French liberty, has contrived to entangle her rivals in a war which exhaufts them, in order to make herself miftrefs of Poland and fo open to her the gates of Germany? I know it may be faid, with fome foundation, that the Ruffian empire is a Coloffus with feet of clay; that in it corruption has preceded maturity; that the flavery which exifts in it deprives its force of all folidity, and its refources of all energy; that its extent is immenfe, but partly defert; that it is proud but poor; that it is already too vaft to be governed; that by extending itself it accelerates its own diffolution; and that every conqueft it makes is a ftep toward its ruin. I admit thefe truths; but this 'giant, before he perithes, will crush you; it is upon your ruins that he muft fall; he will not difmember himfelf till after you are ravaged, difperfed, and annihilated. Danes, Swedes, Germans, Pruffians, Ottomans, think of this! time flies, the thunder rattles; Vienna betrays you; the Mufcovite torrent is augmenting; Attila is, once more advancing, and if you do not unite in time to arreft this deftructive scourge, you are undone. You are taught to fear France. What a ftrange error! if your government be wife, and founded on true principles, why envy us? if from its nature it be as difaftrous, as you are told, why dread a people that carries in its own bofom a fource of weaknefs or of agitation, that muft prevent it from meddling with you?-the conftancy of our efforts, the duration of our facrifices, the permanence of our victories, do they not demonftrate beforehand the ftability VOL. XXXVII. of treaties that may be made with us? Are not changes of fyftem, by a great nation, neceffarily more rare than the changes and caprices of minifters, of miftreffes, and of favourites? ah! our interests are common. What fignifies it, that we have outftript you in the career of liberty! What fignify our conftitution and our laws, our principles and our opinions! policy commands you to unite with us, and to march with equal pace against the enemies that threaten us. When it is dinned in your ears that it is neither fafe nor honourable to treat with us, tranflate this language into its true. meaning, and learn that Auftria fays" fight, that I may regain, my provinces ;" and now that England does not urge you to fight, but in the hope you will prevent us from oppofing her maritime conquefts; finally liften to Russia: mark her very words-" fight, exhauft yourselves, lavish all your blood, and all your treatures, that warlike I may, without obftacle, quit my deferts, and spread my population over your fertile territories." Oh, ye politicians of Europe, who boaft of wisdom fo exalted, of penetration fo profound, how is it poffible, that you have not yet lifted up the veil which hides from your eyes the Machiavelian politics of the English government!-How is it ye do not fee to what degree it abufes you, and what a game it makes of all it profeffes to refpect! That government accufes us of immorality; and when, by an armed neutrality, the robbery of neutral commerce was to be repreffed, it was the only civilized government which, unblufhingly, oppofed the mea fure vernment, which forced Holland to fight against us, and after lending it a feeble aid, confined its efforts to diminishing the account of its foffes-that government, in fine, which, after having feduced the unfortunate inhabitants of La Vendée and Toulon, tranquilly enjoyed the fpectacle of their ruin. Irrefolute Spaniards, what do you expect? if chance should dif appoint our courage, if, perfifting in your unaccountable coalition, you fhould paralize our efforts against your implacable enemy, and if that enemy, eftablishing herself in our colonies, thould deftroy the aliment of our marine? do you not fee her already laying hold of your galleons, digging your mines, wrefting from you the empire of Mexico, that of Peru, Porto-Rico, Cuba; driving you from all the feas, and from the heights of Gibraltar, infulting your misfortunes, and enjoying your mifery? had the not already drawn the fword against you, because the thought you in no condition to defend yourfelves? Did not we turn it afide at the moment when, reckoning on our troubles, the hoped to ftrike you with impunity? Do not her attempts upon Corfica announce that the withes to expel you from the Mediterranean, as the afpires at chafing you from the ocean? measure. It accufes us of having broken the peace and violated the right of nations, and it infulted our ambaffador. It profeffes to hate intolerant papacy, and it takes up arms to defend the fuperftitions of