The Georgia journal: and independent federal register. (Savannah, Ga.) 1793-179?, December 28, 1793, Image 4

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MUSES’ RETREAT. RE-PUBLISHED BY DESIRE. A SONG, Sung at Liverpool, on the commemoration of the French revolution, litfh July, 1 79 1 * i. O’er the vinc-covcr’d hills, and gay region* of See the day-star of liberty rife; [France, Thro’ clouds of detra&ion,unwearied, advance. And hold its new courfethro’ the Ikies. An effulgence so mild, with a luftre so bright, All Europe with wonder surveys : And from defarts of darkness, and dungeons of Contend for a fliarc of the blaze. [night, 11. Let Burke, like a bat, from its fplendour retire, A fplendour too strong for his eyes ; Let pedants and fools his effulions admire, Enwrap’d in his cob-web, like flies: Shall phrenZy and sophistry hope to prevail Where reason opposes her weight ; When the welfare of millions is hung in thefcale And the balance yet trembles with fate ? 111. Ah, who’midftthc horrorsof night would abide, That can taste the pure breezes of morn; Or, who that hasdrankof the chryftalline tide, To the feculent flood would return ? When the bofomof beauty the throbbing heart Ah ! who can the transport decline ? [meets, Or, who that has tailed fair liberty’s fvvects, The prize but with life would resign ? IV. —But ’tis over—high heav’n the decision ap- Oppreflion has ftrugglcd in vain : [proves — To the hell flie has form’d superstition removes; And tyranny bites his own chain. In the records of time anew era unfolds— All nature exults in its birth— His creation, benign, the Creator beholds, And gives anew charter to earth. V. 0 catch its high import, ye winds,as ye blow ! O bear it, ye waves, as ye roll! From regions that feel the fun’s vertical glow, To the fat theft extremes of the pole. Equal rights, equal law, to the nations around, Peace and friendlhip its precepts impart, And wherever the footfteps of man fliall be May he bind the decree on hisheart. [found, SMP CT From the -[London) Morning Chronicle, af September 3. BRISSO7 TO HIS CONSTITUENTS, toV. Public curioflty mud be in no small degree interelled about a. pamphlet which nir. Eurke has declared to be “ one of the mod able and rascally pro ductions that ever appeared.”—There are only two copies of it in England, and having procured a reading of one, we subjoin such extrails as the fliort time allowed for a haffy pcrufal would peinnt us to make. It appeared on the | 23d of May, eight days before the final defeat of the Gircndilt party, of whom it may be corifidered as the concluding j manifefto. It is written with great force of reason and eloquence. Its ob ject is to prove, that all the misfortune sos the republic arc- to be ascribed to the ■ anarchic failion at Paris. i He begins with an avowal of feme importance to the future hiflorians of j 1 the revolution. “ The whole truth,” fays he, “ has l never been spoken at any time since the commencement of the revolution ; we | were afraid by expressing it of injuring | and difhonouring the cause of liberty, li of difeouraging the people, and of im- I peding the progress of public business. L ‘1 his circumfpeilion is right and even v neceftary when nations are to be saved 1 by individuals or bodies of men ; but I it is deftrmtive when the nation alone r can save herfelf. To diiremhle her ittuationy is to prolong her lethargy, no great popular efforts can be pro | vluccd or well dire&ed without inform g *he people of their fituatiod. Such |fc:s our pofitioh, and such are the mo | N’ -es which induce me to tear asunder I ha v“il that hides from us the source f t o.\ misfortunes.” It. He proceeds to establish three posi tions. < |ft. That the party of anarchists has governed and does govern all the deliberations of the executive council. 2d. That that party has beenand is still the foie cause of all the evils, internal and external, which afflid f ranee. 3d. That the republic cannot be saved, without a rigourous measure which (hall refeue the representatives of the nation from the despotism ot that fac tion.” He afterwards presents us with ade feription of anarchy, contrasted with the creed of the genuine republicans. “ I believe,” fays he, “ that the people will now regret the lethargic tranquility of its ancient servitude, if we do not procure it a republican tran quility ; because the people desire to be happy ; because they mult desire it still more after such great and continued facrifices; because their happiness does not confilt in the eternal repetition of violent convulsions; because if ruffians live by sedition, the pepple live by re pose. I believe that the establishment of order is a truly revolutionary mea sure ; because it firengthens the revo lution within ; because it furnifhes re sources against our enemies without; and above all, because it will conciliate the refped and confidence of the na tions of Euifope. I believe this dodrine as salutary to the non-proprietor as the proprietor, because he can only fubfilt by confiant labour, and there can be no