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manufactures would, in a short time, reduce it to such datress, as to difable it from carrying on the war, and oblige it to submit to any conditions, for the fake of recovering its trade. It cannot be denied that appearances militated strongly in favour of these consequences. Spain and Italy, two capital marts for the fale of English commodities, especially the first, were now almoft entirely shut to their admission. Genoa and Leghorn, the two principal feats of the trade between England and Italy, were under the immediate controul of France; the former was compelled, through the terror of its arms, to exclude England from its ports, by a formal treaty to that purpose; and the latter was in the poffeffion of a French garrifon. Corfica was, at the fame time, no longer in the hands of the English: but Naples and the papal territories still remained open to them in Italy; and Portugal afforded an ample channel for the introduction of every article of commerce from England, not only into that kingdom, but also into Spain, its adjoinining neighbour, with which its immediate communication would always procure either an open or clandestine entrance for English merchandize of all kinds.

Thus, on a confiderate examination of the consequences resulting from this famous decree, they did not meet the expectations of those who framed it. It was found that as power thut one door against commerce luxury opened another. Little was the diminution of the English trade to the fouthern parts of Europe, while in the north it remained uninterrupted. From this quarter it was that England drew the most essential articles it wanted. Hamburgh was a port,

which, while it continued open, would always prove an inlet for English goods to all parts of Germany: and the princes and states of the empire were no ways disposed to gratify the French with an exclufion of the English from that only medium of commercial communication between Germany and the other trading countries in Europe.

The disappointment of the French government, in the fanguine hope it had entertained of destroying the commerce, and through it the finances of England, was farther aggra vated by the disorder of its own. Notwithstanding the indefatigable efforts used to place them on a foot, ing of stability, temporary expedi`ents were still the only props of government, which had no fixed profpect of fupporting itself by other than precariousand uncertain means. But as these could not again bereforted to, the state still reverted to the dangerous situation it had just escaped, and was liable to experience still greater difficulties, from this successive abridgement of its remaining resources.

In this alarming fituation the directory refolved to call a meeting of the great bankers and merchants, to confult with them on the means of restoring the pecuniary credit of the nation, and circular letters were difpatched to them for that purpose. On the tenth of December a mefsage of a most pressing nature was sent to the council of five hundred. It was seriously urged, by the directory, to come without delay to the assistance of the state, the wants of which were fuch that if not immediately relieved, it would be exposed to certain ruin. The only remedy that could be proposed, in this extremity, was, to authorize the directory

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rectory to receive the last instalment due on the fale of the national domains, amounting to eighty millions, and which, being payable in specie, might be appropriated with effect to the extinction of the debts that lay most heavy on government, and the liquidation of which appeared the most indispensible.

This inessage was communicated to a fecret committee of the council of five hundred: but contrary to the expectations of the directory, it was treated with flight, and as undeserving of attention. Equally aftonished and offended at this reception of a message, from which far different effects had been hoped, the directory published this tranfaction upon the following day, as an appeal to the public on the conduct of the council. But this step was judged to have been too hastily taken. It seemed intended to bring

speedily healed, by the discretion of both parties, might be productive of the most serious evils. The neceffity of acting in concert prevented farther altercation: but the council of five hundred became extremely watchful of the motions of the directory, and refolved to confine it with the utmost strictness, to tre powers affigned to it by the constitution.

During the cruel administration of Roberspierre, multitudes had fled to foreign countries, or concealed themselves in various parts of France, in order to escape the fate that would otherwise have attended them. The revolutionary committees of the districts to which they belonged, actuated by the barbarous spirit of the times, hadeed the names of these unhappy persons on the lift of emigrants, by which they were subjected to the punishments

the council into disgrace, as re-enacted by the law, againft indifore the administration of Rober- Such were the opinions of the spierre. The appeals were made difcerning part of the public; nor to the directory, which appointed did many fcruple to avow their apcommiffioners to examine and de- prehenfions, that in confequence cide of their validity: but these of the numerous appointments to abused the powers committed to places of trust and profit, confided them in fo glaring and fcandalous a to the directory, it would foon or manner, and the directory appeared late arrive at so great a power, as to fo remiss in calling them to account form a party strong enough to confor their criminal behaviour, that troul the legiflature itself. the legislature thought itself bound to take the cognizance of these matters from the executive power, which, either through want of time or of inclination, did not pay them sufficient attention, and to appoint, for their investigation, a committee of its own members.

fusing to concur with the directory in a necessary measure, and it evidently tended to occafion a variance between these two branches of go. vernment, an evil that ought of all others to be the most studioufly avoided-in the present circumftances of the nation.

