority of the assembly adopt it; they would plant the tree of liberty in a foreign soil, under the shade of a people already free. To the eyes of the people of Belgium it seemed but the mask of a new foreign tyranny. This opinion was erroneous; I will suppose it for a moment; but still this opinion of Belgium deserved to be considered. In general we have always considered our own opinions and our own intentions, rather than the people whose cause we defend. We have given those people a will; that is to say, we have more than ever alienated them from liberty.

How could the Belgic people believe themselves free, since we exercise for them, and over them, the rights of sovereignty; when without consulting them, we suppress all in a mass, their ancient usages, their abuses, their

The most seditious libels upon all governments, in order to excite insurrection in Spain, Holland, and other countries. Translator.

prejudices, those classes of society which without doubt are contrary to the spirit of liberty, but the utility of whose destruction was not as yet proved to them; How could they believe themselves free and sovereign, when we made them take such an oath as we thought fit, as a test to give them the right of voting? How could they believe themselves free, when openly despising their religious worship, which religious worship that superstitious people valued beyond their liberty, beyond even their life; when we proscribed their priests; when we banished them from their assemblies, where they were in the practice of seeing them govern; when we seized their revenues, their domains, and riches, to the profit of the nation; when we carried to the very censer those hands which they regarded as profane? Doubtless these operations were founded on principles; but those principles ought to have had the consent of the Belgians, before they were carried into practice, otherwise they necessarily became our most cruel enemies.

Arrived ourselves at the last bounds of liberty and equality, trampling under our feet all human superstitions, (after, however, a four years' war with them,) we attempted all at once to raise to the same eminence, men, strangers even to the first elementary principles of liberty, and plunged for fifteen hundred years in ignorance and superstition; we wished to force men to see, when a thick cataract covered their eyes, even before we had removed that cataract; we would force men to see, whose dulness of character had raised a mist before their eyes, and before that character was altered.*

*It may not be amiss once for all to remark on the style of all the philosophical politicians of France. Without any distinction in their several sects and parties, they agree in treating all nations who will not conform their government, laws, manners, and religion, to the new French fashion, as an herd of slaves. They consider the content with which men live under those governments as stupidity, and all attachment to religion, as the effects of the grossest ignorance.

The people of the Netherlands, by their constitution, are as much entitled to be called free, as any nation upon earth. The Austrian government (until some wild attempts the emperour Joseph made on the French principle, but which have been since abandoned by the court of Vienna,) has been remarkably mild. No people were more at their ease than the Flemish sub. jects, particularly the lower classes. It is cu. rious to hear this great oculist talk of couching the cataract by which the Netherlands were blinded, and hindered from seeing, in its proper colours, the beautiful vision of the French Rs.