agency of crimes and treason, is not of long duration. The English fleet would have been repulsed, if the fanaticism of the priests, the credulity of the People, the floods of British gold, and the traitorous conduct of Puissand and of Trogolf had not given up to the dastardly and vile English, the key of the Mediterranean.

Some years ago one would have supposed that the English blood and treasure would have been employed only in the progress of philosophy and of liberty; but it was difficult for this Government, which has paid. by the loss of morals. for the dangerous advantage of being the depository of the gold of the world, not to deliver itself up to a mercantile spirit, and to all th political vices profusely emanating from wealth. Has it not then seen that there is a limit to the blindness of the People; that the English Government enjoys, in the midst of the enormous fortunes of individuals, but an ideal public wealth which may vanish in an instant; that it enjoys but a fictitious and momentary credit, and an unfounded paper, which party spirit may cause to vanish, and which, perhaps, before long, may leave to a mercantile and speculating nation only regrets, corruption, revolutionary shocks and despotism, without colonies and without marine? The league directed against France, by the despots, accomplices of George, is composed of territorial and maritime Powers. As to the territorial Powers, who have not the same interest as the others, let us oppose to them our republican armies and the French youth. The maritime Powers have other projects, and, before long, will be divided by the result of their monstrous union; let us oppose to them the law for the freedom of the seas; let us oppose the iron of our pikes to their guineas; our bayonet to their phalanxes; our gunners to their cavalry, and navigation act to navigation act. Let other nations follow our example let other nations completely re-possess themselves of their natural rights on the seas, and then will England be violently detached from that maritime throne which she has too long usurped. The vizier of George has dared to declare, a few days ago, in dictating laws to neutral nations, and daring to restrain the rights and forms of their neutrality, France," said he, should be separated from the commercial world, and treated as though she had but a single city, but a single port, and as if that place was blockaded by sea and by land."

France blockaded! Thus spoke of Rome, before their just destruction, those men of punick faith, the ambitious and mercantile Carthagenians. France blockaded! nay, if it were possible to reduce her to the confined limit of a single port, of a single garrisoned city, the French nation would then sally out of its limits, by a bridge from Calais to Dover, and landing with its liberty on the British territory, too long fertilized by our spoils, the heads of George and Pitt would fall at the feet of those Englishmen, who should feel themselves worthy of liberty, and the English island would raise at our side another Republic. or become a desert.

But in order to construct this bridge, which is to establish our Revolutionary communications with this modern Carthage, who, after

having drained India, wishes at her pleasure to give constitutions to Europe; let us decree a solemn act of navigation, and the mercantile island will be ruined.

It is always said that the English are the masters of the seas, but the Spaniards were the gods of the ocean, under Philip II, as the English are the tyrants under George III.

The Spaniards overflowed with the gold of Mexico, and the silver of Peru, as the English are covered with the wealth of India, and the treasures of the world.

Then the Spanish flag was the only one known at sea, as that of the English is the only one now seen on the ocean. However, the invincible fleet of Philip was conquered, his Armada, so much celebrated, was defeated, and the ancient kings of the seas and of Peru, are no longer any thing, more than the watermen of the former, and the exploring workmen of the latter.

Let Frenchmen, so intensely engaged in the Revolution, pause a moment, in order to contemplate its majestic and amazing progress, and then they will be as concious of their strength as they are of their rights. Let them be for a moment spectators: the genius of liberty creating amidst the most prodigious events, a still greater prodigy, a democracy of twenty-five millions of souls, a republic of thirty thousand square leagues, boldly establishing herself upon the wrecks of a conspirator's throne, upon the ruins of a nobility, as perfidious as arrogant, upon the domains of a clergy, as opulent as useless, upon the judiciary corps, as ruinous as impolitic, upon the feudal system, as absurd as inveterate, upon titles as ridiculous as fallacious. What will they see a free People establishing a Republican Government for themselves, and establishing it by cominon consent; punishing, at the same time, the treasons of their kings, their legislators, their generals, the emigrants, and their ministers of religion: forced to make a civil war in the bosom of the State, at the same time that they were employed in extinguishing the firebrands cast on all sides by their domestic enemies; obliged to bombard their rebel towns, and to punish the desertion of their fleets; obliged to re-conquer for liberty their maritime and commercial cities; to depopulate, to reduce to ashes fanatical districts, and royalized parts of the country, for the purpose of replacing in them a republican population; cutting off the slavish and suspected part, in order that the free and energetic may defend their firesides; forced to supply with provisions the principal city, the seat of the representatives, as a garrison is supplied by requisitions ; a People at the same time struggling against military Europe, and against the French federalists, against the counter-revolutionary administrations, and against all the leagued tyrants, amidst preparations for seiges, bombardments, and plots, calculated to add famine to all the Scourges of war; this People at the same time, covering all the frontiers with cannon, with soldiers, and, in a word, realizing the expression of Pompey, by a stroke of the foot, causing the earth to bring forth armed phalanxes.

And such is the nation, that isolated merchants, too long tolerated on the side of a continent which they corrupt and oppress, have hoped

to reduce to a state of subjection, or to royalize! Let them tremble to the foundation of their counting-houses and workshops, when the other nations of Europe, awakened even by the clangor of their chains, shall at last perceive that Europe will be entirely free. at the moment in which the influence of England shall be weakened or annihilated, her policy rendered impotent, her Indian commerce diminished, and her roll reduced to that of a factor and maritime commissioner.

