Can the dissolution of the convention be an object of your wishes? Is it proposed to you to annihilate it? In that case what government would remain to you? Where would you rally? What would become of the eleven armies collected on your frontiers and sea-coasts? Could the action of government be suspended one day? Should the departments disclaim the authority of the convention, the republic would remain without government, without central administration; their armies would disperse; foreign powers would invade your territories; the French would turn their arms against themselves, and the republic would be annihilated.

Know, citizens, that your most dangerous and most formidable enemies are those who wish to hurry you into a civil war: They are those administrators and public functionaries who usurp the sovereignty of the people, who dare to declare themselves in a state of war against your representatives, against the sections of the republic. They are those above all, who have seduced them, and who, basely flying from their posts, have scattered in their passage the firebrands of civil discord.

Those magistrates whom you chose to support the police and discharge the municipal functions, those administrators whom you elected to execute the laws, and to be the agents of government, have even seized on the government and insulted the national sovereignty. These functionaries, these agents, whose duties and functions are defined and determined by the law, have long ceased to discharge their functions, or to attend to them. Your rights, your interests, your

remonstrances have been abandoned and sacrificed; the service has been neglected, and in several administrative assemblies it has even ceased, in regard to what concerns you. They are no longer occupied with any thing but deputations, plots, coalitions, and plans of war against the republic.

These functionaries no longer consider as their brethren and fellow-citizens, five hundred thousand Frenchmen who have devoted themselves to defend liberty against tyrants. By intercepting artillery, ammunition, and provisions, they exposed them to the danger of perishing to no purpose, and without being able to cement, by their blood, the foundations of the republic.

Generous warriors! whom so many acts of treachery have not daunted, you have constantly rallied under the standards of the republic, and the tree of liberty. By your courage you have surmounted the obstacles thrown in the way of your success by La Fayette and Dumourier. A new conspiracy discovered is the last crisis you have to pass over, in order to secure and establish your liberty..

You expect also a constitution which your arms will cause to be respected in Europe. The stability of a free and acknowledged government will pave the way to success. The constitution will powerfully support your arms, and will, by victories, conduct you to peace.

Among the authors of the present disorders and agitation, France reckons only a small number of conspirators, and a few seduced or misled accomplices. The bulk of the citizens, always pure, inspired by sentiment, and enlightened by

eternal

eternal reason, have been able to secure themselves against error and seduction.

Those administrative bodies which have been misled and excited against the republic, at length remember that they have a country, and that they can have no other but a republic.

The national convention has received several recantations, which will prove to posterity, that a virtuous man may be misled, but that he will open his eyes to the light, before his error becomes hurtful to society and to humanity.

These examples, while they warn us to check commotions in their commencement, and to exercise severity against the factious, and against every conspirator, make it the duty of a humane and feeling legislature to reclaim misled citizens, and only to present instruction and light to those who have always been attached to their country, and who need only to be enlightened to resume their rank among good citizens.

Citizens, who have sworn to be free, who wish to have a country and a constitution, rally round the national convention, which secures to you the republic, one and indivisible.

is preparing to make a powerful and its last effort, and of course the most vigorous resistance. Reunited under their sovereign who protects them, the inhabitants of these provinces will never sigh under the dreadful yoke of French despotism!

It is here, where that despotism has already found, and always will find, its limits. It is to this country, perhaps, that Europe will owe the preservation of its religious as well as its social state.

The emperor, undoubtedly, has already made, and will continue to make, ample sacrifices, in order to keep the military chest in the most affluent condition, a measure essentially necessary for the success of our cause; but, whilst the other states of this vast monarchy, although less interested than the Netherlands in the success of his majesty's arms in the present war, have given him repeated proofs of their ardent attachment to the common cause, by contributions in men and money; we should deem it a breach of confidence towards the good and loyal inhabitants of these provinces, if we did not offer to them an opportunity to manifest their zeal for the common cause of all nations attached to religion, justice, decent manners, and the security of persons and property, by voluntary patriotic gifts.

We therefore hope, that the members of your assembly particularly, will be the first who will set an example by liberal contributions and sacrifices as much as their private circumstanees will permit; and you will point out in every town and village receiving-places where such voluntary donations will be collected in our name.

ceiving you among the number of his subjects, and in adopting you as a part of his large family.

His Britannic majesty having, with his usual goodness, granted the prayers of a great part of your countrymen, on their petition presented to him on the 25th of last February, has sent orders to majorgeneral Adam Williamson, his lieutenant-governor of Jamaica, to detach immediately the necessary forces to St. Domingo, to take possession of the colony, or a part of it, until a general peace between the allied powers and the government of France shall establish a decided sovereignty in the colony.

