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PARIS, 29 Germinal, April xB.
Infurrefticn at Havre,
The Minister of the Marine and of the
Colonies, to Citizen Plevei and Pelet.
“ I am informed that the Tailors em
barked on board the (hips of war and
transports at Havre, have behaved in a
very tumultuous manner to the Com
miflary of the Navy, and that hav
ing urged several exaggerat<xi4md inad
miflible pretensions, they declared that
they would not fail if their demands
were not complied with. Although
tranquility was rc-eftablifhed on board
these veflels, and the officers persuaded a
part of the Tailors to return to their du
ty, yet it is not tire less true that many
abandoned their polls, and that their
cowardly desertion has compromised an
expedition as fkilfully as it tfas bravely
:erted.
“ Tlie Executive Diredloty, to whom
I have given an account of the fatts,
have received the intelligence with equal
furprize and indignation- They have
recognized the eftc&s of the perfidious
AiggelH ons of the enemies oi the Re
public, who obtain easy access to the
port of Havre, under the mafic of neu
trality, and of fome wretches who make
a traffic of the honor of the French name,
and fell it for Britilh gold.
“ For more than a year, ships laden
with provisions for our great arsenals
have remained ina&ive in that port.
Tranquil in their homes, the Tailors have
enjoyed the lime advantages as those of
their brethren in arms who fly to battle.
The republic provides equally for their
fubfiltence, and yet when file claims their
iervices, they have dared to be deaf to
her voice ! They have dared cowardly
o desert their Ihips ; and our convoys,
whole failing was favoured by a happy
combination of circumstances, were again
detained in port.
“ No, the Directory will not fuffer
the enemies of liberty to accomplish
their designs. They will finalize the
guilty, and let the whole weight of the
laws fall on their heads.
“ The Directory might have been
abused by falfe reports of the obedience
of the feilors of Havre to their officers.
JBut the treason has been averted, and
the examination of the criminals will
make us acquainted with all the ele
ments.
“ You are dire&ed, citizens, to dis
cover the authors of the revolt that
broke out on the 16th Germinal. You
will also arrell all the sailors who have
abandoned their (hips, and you will im
mediately carry them, as traitors to their
country, and deserters before jEe ene
my, to a military jury, which yxm will
convoke.
“As soon as the guilty are arrelied,
you may afeertain those whom repen
tance and a sentiment of honor may re
fioic to their duty : you will receive
them with the indulgence due to those
who have been milled, and who acknow
ledge their fault, andpromife to expiate
it bv proofs ofcourage.
“ 1 he Executive Dire&ory expedt
from your zeal and patriotilm, that you
will punctually execute these orders,
llow much more pleasant would it have
been to them, and to me, to have trans
mitted testimonies of gratitude to the
sailors ; but whiltl the directory will
ever Ihow themselves inflexible towards
traitors and cowards, they will be eager
to rccompcnce brave and obedient men.
TRUGET.”
t FUreal, April 21.
The factions are alarmed at the vigour
us measures which have been taken to
suppress them; they are gone to hide
their fury in their fubterrareous caverns.
Their groups are dispersed. Paris
wears an appearance of tranquility. But
government mull not relax its vigilance;
it mull not be forgotton, that though
dispersed, on the 12th Germinal, lall
year, the terrorists again attacked the
national convention on the ill Prairial,
and dipped their hands in the blood of
Ferrand.
During the whole of yesterday, pa
troles of horse conilantly paraded the
bridges, & dispersed the groups wherev
er they assembled.
The “ Observer of the South” Hates,
that the matter of a veflel that left Ge
noa on the 14th, and arrived at his de
parture, fays the people of Genoa, in a
Hate of infu rreftion, had taken up arms,
and that the trench emigrants had re
ceived orders to qoit the town.
•Extra ft of a letter from the conjul general
•f}he French republic at Funis, to the
mmferof Marine, slated 2 Oth Ventofe.
_!! dal J ar dly Englifk have just
proved that there is nothing sacred in
(heir eyes. Vellerday a 3,vif,on of
(hips oi.war earned off under the fort
•1 Goulette, in the mod open contempt
Columbian sluieum, £&♦
of the rights of nations and of neutrality,
two finall veflels of the republic, togeth
er with the frigate the Nemesis, which
had been before taken from these pirates.
