In the mean time, you will not exclaim as the Roman poet did with refpect to religion, "Of fo many evils could Liberty have been the caufe!" It is, alas! the condition of our uninftructed nature, that nations like individuals should acquire wisdom only in the fchool of experience; and though the page of history, which according to Lord Bolingbroke is "philofophy teaching by example,” be open before us, we are too prefumptuous, or too careless, to heed or apply the lef fon. I need not make use of any reafoning to convince you that Liberty is innocent of the outrages committed under its. borrowed fanction; for though we might from fome momentary impulfe blafpheme its name, as Lucretius did that of religion, we must be perfuaded that neither religion nor liberty is chargeable with the crimest committed by tyranny or fuperftition. As no weeds are more pernicious than those which arife in that foil from which good

fruit alone fhould have fprung, fo no crimes have exceeded those which the tyrant and the fanatic have committed in the name of Freedom, the guardian angel of the happiness of mankind, and in that of the Being "whofe tender mercies are over all his works."

I must not conclude without informing you, that the dark picture which your have been contemplating is relieved by a bright and foothing perspective. The past feems like one of thofe frightful dreams which prefents to the disturbed Spirit phantoms of undefcribable horror, and "deeds without a name;" awakened from which, we hail with rapture the cheering beams of the morning, and anticipate the meridian luftre of the day.. The 9th of Thermidor has established the republic; and nothing now remains but to arrange its forms. Its internal fitua tion will no more offer a hideous contraft to its external victories. The guil

ty

ty commune of Paris exifts no longer; the den of the Jacobins is clofed; and the whole nation, roused into a sense of its danger by the terrible leffon it has been taught, can be oppreffed no more. There scarcely exists a family, or an individual in France, that has not been bereaved by tyranny of fome dear relation, fome chofen friend, who feems from the grave to call upon them with a warning voice to watch over the liberties of their country. The love of public virtue in the people of France is now blended with all the sympathies and affections of their natures: it is heard in the fighs of general mourning; it fpeaks in the tears of the widow and the orphan; and is not only imprinted by every argument that can render it facred and durable on the understanding, but clings to every feeling of the heart.

APPENDIX.

APPENDIX.

No. I.

THE reprefentatives of the French people undersigned, confidering that, amidst events which excite the indignation of the whole republic, they cannot remain filent with refpect to the attempts committed against the national representation, without feeling themselves chargeable with the most shameful pufillanimity, or with becoming ftill more guilty fharers in the crime:

Confidering that the fame conspirators, who, from the very period in which the republic was proclaimed, had never difcontinued their attacks on the national representation, have at length filled up

the

the measure of their crimes, in violating the majesty of the people in the perfons of their reprefentatives, by driving fome to seek their safety in flight, by imprisoning others, and forcing the reft to bend their necks under the yoke of the most infulting tyranny:

Confidering that the heads of this faction, emboldened by long impunity, growing strong through excefs of impudence, and relying on the number of their accomplices, have feized on all the branches of the executive government, on the treasury, on the means of defence and the refources of the nation, which they dispose of at their pleasure, and which they are employing to effect its ruin :

Confidering that they have at their command the chiefs of the military force, and the conftituted authorities of Paris; that the majority of the inhabitants of this city, intimidated by the exceffes of a faction which the law is un

able