I am intrusted with this expedition. It is not as a conqueror, but as a father, that his majesty is pleased to take possession of this territory. For this purpose his majesty has intrusted me with the command of a body of forces adequate to ensure respect to the British flag; and at the same time to punish those who may persist in disturbing your tranquillity. It is by persuasion, rather than by force, I would conquer. A more formidable squadron, and a greater body of men would have reduced the whole colony; but it would have left me in doubt of the sincerity of those who surrendered. His majesty will only have subjects worthy of his protection, and of the favours and advantages which the British government secures to them. For this reason I shall exhaust every means of conviction before I employ the forces which I have under my command, or send for others, ready to embark, in order to reduce those who resist, and punish the authors and agents of the revolt.

People

People of St. Domingo! the objects of all political institutions being the general interests of society, and the good of the members of that society, an exact observance of the laws can alone accomplish those objects.

It is necessary to convince you of this incontestible truth, the inattention to which has been the cause of all your misfortunes, viz. That while we wish to exact the most abject submission from others, we ought not to be daily giving examples of insubordination in our own conduct. Union is necessary among you; it will redouble your strength.

Very long experience must have informed you, that the most effectual tie you can have on your slaves, is the white people affording an example of obedience to their superiors. Call to your recollection the flourishing state of St. Domingo under this order of things, and with that compare the horrors of which it has since become the theatre, by the neglect of those laws which formerly governed you.

It was not with a view to erect a theatre of republican virtues, nor for the display of human knowledge, that colonies were established in the West Indies. The real prosperity of a colony depends on the quantity of its produce; and the object of the parent state is to increase its exports with as little expence as possible. A colony dependent on its mother-country for its commercial advantages, for its protection and defence, can consequently have no exterior politics, and never should affect what belongs to sovereignty.

To assess the imposts, and watch over their application, this is the

only share of sovereignty that a colony can exercise; it ought to enact laws beneficial to the community, and not clashing with those of the mother-country which protects it.

Admitting this simple truth, his majesty is willing to preserve to you all your rights. I accordingly declare to you, in his royal name, that as soon as peace shall be established, you will have a colonial assembly, to regulate, establish, and enable you to exercise those rights.--In the mean time all the old French laws will be enforced, as far as they are found not adverse to the measures requisite for the reestablishment of peace.

Every individual shall enjoy his civil rights, and the laws for the security of property shall also be enforced and maintained.

His majesty is desirous to secure to creditors the payment of their debts. But being sensibly affected by the causes which have concurred to distress the colony, and waste your property, and at the same time anxious to favour your exertions to repair your shattered fortunes, he has authorised me to declare to you, that at the express prayer of the inhabitants and planters, he is graciously pleased to grant a suspension from prosecutions for debts, with a suspension of interest on such debts, to be computed from the first day of August, 1791, and to continue from that time for twelve years under certain restrictions.

The local taxes for the expences of your protection, and the administration of government, shall be, until further orders, upon the footing of 1789. England will make the necessary advances to make

good

good the deficiency; such advances to be reimbursed at a future day by the colony.

The municipal taxes for defraying the expences of divine worship, of the interior guards in the quarters, and for the punishment of negroes, shall also be on the same footing as in 1789, except the discharges to those whose plantations have been burned.

The inhabitants shall enjoy the privilege of exporting their clayed sugars, subject to such duties as shall be deemed nesessary.

The Roman Catholic religion shall be maintained, without prejudice to any other form of divine worship, the exercise of which shall be alike permitted.

Your ports shall be open to American vessels.

If any of the inhabitants know that any part of their property has been carried into foreign countries, they may freely address themselves to me, and I will, in the name of his Britannic majesty, reclaim such property, as belonging to his subjects.

You see, unfortunate people, that your interests are dear to his Britannic majesty. In granting the prayers of your countrymen, he does not desire to subject you instantly to laws to which you are strangers. He preserves to you your ancient customs, where they are not contrary to civil order and the general interest. He wills only, that necessary measures of every kind should be employed, to compel the slaves to due submission and obedience, and to oppose an insurmountable barrier to the spirit of innovation, and to the measures which your enemies are conspiring for your ruin.

Such are the benign intentions of the king of Great Britain towards you. Compare with them the atrocious acts of the three individuals who are your oppressors, of men who have usurped an authority, which could only have been confided to them for the purpose of destroying you. Reduce them at once to that insignificance from which they sprang, and which awaits them. Undistinguished by birth, new Erostrati, they are known by their crimes; while those who delegated them, astonished at your patience, and trembling before the combined forces which press on every side, leaving them to your vengeance.

Men of colour! Have you suffered yourselves to be duped by the declamations of these traitors, boasting to you of liberty and equality? Have they not abused you, in making you share them with your own slaves? Recover speedily from your errors: come and obtain from your fathers and benefactors, an oblivion of those ills which you have occasioned, and which otherwise must lead to your own ruin.

Can you imagine that slaves, suddenly called to freedom, to liberty, and equality, will patiently endure that superiority which you wish to exercise over them, and to which you have no title but that founded in the generosity of those who gave you freedom! No! Soon overpowered by numbers, your crimes would be punished by the very hands in which you have placed arms.

Determine on the enjoyment of those privileges which our constitution grants to people of your description in the Colonies-or the punishment of your offences.

Lay