constant labour for the poor where thfcre is no constant security for the lives and properties of the rich. I believe that this dodrine of eternal infurredion, will produce pillage and maft'acre, which muff difgufl and fatigue the na tion at a republican form of govern ment. Such are the opinions of those courageous patriots, who have been devoted to ignominy, and to the dag ger of aftaifii.s, by the names'of Giron dins, Rolandins, Briffotins &c.” The majority of the convention, are, according to him, pure and uncor rupt, but feeble and domineered over by a handful of anarchists, who rule by terror.. If they unani motifly agree to proted their independence by a depart mental guard, if they decree the pun ishment of death against the instigators of murder, if they hear accusations against Roberfpierte, and order thepro fecution ci theaflaffins of September, , they are speedily forced by the clamours j and the menaces of anarchists to revoke ; all these salutary measures, Burrere, j Le Pelletiere, and Danton, had all pri- I vately declar.cd their opinion for the ap j peal to the people, in the case of the • king- Danton had repeatedly (aid, i that the imprisonment of Louis, was the only measure didated by justice and policy; and these very men now dired the vengeance of the populace against theGirondifls for supporting what they themselves had contended for. The following confelfion is so- re markable that we mult recommend it! to the notice of our readers : “ One word compotes the greater part of the history of the three aftem blies, and that word is fear!” Avery able account follows of the address with which the anarchists go verned the neutral and independent party in the convention, sometimes by the terror of their mobs, and sometimes by inspiring them with jealousy of the Girondifts. To those who refufed to petition for the expulsion ot that party, the commune of Paris refufed certificates of patriotism, which, in the then cir cumrtances, were fafeguards of life. By such meanswas prepared that revolution of the 31st May, which Briffot seems clearly to have torefeen, and which he justly compares to colonel f title's purge. A dreadful pidure is presented of the revolutionary tribunal, in which a body of men, whom in defiance of common sense they called a jury (though it be pefmanent, and the accused has no right tochallenge) delivertheirfnffrages openly, under the menaces of galleries filled with hired ruffians. “ A tribunal, adapted indeed to make us regret monarchy and her baftiles. A tribunal in which two directors of the majjacres of the 2 and of September , fit as judges !! —The triumphal acquittal of Marat, does it not prove that the con vention and the tribunals are the inflru ments of aiTaffins. That wretch, whose foul is made up of filth and gore, 4< H'jfftulus ex cruore ctluto •** Cic. “ The opprobrium of the revolution and of humanity.” Two days before his trial, Roufillon.oneof hisjurors, said in the club of the Cordeliers, “ Fear nothing for his head ! They speak of arresting him ; I invite you to poignard the man Vvho should dare to lay his sa crilegious hands on the friend of the people to arrest him. Let the people fend us the Girondifts, you will fte who w ill preserve their heads on their shoulders.” The despotism of this anarchic fac tion was not less conspicuous over the miniflers than over the convention, It appeared in the horrible perfection of the virtuous Roland ; it appeared in the tame and pusillanimous submission of Garat, to men whom he muff detest ; it appeared in the impunity with which Pache plundered the treasures and dis organized the armie c , with no other protection than his jacobinifm ; it ap peared in the protection given by the fame fadion to Monge, corvided of the mod scandalous incapacity and negligence in the adminiftution of the marine. To the fame execrable faction ought in fome measure to be aferibed the de fection of Dumourier. “ I know,” fays BrifTot, “ his am bition, his immorality, and his indif ference for libeity. He never sincerely wilhed a republic, He dtfired a mo narchy tempered by democratic forms. That form of government bed suits men who join great talents to violent paflions. But I w’ill venture to fay, that the calumny which pursued even the triumphs of Dumourier, has preci pirated his treachery, and by confe quence our misfortunes.” The fame fadion has exercised its despotism over the departments by those execrable commifiaries with w hich they have deluged France. 