SUPPLEMENT...

TO THE

STATE PAPER S;

CONTAINING,

New and faithful Translations of Two IMPORTANT PAPERS; with introductory Remarks on the Falfities of the common Tranflations,'

THE Reader will fee among our State Papers (page *131) the declaration of the king of France on his departure from Paris; and the answer of the national affembly to that declaration, as they are to be found in fome of the beft English publications of the year. Perceiving, however, that thefe very important papers were untruly given, that they were disfigured by omiffions in fome instances, additions in others, and that in many material points they were apparently garbled for the worst of purposes, we have made a new and faithful tranflation of them from the original copies, which were published by order of the national affembly. We add it here, as a Supplement to the State Papers, that our Readers, by comparing both, may perceive what little arts have been practifed on this occafion to miflead public opinion.

In the king's declaration it will be found, that very many circumstances, which were explanatory of the conduct, and reflected honour on the feelings, of the unfortunate monarch, have been either misrepresented or fuppreffed, efpecially where the filence or evafion of the answer admitted the fact; and fimilar falfifications have taken place with refpect to other unanfwered paffages tending to fix on the affembly the guilt of participating in thofe fanguinary atrocities, which many in this country have infidiously attempted to palliate, but none explicitly to approve and defend. inftances are too numerous to be specified; but they will eafily discover themselves, as the paper has been reduced confiderably more than two thirds in its bulk, to bring it nearer to the standard of the answer.

The

In the fame fpirit too, though in a lefs degree, these univerfal lovers of innovation have new-modelled the answer of the national affembly to their own tafte. They have generously made a prefent of two millions to the population of France; and, to balance the account, have fubtracted 100,000 men from the number of the

national guards, which they knew to exceed the truth. Some of the king's complaints (as with respect to the inconveniencies of his refidence in Paris) have been diftorted for the purpose of treating them with a ridicule much over-charged in comparison of the original; while admiffions, which might ferve the king's cause (fuch as that none of the laws, called conftitutional, were fubmitted to his refufal, and that the interior adminiftration of the kingdom was wholly in the hands of perfons elected by the people) have been cut away, and the remaining fhreds of invective againft defpotifm aukwardly pieced to other fubjects: in fhort, every thing unfavourable to the revolution (fuch as confeffions of tumults and outrages, or marked recommendations of order, fubmiffion, and moderation) has been much weakened, or entirely omitted.

There are two very material paragraphs, of which no trace is to be found; the one relative to the patronage of the army and navy, the other to the new conftitution of the clergy. Though the king is acknowledged in this very answer to be the head of the executive power, yet the aflembly intimate, that it was an act of favour and liberality in them to allow him one-third or one-fourth of the military and naval appointments; and that their measures on this head had only reftored to their foldiers and feamen the rights which belonged to them. This probably was thought not altogether congenial with the old-fashioned prejudices of Englishmen; and it must be remembered, that the first indications of a breach in oppofition fhewed themselves on this very fubject, when the army eftimates were before the houfe of commons in the year 1790. Nor may the motives have been very dif fimilar, which induced the fuppreffion of the fecond point. The aflembly affert the right of the civil power over the church; and in the perfecutions of the clergy, which all parties here have joined to condemn, hypocritically affume merit for having restored Chriftianity to its primitive purity. Such doctrines must have fhaken the credit of the affembly with many warm admirers of the French revolution in this country, who diffent from our established church, or, had they not unequivocally expreffed their difapprobation, might have been a little unpleasantly retorted in argument against them.

The next example is of a tendency the most perfonally uncandid to the king. It may be remembered, that a violent cry was attempted to be raised against the king's perjury on his departure from Paris. The affembly did not forget this topic. But to fix perjury, they thought it neceffary firft to fhew, that the oath was free; though they had begun, rather inaufpiciously for this purpote,