To complete their wickedness, when, at
the proposal of their admiral, I sent for
the crews of the (hips they had llolen,
the Brigands would not give up the
sailors. Vengeance, Frenchmen, Ven
geance !”
6 FUreal, April 2s.
The success of our array in Italy has
not Hopped here. In the fitting of the
Council of Five Hundred of yeiterday,
the following meflage was read by The
President of the Executive Direttory.
“ Citizen Reprcfentativcs, the for
tunate battle of Montenottc, which we
informed you of by our meflage of the
zd of this month, was only, for the in
vincible army of Italy, the prelude to
fncccffes Hill more brilliant—We have
to day to announce to you a victory, de
cisive and moll memorable, gained by
that army at Monte Lezino over the
united Picdmontefe and Austrian armies.
“ The enemy loft ten thousand five
hundred men, of whom eight thousand
were made prisoners. They loft like
wile 40 pieces of cannon, with horses,
muies, and ammunition waggons, 15
Hand of colours, all their equipage and
several magazines.
“ Our troops, generals, officers, sol
diers, all are covered with glory, and
have lhewn themselves worthy to defend
the name of liberty.
“ The General in Chief, Buonaparte,
again directed this attack. The other
generals, who seconded him in the moll
Hidinguifhed manner, are Laharpe, An
gereau, Meffena, Cervoni, Code, Mei
arde, and Goubert. This last was
wounded in leaping into the entrench
ments of the enemy. Two generals
were killed at the head of their columns,
performing prodigies of valour.
“ The Gen. Provera, who command
ed the Auftro-Sardinian army, was made
piifoner, after having evinced the moft
gallant resistance, with foine Regiments
which were taken with him.
“ You will declare without doubt,
that the army of Italy has not ceased to
delerve well of its Country.”
This declaration was made upon the
instant by acclamation ; and the Coun
cil resolved, that in two hours itfhould
again read the me Huge of the Directory,
which (hould be printed, polled up, and
sent to all the aJminiftrations ami the
armies.
From a London Pa pen.
ORIGIN of the Prefeset WAR,
As Hated by Mr. Erlkine.
The moft faithful and just account of
the origin of the present difaitrous
war, was given by the eloquent Mr.
Erskine, in his defence of Mr. Horne
Tookc. It has been reported by Mr.
Gurney, with a fidelity that does
credit to his talents in his profeflion
as a short-hand writer. We extract
it as a proof of the perfection to which
he carries his art of following a moft
animated fpeaker ; as well as to im
press on the minds of our readers the
true principles of the war.
Gentlemen,
“IT happened that when France
threw off the galling yoke of arbitrary
monarchy, which had been attended with
such infinite evils to herfelf, and which
had produced so many calamities to
Great Britain, a very general exulta
tion pervaded this country j and surely
it was a natural theme of exultation to
the inhabitants of a country which had
given light and freedom for ages to the
world, to fee so large a portion of the
human race suddenly ema icipated from
a bondage not only ignominious to
France, but dangerous to this island.
“ They recoliecled thedefolating wars
which her ambition had lighted up, and
the expensive burthens whicii our refin
ance to them hadentitled upon us ; they
felt alfo,in the terrible dilatters of Franee,
a just pride in the wisdom of our forefa
thers, and a wholesome lesson to the pre
sent age and posterity not to degenerate
from their example. They saw France
falling a viflim to the continuation and
multiplication of those abuses in govern
ment, which ouf wife progenitors had
perpetually mitigated, by temperate and
Jaiutary reformations; and they few
therefore, nothing to tear from the con
tagion ot her disorders : her arbitrary
Hate, her superstitious church, had under
gone no alterations ; and for want of
those repairs which the edifices of civil
life require equally with material llruc
tures, they crumble suddenly into duit;
whereas, by the fortunate coincidence
of accident, as much as by the exer
tions of wisdom and virtue, cur condi
tion bad been {lowly and progressively
meliorated ; and our religion purified
and reformed ; the condition of civil
life had changed and bettered under their
influence, and the country had Hatted up
even amidst revolution; and I verily
believe,the fame sensations diffufed them
selves widely throughout the kingdom.
