same; and as soon as the Imperialists shall have entered the territory of France, not as vanquishers, and as wishing to dictate laws, but as generous allies, who come to aid us in re-establishing the constitution, which can alone stay the progress of the crimes and calamities that menace France, many other corps will prepare to unite themselves to their brothers in arms.

I know the disposition of the army, and more especially that of the troops of the line. Their principles are at the bottom pure. They may for a moment allow themselves to be hurried away by the exaggerated opinions inculcated to them; but as the invincible courage they have displayed during the present war, must necessarily be accompanied by the desire of possessing the laws they cannot find unless in the constitution, which will destroy the odious tyranny of anarchists, they will be jealous of the public esteem. They will blush at having, even for a moment, been capable of annexing their colours to those of criminal licentiousness. They will rally beside the brave troops who have only accompanied me in my momentary retreat to reenter France within two days at farthest, and to put an end to the vile disorders which cover all France with mourning and terror.

I swear in the name of my companions, that we will not lay down our arms until we shall have succeeded in our enterprize; and our sole design is, to re-establish the constitution, and constitutional royalty; that no resentment, no thirst after vengeance, no ambitious motive, sways our purposes; that no foreign power shall influence our opinion; that wherever anarchy

shall cease at the appearance of our arms and those of the combined armies, we will conduct ourselves as friends and brothers; that wherever we shall meet with resistance, we shall know how to select the culpable, and spare the peaceable inhabitants, the victims of the infamous wiles of the Jacobins of Paris, from whom have arisen the horrors and calamities of the war;

that we shall in no way dread the poignards of Marat and the Jacobins; that we will destroy the manufacture of these poignards, as well as that of the scandalous writings by which an attempt is made to pervert the noble and generous character of the French nation;and, finally, in the name of my companions in arms, I repeat the oath, that we will live and die free.

The general in chief of the French army, DUMOURIER.

month of September in the last year, his Britannic majesty and their high mightinesses have conjunctively given a solemn assurance, that in case the imminent danger which at that time threatened the lives of their most Christian majesties and their family should be realized, his majesty and their mightinesses would not fail to take the most efficacious measures to prevent the persons who could be

guilty of so atrocious a crime, from finding an asylum in their respective states.

This event, which was anticipated with so much horror, has taken place, and the divine vengeance appeared not to have been tardy in its pursuit. Some of those detestable regicides are already in a situation to be reached by the sword of the law. Others are as yet in the midst of the people whom they have plunged into an abyss of evils; to which famine, anarchy, and a civil war, are now about to superadd new calamities. -Every event which we witness, concurs to make us believe, that the end is not far distant of those unfortunate men, whose madness and whose atrocities have penetrated with astonishment and indignation all those who adhere to the principles of religion, of morality, or of humanity.

In consequence, the undersigned submit to the enlightened judgment and wisdom of their high mightinesses, whether it may not be found proper to employ all the means which are in their power to forbid the entrance of their estates in Europe, or their colonies, to all the members of the self-styled national convention, or of the pretended executive council, who have taken part, directly or indirectly, in the crime before alluded to, and if they should be discovered and arrested, to cause them to be delivered into the hands of justice, that they may be made to serve as a lesson and example to the human race!

AUCKLAND,

LOUIS C. DE STARHEMBERG,

Hague, April 5, 1793.

Reply to the Memorial delivered to their High Mightinesses on the 5th of April 1793, by Lord Auckland, Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of his Britannic Majesty, and the Count of Starhemberg, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiury to his Majesty the Emperor.

HEIR high mightinesses per

THE

fectly well recollect the solemn declaration they made in the month of September of the last year, in reply to a requisition on the part of the count Starhemberg, relative to those who might be culpable of the highest of crimes towards his most Christian majesty, or his royal family.

They have since partaken, with all honest minds, the general and profound sensation of terror and indignation which the horrible event that has taken place in France has spread throughout all Europe; and they are as determined as they ever were, to attend to the execution of the measures they at that time resolved on.

The states general are the more persuaded of the necessity which exists in every well-regulated state, of efficaciously opposing the audacity of those who seek to destroy the happiness of civil societies, by tearing asunder all the bonds of a just subordination to the legitimate authority of an established government, because this republic has been taught by her own experience the bad effects of so criminal a project. Indeed it is at this time notorious, that a small number of inhabitants, emigrated from these provinces, and usurping the name and rights of sovereignty, have had

the

the audacity to attack their country with arms in their hands, and publicly to threaten with death the members of the legitimate government, and all those who were employed in the defence of the state, provided they would not abandon their posts. And although these acts of rebellion are neither in their nature nor in their consequences to be compared to the crimes which have been committed in France, they, notwithstanding derive their orign from the same causes. The states general, in consequence, expect from the equity and wisdom of all the governments of Europe, and more especially from their majesties the emperor and the king of Great Britain, that they will take good care not to grant an asylum in their states to those who have taken on them to

make such enormous attempts against the government of this republic, and who, by proclamations and manifestoes, signed by them, have snatched their names from the oblivion which ought to have been their lot;-but that on the contrary, should they be discovered, they will be apprehended, to the end that they may be pursued by justice, and punished with all the severity of the law.

by contributing to the general good of humanity, I have given my subjects a particular proof of the paternal vigilance with which I attend to every thing conducive to the happiness I sincerely wish them, and to which they have every claim from their distinguished loyalty, and their noble and generous character.