Now you commercial and maritime cities, rebellious towns, which have eclipsed the renown of the genius of the South, liberty cites you before the revolutionary tribunal of the public opinion. You have falsified your commercial avocation, and the Representatives of the People are occupied in enriching you alone, or in repairing the injuries you have done us. You have been the enemies of the Republic, and the Republic answers you with benefits, with a navigation act which will amend your errors and your crimes, while, in the time, a decree already projected, is about opening in all the departments, canals for interior navigation. and proscribing all gewgaws, all the miserable wants of luxury, all merchandises manufactured by our irreconcileable enemies, the English. Let us have sufficient strength of mind, of patriotism, to become ourselves, by our own consumption, the first benefactors of the national manufactures; let us multiply, let us bring our fabrics to such perfection, as to render the wants of other nations tributary to us; let us multiply them, in order to diminish those of Batavia and of Britain. Such ought to be the result of the navigation act, until that desirable epoch, when all the other European nations. having also their navigation acts, in virtue of their natural rights, shall force England to revoke hers, and to restore to the seas and to commerce, that latitude and liberty which nature, the true policy of empires and justice, assigned to them.

Let Carthage be destroyed! Thus did Cato conclude all his speeches in the Romam Senate.

Let England be ruined, annihilated! This shall be the concluding article of every revolutionary decree, of the National Convention of France.

The following are the projects of decrees which the Committee of Public Safety present to you.

No. 147.

Copy of the Decree of a Navigation Act.

The National Convention, after having heard the report of the Committee of Public Safety, decree:

ARTICLE 1. That the treaties of commerce and navigation existing between France and the Powers with whom she is at peace, shall be executed according to their form and tenor, without derogating therefrom by the present decree.

2. That after the 1st day of January, 1794, no vessel shall be re

puted French, nor have a right to the privileges of a French vessel, unless she shall have been constructed in France, or in the colonies, and other possessions of France, or declared to be a lawful prize taken from the enemy, or confiscated for contravening the laws of the Republic, if she does not belong entirely to Frenchmen, and if the officers and three-fourths of the crew are not Frenchmen.

3. That no foreign commodities, productions, or merchandizes, shall be imported into France, or into the colonies and possessions of France, except directly by French vessels, or vessels belonging to the inhabitants of the country of which they are the growth, produce, or manufacture, or of the ordinary ports of sale and first exportation; the officers and three-fourths of the crews of such foreign vessels being of the country under whose flag the vessel sails; the whole under the pain of confiscation of the vessel and cargo, and of a fine of three thousand livres, jointly and severally, against the owners, consignees, and agents of the vessel and cargo, captain and lieutenant.

4. That foreign vessels shall not transport from one French port to another French port, any commodities, productions, or merchandizes, of the growth, production, or manufacture of France, the colonies or possessions of France, under the penalties contained in article 3.

5. That the tariff of the national custom-houses shall be reformed and combined with the act of navigation, and the decree which abolishes the duties between France and the colonies.

6. That the present decree shall, without delay, be solemnly proclaimed in all the ports and commercial cities of the Republic, and notified by the Minister of Foreign Affairs to the nations with whom the French nation is at peace.

No. 148.

Copy of the Decree relative to the licenses of vessels under the French flag.

The National Convention, after having heard the report of the Committee of Public Safety, decree:

ARTICLE 1. That the licenses of vessels under the French flag shall be in three days, reckoning from that of the publication of the present decree, for those which shall be in the ports; and in eight days from the arrival of those which shall enter, reported and deposited in the office of the national customs, together with the proofs of ownership. The unlading, and departure of every vessel shall be deferred until after the delivery of an act of Francisation.

2. That every owner, on presenting a license and title of proprietor of a vessel, shall be bound to declare, before a justice of the peace, and to sign on the register of French vessels, that he is the owner of the vessel; that no foreigner is interested therein, directly or indirectly; and that her last cargo arrived from the colonies, or French settlements, or her present outward bound cargo for the colonies or

French settlements, is not an armament on commission, nor foreig property.

3. That if the owner does not reside in the port in which the vessel lies, the consignee and the captain shall give security, conjointly and individually, to report as soon as may be the proofs of ownership, and a declaration attested and signed by the true proprietor of the vessel and cargo.

4. That if the property of the vessel, and also that of the cargo for the commerce between France, her colonies and settlements, is not proved to be French by title and under oath, the vessel and cargo shall be seized. confiscated, and sold, and one half of the product given to the informer.

No. 149.

Extract from the speech of the President of the United States to both Houses of Congress, December 3d, 1793.

"As soon as the war in Europe had embraced those Powers with whom the United States have the most extensive relations, there was reason to apprehend that our intercourse with them might be interrupted, and our disposition for peace drawn into question by the suspicions too often entertained by belligerent nations. It seemed, therefore, to be my duty to admonish our citizens of the consequences of a contraband trade, and of hostile acts to any of the parties; and to obtain, by a declaration of the existing legal state of things, an easier admission of our right to the immunities belonging to our situation. Under these impressions, the proclamation which will be laid before you was issued."

66

In this posture of affairs, both new and delicate, I resolved to adopt general rules, which should conform to the treaties and assert the privileges of the United States. These were reduced into a system, which will be communicated to you. Although I have not thought myself at liberty to forbid the sale of the prizes permitted by our treaty of commerce with France to be brought into our ports, I have not refused to cause them to be restored when they were taken within the protection of our territory, or by vessels commissioned or equipped in a warlike form within the limits of the United States."

No. 150.

Proclamation of Neutrality by the President of the United States, dated 3d of December, 1793.

Extract from Journals of Congress, Dec. 3, 1795.

A mesage was received from the President of the United States by Mr. Dandridge, his Secretary, who delivered in a copy of the procla