“ Very unfortunately, gentlemen, for
France, for England, lor Europe, and
for humanity, this sensation the natural
reful t of freedom and independence, was
not uniyerfally iclt; very unfortunately
the powers of Europe would not yield
to an independant nation the common
right of judging lor itfeif in its own
concerns, nor in prudence leave it to the
good and evil of its own government.
All Europe combined against France,
and levied war against her infant consti
tution. The despots of the earth, with
whom the king of Great-Britain had no
common intereil, trembling for their own
rotten institutions, and looking to the
wrongs and fufferings of their fubjetts,
lrcw the sword (as was natural far des
potism to draw it) to dispute the right
of a people to change their ancient imti
tutions. This very combination, as
similated with the patnotifin of France,
the public spirit of England ; ft nee our
own revolution was supported noon n
other foundation than the principle
which was not only denied, but was by
violence to be exterminated ; and man
perfons, therefore, notorioully attached
to the Britilh government, exprefled
their reprobation of this cor.fpiracy a
gainll the freedom of the world.
“ This honest and harmless enthusiasm
however, met with a very Hidden, and
in its consequences an unfortunate check.
A gentleman, of the full talents for wri
ting in the world, composed a book, I
am bound to belive, with an honorable
mind, but a book which produced a
more universal, a.d more mifehievous
effed, than any wiiich perhaps our own
or any other times have produced.
“ When Mr. Burke's book upon the
French revolution was firft publilbed,
at which period our government had ta
ken no adtive part against it, no manaf
fimilated the changes of France to the
condition ol our country ; no man talk
ed, or figured in his imagination, a re
volution in England, which had already
had her revolution, and had obtained
the freedom which France was then
ftruggiing to obtain. Did it follow,
becaule men rejoiced that France had
aliened her liberty, that they thought
liberty could exist id no other form than
that which France had chosen ? Did it
follow, because men living under the go
vernment of this free country, condemn
ed and reprobated the dangerous prece
dent of fiiifering the liberty of any na
tion to be overcome by foreign force ;
did it follow from thence, that they
were resolved to change for the acciden
tal and untried condition of France, the
ancient and tried constitution of our own
country ? I leel within myfclf that I
can rejoice, as Ido rejoice, in the liber
ty of France, without meaning to sur
render my own, which, though protect
ed by other forms, and growing out of
lar more fortunate conjectures, Hands
upon the fame balls, of the right of a
people to change their government and
be free. Can any man in England de
ny this ? Yes, gentlemen, Mr. Burke
has denied it j and that denial was the
origin of Mr. Painesbook. Mr. Burke
denied positively, and in terms, that
France had any right to change her own
government, and even took up the cudg
els tor all the despots of Europe, who,
at the very time, were levying a bar
barous, fcar.dalous and opprefiive war,
to maintain the fame propofiiion by the
sword.
“ This work brought forward again,
after a long silence, Mr. Thomas Paine,
who was indeed a republican beyond all
question, but who had become so in con
fcquence of the similar and lamentable
contcft between Great Britain and Ame
rica ; and it is rather a curious circum
ilance, that this very Mr. Burke, wh;
confiders Mr. Paine as a man not to be
reasoned with, but only to be anfwercd
by criminal justice, and who condemns
as a traitor every man who attempts to
name him, himlcif exprelfed his appro
bation of the very fame doctrines pub
lilhed by Mr. Paine, when Mr. Burke
himlcif was pleading the cause of a na
tion determined to be free ; not the
cause of a foreign nation which had al
ways been independent, but the cause of
colonial America, in open war and re
bellion against the crown and parliament
of Great Britain. Mr. Paine, during
the fame crisis, wrote his book called
Common Scnfe, addressed to the Ame
ricans in Anns against England, exci
ting her to throw off the yoke of the
mother country, and to declare her in
dependence.
