EXAMPLE is but wanting to embattle the nation---SYSTEM only is required to call forth HALF A MILLION OF BRITONS to avenge the insults they have too long endured from a love of PEACE, and to shew themselves the avengers of their own RIGHTS, and of HUMANITY herself, so grievously outraged in every other corner of the civilized world! Your Counties and Shires are now assembling for the purpose of LOCAL DEFENCE, under a system, which will be found as formidable to the enemy as efficacious towards your security and internal peace. Hasten then to de monstrate to your DARING INVADER, how high your national spirit rises at the insult, and that although his DISCOMFITURE and RUIN be certain in the attempt, let your strenuous and unceasing efforts in GENERAL ARMAMENT manifest to the foe, a firm appearance of the same manly vigour in defence of every thing dear to ENGLISHMEN, which purchased with so much blood, your envied LIBERTY and glorious CONSTITUTION, and which can emanate only from the spirit of BRITONS! The final overthrow of FRANCE Will be the reward of your courage, and the certain consequence of her temerity and madness. Hear the prophetic words of General DUMOURIEZ, the natural enemy of England, and the most sanguine officer who ever commanded the armies of France: "Should this expedition, however, be unsuccessful, which is very possible; should the Invincible British Fleet gain a decisive victory over the French, Spanish, and Dutch, Fleets, whether combined or separate; should the English nation, proud and energetic as the French, equally animated by patriotism and national dislike, repulse the French army soon after it has landed; should they destroy it, force it to reembark with loss, or cut off its communication with the sea; should they weaken, harrass, or reduce it to famine, and render this great expedition abortive, which, on a large scale can only be attempted, and may partially or altotogether fail in the execution, then FRANCE IS TOTALLY RUINED; all her LAURELS ARE WITHERED; her Állies WILL ABANDON HER AND TURN. AGAINST HER; the other Powers of Europe will attack her on every side; she will have lost the flower of her warriors and the reputation of her arms; she will be without money, and internal Discord will COMPLEAT HER DESTRUCTION. "It is at PARIS HER DISAPPOINTED and INDIGNANT SOLDIERY, will seek the Rewards and PLUNDER PROMISED THEM IN LONDON. The Generals themselves will either be the first Victims of the excusable fury of the Troops, or will partake of their Indignation, and their Revolt!". Such, ENGLISHMEN, will be the fruits of your Activity, your Steadiness, your UNION, and Valour. Lose not therefore a Moment in preparing the means of atchieving so much Glory for your COUNTRY, of gaining so much Honour for YOURSELVES, and your proud POSTERITY!!! EPIGRAM. SAYS Boney to Johnny, I'll soon be at Dover; TIMOLEON. Morning Post. BRITONS! TO ARMS!!! Written by W. T. FITZGERALD, Esq; and recited by him, at the Meeting of the Literary Fund, July 14, 1803. BRITONS, to ARMS! of apathy beware, And let Protect your ALTARS! guard your monarch's Throne, By EDWARD's prowess, and by HENRY's fame! With ENGLAND's PLUNDER tempts his hungry Slaves, Your cause is just, approv'd by earth and heaven! And ENGLAND never know Invasion more!! In the Year 1346, EDWARD, Prince of Wales, (commonly called the Black Prince), son of our King EDWARD 111, gained the famous battle of CRESSY, in which thirty thousand of the French were killed upon the field. In the year 1415, HENRY V. King of England invaded France, and gained the memorable battle of AGINCOURT, when ten thousand of the French were slain, and fourteen thousand were taken prisoners. The prisoners were more in number than the victorious English army! In Queen ANNE's reign, A. D. 1706, the great Duke of MARLBOROUGH gained the renowned battle of BLENHEIM. Twelve thousand French were slain, and thirteen thousand taken prisoners, together with the French general, Marshal TALLARD. "A bawbling vessel was he captain of, "For shallow draught, and bulk unprizable." SHAKESPEARE. THOUGHTS ON THE FRENCH INVASION, Originally addressed to the Clergy of his Diocese, Br R. WATSON, D. D. F.R.S. AT no period since I have been your diocesan, have I interfered with your political opinions, or shewn the least anxiety to direct them to the support of any particular party in the state. Had I followed a contrary conduct, I should have acted in a manner unbecoming the nature of my office; ill suited to the character I wish to maintain, and disrespectful to yourselves. I have unquestionably my political principles, as well as other men have theirs: and, how unfashionable soever they may have become, I have never scrupled, and never shall scruple, to confess that those on which the Revolution was founded, and the present reigning family seated on the throne of these kingdoms, are, in my judgment, principles best calculated to protect the liberty and property of the subject, and to secure the honour and happiness of the sovereign. You will not, I think, be guilty of a breach of Christian charity in the use of even harsh language, when you explain to your congregations the cruelties which the French have used in every country they have invaded; for no language can reach the atrocity of the fact. They every where promise protection to the poorer sort, and they every where strip the poorest of every thing they possess; they plunder their cottages, and they set them on fire when the plunder is exhausted; they torture the owners to discover their wealth, and they put them to death when they have none to discover; they violate females of all ages; they insult the hoary head, and trample on all the decencies of life, This is no exaggerated picture: whoever has read the account of the proceedings of the French in Swabia, in Holland, in Italy, in Switzerland, knows that it is not. And, can there be men in Great Britain, of so base a temper, so maddened by malignity, so cankered by envy, so besotted by folly, so stupified as to their own safety, as to abet the designs of such an enemy? It is said there are such men; but I have too firm a confidence in the general good sense of the people of Great Britain to believe, that such men are either many in number, or respectable for character, or formidable for connexion. The men of this principality, at least, have nobly shewn, in a late instance, that they inherit the spirit of their ancestors, and have too ardent a love of their country to submit to a foreign yoke, under whatever specious promises of supporting "the rights of men," of introducing “liberty and equality," the invaders may attempt to deceive them. What are these rights of men, this liberty, this equality, of which every man hath heard so much, and of which few have any proper conception ?