Notorious as is the moderation with which I have proceeded in respect to France, since the developement of those principles of impiety and anarchy which are now convulsing and annihilating that unhappy kingdom, it is almost superfluous to mention it. I shall only advert to the occurrences there within these last months, without enumerating the horrid and multiplied crimes of the French, and one of the most atrocious, and the most painful to my reflection. My principal views in regard to the French only went to discover if there was any possibility of bringing them to act on a rational system, capable of restraining their boundless ambition, and preventing the calamities of a general war throughout Europe, and likewise to obtain the liberty of their king, Louis XVI. and that of his family, prisoners in a tower, and daily exposed to the repetition of the most shocking insults and dangers. Impressed with these sentiments, and solicitous to compass any views so necessary to universal tranquillity, and not less agreeable to the laws of humanity than correspondent to the ties of blood, and the lustre of my crown, I ceded to the reiterated instances of the French ministry, and ordered the engrossment of two notes, in the one of which a neutrality was stipulated, and in the M

other,

other, the retiring of the troops from the respective frontiers.When it was necessary, as a consequence of agreement, that both notes should be admitted, they did not attend to the one relative to the retiring of their troops, and proposed leaving a part of theirs in the vicinity of Bayonne, under the specious pretext of their dreading an invasion from the English, but in reality more for the purpose of awing us into an acquiescence with their measures, obliging us thereby to maintain an equal and expensive armament on our frontiers, to prevent the pillage and insult of an undisciplined and mutinous soldiery. In the same note they were studious to speak affectedly often in the name of the French republic, meaning thereby to oblige us to acknowledge it, by the very act of admitting that document. Having instructed my chargé d'affaires in Paris to make the most efficacious interference in behalf of the king and his unhappy family, on presenting the notes drawn up here, I did not stipulate their enlargement as an express condition, fearing to injure thereby a cause, in the interest of which I took such a lively and natural issue; and being moreover convinced, that without a consummate bad faith in the French ministry, that an earnest recommendation and interference on delivering the notes had with them the most intimate though tacit connection, and that they must have known it was impossible to separate the one from the other, and that the not expressing it was a pure effect of delicacy and attention to them, that they might have an opportunity of availing of it with the various factions by which

France was and is deceived, and give them the merit of effectuating a good to which we ought to think them propitious; but their treachery soon became manifest, for whilst they disregarded the recommendation and interference of the sovereign of a great and generous nation, they urged the admission of the notes they had uttered, accompanying every instance with threats, that if not admitted, their chargé d'affaires should have orders to retire. Whilst they continued their solicitations, mixed with threats, they were proceeding in the most cruel and outrageous of their crimes, the assassination of their sovereign; and when my heart and that of all my subjects was wrung with anguish and horror at this atrocious act, they still pretended to continue their negociations: not that they thought them admissible, but in order to outrage the more my honour, and that of my subjects, for they well knew, that under such circumstances every new instance on their part was but an ironic mockery, to which I could not give leave without forgetting my own dignity and decorum. Their chargé d'affaires asked for, and received his passport; at the same time a French vessel captured a Spanish one, on the coast of Catalonia, on which account the commandant general ordered reprisals, and contemporary with this received the news of their having made other prizes, and that in Marseilles and the other ports of France, they have detained and embargoed several of our vessels.— Finally, on the 7th current, they declared war, which they were already waging against us since the 26th of February, by the date of letters of marque, found aboard

⚫ their

their privateer Le Renaud, capt. J. B La Lann, captured by our sloop of war the Ligero, capt. Don Juan De Dios Copete.

In consequence of which conduct, and the hostilities commenced by the French even prior to any declaration of war, I have given the necessary orders to detain, repulse, and attack the enemy by sea and land, as occasion requires, and I have resolved, and ordered that war be forthwith declared in this court against France, its possessions and inhabitants, and that in all parts of my dominions, provisions and preparations be made conducive to the defence of them, and of my subjects, and to the offence of my enemy.

Given at Aranjuez, the 23d

the states. The orders of the im perial executive government, which do not only provide for the internal maintenance of peace, but also for the safety of the empire from abroad, made it already an obligation incumbent upon the states to give assistance at the approach of danger.

9

The imperial conclusum of the 23d of November last ordaining that junction of arins, is indeed nothing else but a repetition of the fundamental laws ascertaining the duties of the states.

Whether the elector palatine has or not acquiesced in those laws, his majesty the emperor shall leave to his highness's own conscience, to the impartial Germanic public, and to posterity.

His majesty could not but see with sorrow and displeasure, that private interest was separated from the common weal, interested plans preferred to the duties of the states towards their oppressed neighbouring colleagues, and the public safety built upon unconstitutional political principles of neutrality, instead of preparing, with true Germanic manhood, for a vigorous resistance.

His imperial majesty was still more displeased at finding the means concerted to save the oppressed empire obstructed, the operations rendered difficult, and the success of the good cause materially affected.

The present offer of his electoral highness to furnish, on certain conditions, 3000 men from the garrison of Manheim for the imperial service, is not a sufficient discharge of his duties as a state of the empire, since the elector, instead of furnishing his triple contingent, offers