“ Gentlemen, from having defended
Mr. Paine, upon hi. trial for wririn. hi
Utter work, which Mr. Toolte uL ‘
fed of having approved, I am, of COUrf “‘
‘" t .'“ l r y f c ,H ual _ n “<i with its content!’
and thofc of his former writing . “ T
I take upon me to fay, that every ’ 0 &„
live topic again ft monarchy, and all
principles of the right, of £*,, no” £
garded wuh such horror, are fubflartS”
iy, and in many instances almost V prK
tim, to be found in the former public!
uon. 1 UllC2 >*
When Mr. Paine wrote his p n
mon Sense, afts of parliament had deck*
red America to be in a state of R cb T
Uon, and England was exerting Cver J
nerve to fubuue her ; yet, at thJ Y
Mr. Burke, „i/in £*£,"£
parliament where his words are not ,!.•)
If, fOrihoned but in a pamphle,
licly circulated, speak. ol hi. Com.
mon bcnfc by name ; notices the p„".
erlul eircct it had upon the mind ofl
merica, in bringing them up to emar.ci.
pat ion ; and acknowledges tfiat ;r .1
.ads alfurned by the author were
ms rcafonings were unanswerable *
r“J n , tl ! e / a: ” e i i ’ a ' niAfc ' t * r "' ra ’ ran.
of which I have (fated the former is!
ry, he declared, that he felt every viAo
y obtained by the king’s arm* against
America, as a blow upon his heart • he
unclaimed all triumph in the Haunter
iid captivity of names which had been
amilar to him from his infancy • arH
wnh all the fplcndor ot his eloquence!
-xpreued his horror that they had fallen
uiiaer t.c nands of strangers, whole bar
barous appellations he fcarccly knew
how to pronounce.
** Gentlemen, I am not ccnfurin* Mr
kurke for these things ; so far from it*
tnat t..ey ian&ity his chara&er with me,
and even prevent me from approaching
hun out with refpeef. But let u‘s, at lealf
have equal just ice. Whilst these writ
u.gs continue the object of admiration,
and their author is held forth as the
cnampion of our constitution, let not
Mi. 1 ooke iiand a prisoner at the bar
ot .he Old Bailey, tor having, in time
ci profound peace with France,and whea
every fpcech from the Britilli throne
breathed notning but its continuance,
expreifed only the fame detestation of the
exertions of foreign deipotifm against
ifeedom, which the other did notferu
ple, in a similar caule, and in time of
open war, to extend to the exertions of
his country.
“ i o expose further the extreme ab
surdity of this accusation, if it be pollible
lurtlier to expoheit, let mefuppole that
we are again at peace with France, whilst
the other nations who are now our al
lies, lhould continue to prosecute the
war : would it then be criminal to con*
gratulate France upon her fucceiles a-
taem ? W hen that time arrives,
*nigiit i not honestly wifn the triumph
of u e h rench arms ? and might I not
lawfully express that with ? I know cer*
tainl/ that I might, and I know aifo
tlrat I would. 1 observe that this fen
tiinent leems a bold one ! but who is pre
pared to tell me I lhall not ? 1 will af
iert the freedom of an Engiifhnan ; I
will maintain the dignity oi man; I will
vindicate the glory in the principle*
which raised this country to her pre
eminence amongst the nations of the
earth ; and as she (hone the bright star
of the morning, to (lied the light of lib
erty upon nations which now enjoy it,
fomay Ihe continue in tier radiant lphere,
to revive the ancient privileges ol the
world, which have been loft, and ltill to
bring them forward to tongues and peo
ple who have never yet known them in
the mysterious progreifion ofthi.ig*/’
From the AURORA, of Maj 19.
Sir —l HAVE lately been favored
with the perusal of a bill which has pas
sed the house of representatives and is
now before the senate, entitled “an aft
to afeertain and fix the military citab
liftimerit of the United States,” ‘and al
so of certain amendments which have I
been proposed to it in the senate.
The bill contemplates a reduftion ot
our present eftablidiraent to one brigade
of about three thousand men, and to be
so organized as to form a complete mili
tary eftabliflimcnt, against which, it ll
be not too lrnall, there does not appeal
to be a fingte well founded objection—
it is in fiitt the only well digeiied pb #
which has exilled in the United State*
ftnee the)ear 1757. The propofed 3-
mendmentsare calculated toaeftroy that
regularity and order which the bill
would neceflarily introduce, and, if adop
ted, will inevitably perpetuate that coo*
tulion and disorder which has existed m
the legion of the United States tyt
lince its formation. Oa those who t.un*-
that three thoafand men are too large
command for a brigadier-general ; tr,ai
brigades ate not neceflar y in the form*’
No. 41.