-Let us see what they are in France itself.There no man has any right in his person, or in his property; both are absolutely at the disposal of the few persons who have usurped the government. There no man has any liberty, except the liberty of submitting to the worst of slavery; for what slavery can be worse than that of being subject to laws which are perpetually changed, according to the caprice of the ruling faction ?—Uli jus incertum, ibi jus nullum. Are the French coming hither to enrich the nation? Will they pay attention to the poor of this country, when they have so many thousands of inli nitely nitely poorer persons in their own?Will they reward their seditious adherents amongst us?—Yes, they will reward them as all history informs us such traitors ever have been rewarded-they will reward them with contempt, pillage, beggary, slavery and death. The nation will be ruined by exorbitant im positions —our naval power will be destroyed-our commerce transferred to France our lands will be divided (not amongst those who wickedly covet their neighbours' goods), but amongst French soldiers, who will be every where stationed, as the Roman soldiers were of old, to awe the people and collect the taxes the flower of our youth will be compelled to serve in foreign countries, to promote the wicked projects of French ambition-Great Britain will be made an appendage to continental despotism. ́. I would say to the most violent Democrat in the kingdom-Suppose the business done: after seas of blood have been shed, millions of lives lost, towns plundered, villages burned, the Royal Family exterminated, and unutterable calamity has been endured by persons of all ranks :-after all this has been done, what advantages will you have obtained beyond what you now possess? Will your property be better protected? Will your personal liberty be more respected? Will our code of jurisprudence be improved? Will our laws be more impartially administered?-Quite the contrary of all this now takes place in France. I do not say that when things are settled there, the present wretched condition of its inhabitants will be continued, and I hope it will not; but I am sincerely of opinion, that few of us will live to see such a system established in France as will procure to its inhabitants half the blessings which our ancestors have enjoyed, which we do enjoy, and which it is our interest to take care that our posterity shall enjoy, under the constitution of Great Britain. FRENCH TREACHERY IN SWITZERLAND. THE wanton and unprovoked barbarity, with which Switzerland was attacked by the French in 1798, is too well known, and the English nation has too deeply commiserated the situation to which the brave Helvetii have been reduced, to make it necessary. again to bring those scenes of horror to public view; yet, in the present situation of this country, when threatened with an invasion from the same unprincipled and inveterate enemy; a few circumstances, perhaps not generally known, cannot have too much publicity. The French, for a long time before they entered Switzerland, sent emissaries over all that country to sow discord, dissention and mistrust, and to disseminate their invidious principles among the people; they succeeded but too effectually with some, but the greatest part of the inhabitants remaining firmly attached to their liberties and to their laws, were determined not to survive the loss of either. The French pretended, at first, to aim only at changing the Constitution of the Canton of Berne, and to wage war against what they termed the aristocracy of that Canton, professing the greatest friendship to the others, and to the people at large, offering them protection, and what they were pleased to term true Liberty! Some of the Cantons were thus lulled into security, and did not afford that assistance which they ought to have done; so that the whole force of the Swiss army did not exceed afterwards fully proved, as well as that of every other officer of the army. The conflict was terrible, and the loss on both sides very great. Three hundred Swiss, all young men, who had sworn to conquer or die together, having taken possession of a pass which they had orders to defend, overpowered by numbers, were all, to a man, either killed or drowned in an adjacent lake. Six hundred brave women were found killed on the field of battle, after hav or their brothers. A father, two sons, and a daughter were found dead upon a cannon they had bravely defended. The loss of the French must have been immense, if we may judge from the state of one of their regiments of cavalry, who, on passing through Lau sanne, was 850 men strong, and on their return through the same town, only amounted to 156. 30,000 men. These men, however, though composed only of the militia of the country, were full of zeal, and eager to encounter the enemy. The most judicious dispositions were made by their venerable leader, General d'Erlach, then upwards of seventy years of age. At the same time, the French General, Brune, was advancing with his army, still pretending to negociate, still offering peace, protection and friendship. At last, it was agreed by the senate of Berne, that the Generaling fought by the side of their husbands should attack the French line; every preparation was made for that purpose; the day, the hour, was fixed, and the attack had actually been made by the right wing and attended with success, when the treacherous and unprincipled Frenchman sent to the Senate to request an armistice for three days, under pretence that he had offers to make which could not be rejected. This armistice was unfortunately agreed upon much against General d'Erlach's wish, and to the discontent of the army, who began to suspect that they were betrayed by their leaders. Lulled into security, many of the soldiers had even returned to their homes; and the very next morning, before day-break, the infamous Le Brune attacked the Swiss in all directions. Taking them unawares, they were obliged to retreat; they rallied again and again, and it was but on the third day of an almost uninterrupted battle, that they were dispersed and defeated. Enraged at their defeat, these brave men, prompted by the insinuations of the French themselves, that they had been betrayed by their officers, massacred several of them, amongst whom was the brave and veteran d'Erlach, whose innocence was The first Swiss General that bled in his country's cause was named Le Gros. In honour of his heroism, a young lady in London wrote the following verses, which, I trust, will not be unacceptable to your readers. ANTI-GALLICUS. * LE GROS' GHOST. PENSIVE by the glimmering taper, While the March winds loudly blow, Drives along the fleecy snow; Which environ us around, And some English faithless found. Hack'd with the sabre's cruel stroke; Sudden chills at once fell ofer me? Faint, yet vauntingly I spoke : * Le Gros, the Swiss general, eighty years old, was killed at the head of the army. VOL. I. H • What |