by ftating it to have been taken in the midft of the deputies of the national guards, and all the troops of the line They argue, however, the freedom of the oath, from a paffage in the king's declaration, where het fays, that « during the federation he passed the sweetest moments of his ftay in Paris," and then goes on to explain himself, by adding fome ftrong expreffions of fatisfaction in the attachment and affection, which were then fhewn him by the national guards." Yet he had before declared himself to have been in a state of captivity during his whole refidence there; and furely it is not very inconfiftent for a captive to be pleased with the perfonal kindness of his keepers. Indeed, the king had before made fimilar acknowledgments respecting the national guards of Paris and the troops of the line, in the very paragraph where he complains of having been a prifoner in their cuftody. The weakness of the argument was felt, as well as the imprudence of mentioning the fact, that the oath was taken in the midft of an armed force. So both one and the other have disappeared, and in their room we meet with nothing but a round affertion, that if the king did not declare his good faith to have been furprised, be bad, of courfe, announced his own perjury to the whole world. In truth, let the freedom of the oath have been what it might, the king would not therefore have been neceffarily implicated in perjury. He would not have been bound on his part, if on the other fide that conftitution, which all with him had fworn to maintain, was violated to the annihilation of all his authority under it, and the infecurity of his perfon; and that it was fo violated, he has endeavoured to fhew at length. The reader will carefully examine, and judge for himself, how far he has been fufficiently contradicted in the anfwer of the affembly.

These are but specimens, taken as they occurred. Some others will be pointed out in fhort notes; but we fhall here particularize one more, because it goes directly to the whole merits of the revolution. Whence came the firft aggreffion? is the queftion, on the solution of which muft depend the decifion of mankind, whether all the horrors of France, from the period of July 1789, were the confequences of a juftifiable refiftance, or a premeditated rebellion. The defence of the infurrection at Paris in that month has always been rested on the affembling of the troops under Marshal Broglio. Now the king afferts that measure to have been the effect, not the cause, of rebellion in the capital. He fays, that he did not call them around his person, until a spirit of revolt had manifested itself in Paris, and even in the regiment of his own guards." This is not denied by the affembly, and their filence concedes the question to I p. 221.

† p. 235.

the king. The false translation, therefore, true to its object, strikes every allufion to this leading fact out of both papers.

Some excufe might be attempted in extenuation by the first publishers of this paper, if it had been merely fhortened; but there are alfo interpolations to be found in it. The high tone in which the affembly claims an inconteftible right to the exercise of government in the abfence of the king, has not only been lowered in the tranflation, but a new apology for their conduct has been vamped up for them by a reference to the law of regency, which however, unfortunately, rather applies the other way. Another inftance relates to the Jacobin clubs. The original intimates, that to be any longer ufeful, they must change their ardent love of liberty for prudent and enlightened patriotifm. The English, on the contrary, pronounces them to be "more neceffary than ever," and then, without a fyllable of authority, but probably with a view to charges made upon them in our parliament, adds, "fome perfons prefume to fay, that they govern the adminiftrative bodies, and the empire, as if they were the deliberating bodies!" The affembly did not think it fo prefumptuous to fay this. On these very grounds, two months after, they decreed, though in vain, the diffolution of those clubs. But, perhaps, the moft perfect pattern of infidious alteration in every kind, occurs on the fubject of making war and peace. In the first place, an unfair infinuation against the king is aggravated into a direct charge; a complaint of all former treaties, as having facrificed the territories of France, is then omitted, probably on account of its tendency to give serious alarm in other countries and finally, the confequent defence of the affembly's right to revise all treaties of peace before they should be valid, is converted, with fome additions, into a declamation against the royal prerogative of making war.

It is not the defign of these obfervations to impute any blame to refpectable works, which may have incautiously copied these papers from the ufual fources of political information. Compilers must, in fome degree, rely upon fuch authorities. It feemed however highly neceflary, at the prefent moment, to put the public on their guard against men, who can carry on a treacherous and malignant warfare by poisoning the fprings of hiftory. Some rischief, it is apprehended, may have been already done in this inftance; and more might hereafter be the confequence, if the antidotes of detection and expofure were not to be applied.-Two fhort fabrications, fuch as our duty has here compelled us to notice, are more calculated to injure the caufe of truth, than volumes of detailed mifreprefentations in the form of partial narratives: for it is by the teft of documents like thefe, and not by the catalogue of qualifications, which writers may arrogate to theinfelves, that the merits. of difcordant accounts must be ultimately tried.

Declaration