Rome. It pretends to cherish liberty, and it is in alliance with the oppreffors of Poland. It reproaches us with cruelties of which we execrate and punish the authors; and it has filled Afia with pillage aad dead bodies, has hired favages to entlave the Americans, and purchated men of a German prince, fixing beforehand the price of each wound, of each mutilation; in a word, fettling the tarif of every drop of blood of thofe miferable laves. It charges us with ambition, and foolishly ftrives to render itfelf mafter of all the colonies. It has the audacity to fay, that we make war without humanity; and it has attempted to avenge its difafters, by expofing twenty-four millions of men to a famine from which chance and our valour have protected us. It clamours every where that we want to attack the independence of other ftates; and it attempted to compel Genoa, Venice, Sweden and Denmark, to renounce the moft refpectable and the mott facred of all rights, that of, remaining neuter amid the horrors of war. Finally, it has the affurance to declare, that it is not fafe to treat with us-that government does fo, which, when in alliance with Ruffia, excited the Turks to make war upon her, and afterwards abandoned them that government, which encouraged the Poles in their revolution, and left them without fupport--that government, which armed Sweden against the Rudians, and betrayed it-that go In 1790, Awake, then, at the call of truth; appreciate at their juft value the calumnies fpread againti us; fee in the fpeeches with which the parliament of London refounds, nothing but the fear of peace, but the language of ambition unmatked, and let us take upon ourselves the care of our vengeance and of our fafety. It is not only fafe, it " is honourable, to treat with us: but the measure is become indifpenfable to your fafety; we have made known to you the neceffity of it, learn the means; we are too grand, too powerful, to have any thing to difguife. Our paft dangers, the neceffity of rendering the return of them impoffible, the example of the menacing league which wanted to over-run us, and at one time car ried defolation into the heart of France; the fincere defire of rendering peace folid and durable, obliges us to extend our frontiers, to take for our limits great riyers, mountains, and the ocean, and thus, beforehand, and for a long series of ages, to fecure ourselves from all invafion and from all attack. At this price, the powers of Europe may depend upon an inviolable peace, and upon courageous allies, capable of difengaging them from the weight of the two rath Coloffuffes that, in their guilty delirium, want to arrogate at once the empire of the land and of the feas. Such, citizens, are the grand truths which every thing now commands us to develope before the eyes of Europe. In vain is it attempted to mislead the people of other nations, by telling them that our government being only provifional, no tie, no no treaty, can have any guarantee. Our government is the plenipotentiary nominated by the totality of the French people to terminate in their name the revolution and the war; and I doubt if ever ambaf fador was feen invefted with power more ample, or a character more auguft. What fignify the combinations of which governments are formed, when treaties are formed with the people to whom thofe governments belong! the peace which you will foon folicit, will be much more folid from being given to you by the affent of the whole people. Our government is the will of the nation; our forms are juftice; our principles are humanity; your guarantee is the fincerity and the courage of a nation which has willed to be free. Appreciate our actual govern➡ ment by the fpectacle which it of fers to the world; it has repreffed inteftine troubles; annihilated rebel factions; broken down the scaf folds; opened the prifons; avenged innocent blood; devoted to death and infamy the minifters of terror; it has reftored liberty, to commerce; tranquillity to agricul→ ture: in the interior it has made. juftice the order of the day, and victory on the frontiers. Ah! all enlightened nations will liften with the fmile of contempt and of pity, to the abfurd or perfidious politicians who call in queftion, whether a nation that can conquer has the power of nego ciating; who dare still to maintain that peace is impoflible at the mo◄ ment when every thing demon-. ftrates that obftinacy is infenfate and refiftance vain ? Adopt, citizens, the ideas I have. traced; fpeak with that noble franknefs which befits the majefty of the French people, and you will foon fee the diplomatic fubtleties