Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

162 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.