1 “ Leonard Bourdon, one of them, produces a tumult at Orleans, which until his arrival had, during the whole revolution, been tranquil. “ He fills the prisons of that unfor tunate city wiih his viCtim o , and when the wives and children ot the prifor.ers come to him to expostulate, he compels them at the point of the bayonet, to dance and drink, as if displaying savage triumph at the miseries of their hus bands and fathers. A few are provoked to give this Bourdon a drubbing. This is called the affaflination of a deputy, and they have expiated their offence on the fcaffold.” To the fame faction he aferibes the war with Spain, England, and Hoi land. “ Hostilities with Austria were ine vitable ; insult and injury had been too long and too tamely endured from that power. She meditated attack, and only waited a favourable moment. It was the policy of France net to permit her to choose her own time of attack, and France declared war. “ But the war With the maritime powers may be ascribed to three causes: The decree of fraternity of the 19th of November, extorted from the conven tion by the clamours of the anarchists ; the useless and impolitic death of Louis, which afforded to the miniders of these countries the means of fanatic: [mg the people against France ; and the ge neral horror against the unpunished maftacres of September. Os thelaft, Thomas Paine, in a work about to be publilhed, speaks thus : “ I was in England at the time of the maflacres of September. Before that fatal event the principles of revolution had made rapid progress ; scarce had the news of those maflacres arrived, when a general change took place in the public mind ; all the friends of France mourned ; they shunned each other ; they dreaded the melan choly of each others afpc6f ; they shrunk from the insolent triumph of their enemies, and from the exultation of aristocracy, disguised by a mafic of lamentation and horror. Thus did all France; thus did all the principles and all the friends of the revolution fuffer from the wickedness of a few p in dividuals. In vain was it said, that those who futfered were guilty ! it was answered that a prison was as sacred as an altar, and that he who could violate a prison, is capable of betraying his country.”—Thus far Thomas Paine. It was not enough for them, how ever, thus to second the views of Piq, and to furnifti him with the means of alarming and maddening the people of England into a war. They muff do the fame service to the ftadholder, and to the aristocracy of Holland “ Cambon said to Abbem, (the Dutch banker, a patriotic refugee at Paris) “ You have no church lands to confifcate in Holland, as we found in Flanders—when we get to Amfler dam, we muff make a revolution of port-folios!” Muff not such language reach Holland, and was it not worth the ltadtholder an army r” The war which their absurdities and crimes provoked has in its conduct been every where palsied by their incapacity, and the diftradions which they have created. “ A defencelefs frontier and a dis contented people seemed to invite the invasion of Spain ; her opulent and unarmed colonies presented an easy prey to our marine ; to Louifiana,w hich had been fold to the Spandh court, we seemed to owe conquest as a repara tion ; the Dutch colonies in India might have been enabled to throw off the yoke of Holland ; and on the con tinent a powerful prince, the Mithri dates of India, vanquiflicd, but n>t deffroyed, animated wi h an implaca ble animosity to the Englilh name, needed only the of a French force, again to take up arms against the objeds of his hereditary detestation. “ In Europe too there are ciicum (lances, of which ftatefn en of adaii g and comprehensive genius might have improved. The obitinate ignorance of y*coV>uvif v vi f ru'tttod tR> rut]-* o£ Sardinia, that fleet under Truguer, which, if it had appeared in the Archi pelago, would have emboldened the Porte again to arm against Ruflia; to support Poland; to attempt the re capture of the Crimea ; and would thu> have lighted a flame in the east of Europe which all the efforts of our enemies would have been scarce able to extinguish. “ The Weft India colonies of our ene mies would have been fufficiently an noyed by an improvement in the in ternal regimen of.our own island:.” This alludes, we presume, to the cheme for emancipating and arming their slaves, which was agitated about nine months ago. “ Sometime ago Buzot proposed a aw, that every deputy should give an account of his fortune, and of the ad ditions which he had made to it during the condiment assembly, the legislative aflembly, and the convention. Had such a law been pasted, when it came ‘ to my turn, I must have anfwered,— nothing. It is thus that I would re fute the calumniator who called me the illy of Pitt. —An incorruptible charac ter, evidenced by this honourable po verty, is the only patrimony I fhali be queath to my children. This proposi tion of Buzot was, however, evaded by the anarchists, and indeed, such an en quiry would have proved embarrafling to them. Fabre d’Eglantine, in the lowed state of indigence before the maf* facres of September, how came he to acquire a landed estate of 12,000 livres a year, and how does he support his hotel, his carriage, and his fervantsr— Whence are the sudden fortunes of Panis, of Sergant, and of so many others of the ailalTinating commune of 1 Paris ? How fhali we account for the large eflateslately purchased in the name of the father-in law of Danton ?” He concludes in these words, “ Anarchids, robbers, you may no# strike—l have done my duty, I have spoken truths ufeful to my country* land they will survive me !”