of your enemies confounded by the wifdom of your councils, as you have feen their temerity punished by the courage of your warriors. Proclamation of the Royalifts of Anjou and Upper Poitou, in Anfwer to the pacificatory Proclamation of the Reprefentatives of the People. IN THE NAME OF THE KING. The Military Council of Anjou and Deluded Frenchmen, tunes? Alas! were we to believe them, our murdered relations and friends would rife from their graves to tell us, "Take care of the poifon concealed under thofe appearances it was in proclaiming to us life and fafety, we were immolated--the fame fate undoubtedly awaits you the faction that was then domineering is still reigning; its fpirit is the fame; it aims at the fame end; means and agents only are changed." If, however, your wishes are fincere-if your hearts, foftened and changed, are bent towards peace, we muft tell you, Reftore the heir of your king his fceptre and crown; to religion its worship and minifters; to the nobility its rights and eftates; to the whole kingdom its ancient and refpectable conftitution, free from the abufes introduced in it by unfortunate eventsthen, forgetting all your wrongs and enormities, we may fly into your arms, and mingle with yours, our hearts, feelings, and withes. But, without the previous adoption of thefe meafures, we despise an amnefly that crime fhould never have dared to offer to virtue-we defpife your efforts and threats; fupported by our brave and generous warriors, we will fight till death, and you fhall reign but on the tomb of the last of us. Refolved unanimoufly at Maulevriere, the 28th January, the year of grace 1795, and the third of the reign of Louis XVII. (Signed) STOFFLET, gene MARTIN, tary-general. We We require the above proclamation to be printed, read, and published, through all the parishes compofing the districts of Anjou and Upper Poitou. (Signed) BERNIER, Curé de St. Lo d'Angers, commiffary general. Printed at the royal printing-office at Maulevriere, by Chambon, printer. The Declaration of the Chiefs of La Vendee in the Armies of the Centre and Pay Bas. UNPRECEDENTED attempts against our liberty, the moft cruel intolerance, defpotifm, injuftice, and horrid vexations which we have experienced, have affembled us with arms in our hands. We have feen with horror our unfortunate country delivered over to the ambitious, who, under the appearances of the pureft patriotifm, and the feductive mafk of popularity, afpired to a perpetual dictatorship. Difcerning their projects through the veil in which they enveloped themfelves-could we do otherwife than try our laft efforts to replace the authority in hands which our principles made legitimate? rather to die than to live unde fuch tyranny. But now the government of blood has difappeared. The leaders of that impious faction which covered France with cyprefs and mourning, have paid with their heads the forfeit of their criminal defigns. The reprefentative Ruelle, the friend of the laws and of humanity, is come to bear among us the words of peace. That confidence which had been fo lowered by the acts of barbarity, begins now to revive. On his apwhich have preceded his miffion, pearance we feel no difinclination to fuch approaches as may tend to remove the calamitous effects of the divifions that affli&t us. New reprefentatives, worthy of our efteem and our praife, have been joined to the firft; we have informed them of our intentions, and our defire of a fincere pacification, guaranteed by honour. In our conferences we have made them understand what interefted the happinefs of our country, and what it belonged to their prudence and wifdom to grant, for the purpofe of obtaining the defirable end of peace. United in the fame tent with the reprefentatives of the people, we felt more ftrongly, if poffible, that we were ftill Frenchmen, and thould be animated only by the general good of our country. Whilft an oppreffive government deprived our fellow-citizens of their It is with thefe fentiments that moft precious rights, we have de. we declare to the national conventended our's with conftancy and tion and to France, our fubmiflion firmnefs. We have had recourfe to the French republic, one and in our misfortunes to new powers indivifible, and our acknowledgDefpair even lent us its frightful ment of its laws; and that we fuccour, and rendering us infenfi- make a formal engagement not to ble to those confiderations which make any attempt against them. fotten the moft ferocious hearts, We promife to furender, as foon engraved on our's the refolution as poflible, all the artillery and 03 houfes |