The committee, thus brought forward before the public, exculpated itself for the rejection of this meffage, by asserting that it represented the state in a much more alarming situation than confifted with reality. Through care and economy all difficulties might be removed, and the directory had been no less faulty in exaggerating the difficulties of the nation, than imprudent in making them known to the world.

It was with much concern that the public beheld a rupture between the legiflature and the executive department, which, unless it were

viduals of this description. After the overthrow of this sanguinary system, several decrees had been passed, to rescue those who had fuffered unjustly, through its tyranny, from the wretched condition to which they had been reduced. Those who had expatriated themfelves fince the last of May, 1793, when this dreadful system commenced, were permitted to return to their country, and those who had been falfely entered on the lift of emigrants, were cleared from the penalties annexed to emigration.

But, in the numbers that appealed to the laws enacted to reinstate in their rights those who had been unjustly deprived of them, there were many who came ftrictly under the denomination of emigrants, but who found means, through partiality or bribery, to procure teftimonials of their not having left France bo

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The public were not dissatisfied at the fcrupulous vigilance of the councils over the directory, and at the spirit with which they animadverted upon their conduct, and restrained their powers when it was necessary for the safety of individuals. The number of which the directory consisted, though feemingly calculated to keep the active rulers of the state sufficiently divided among themselves, to prevent any one of them from engrossing the supreme authority, bad not, however, in the opinion of many, provided against the combination of the members collectively, to grasp at fovereign power, and to overrule, through the weight and dignity attached to their office, the proceedings of the other departments of the state. It was therefore no less incumbent on these to repress the first attempts of that body, to exceed the limits of their conftitutional powers, than upon the parliaments of Great Britain to keep a vigilant eye on the conduct of the monarch and his ministers, and on the statesgeneral of Holland, to watch the steps of an afpiring stadtholder.

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Whether this were through influence, or through force, the result would be the same: and the nation would be obliged to submit to absolute sway, like others that are governed difpotically, by the crown and its agents, through the purchased and servile acquiefcence of its representatives.

These furmises were not without foundation. The stateliness assumed by the directory in its intercourse with foreign ftates, fufficiently indicated the lofty ideas they entertained of their importance, and how readily they would raise themselves to the summit of personal grandeur and uncontrouled power, in the management of all public affairs, unless their ambition were obviated by timely checks, which could not be too expeditiously employed against men who exhibited so early a difpofition to afpire at an undue extenfion of their authority.

This loftiness of the directory had fuffered no small degree of humiliation from the spirited conduct of the government of the united states of America. Full of the idea, that these owed their indepedence to France, the French bore with impatience and indignation that fo great a benefit should be overlooked, and that, in this struggle for liberty with so many powers combined against them from every quarter in Europe, they should be forsaken by that people, in whose cause they had

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But that which principally exafperated the French government, was the treaty that had been lately negociated between England and the American states, by their envoy in London, Mr. Jay. It was reprefented as fo contrary to the treaties in force between them and France, as to amount almost to a denunciation of the amity subsisting between those two powers.

The resentment of the French hardly knew any bounds. The language held at Paris portended nothing less than the most signal revenge for what was termed an act of the baseft ingratitude and perfidy. Instead of that cordiality which had taken place between the French and American governments, a diftant and fufpicious intercourse fucceeded; and if the public voice of the people of France had been liftened to, a rupture could not have failed to ensue.

It was retorted, on the part of the Americans, that as foon as the French republic had been established, it began to entertain a design to introduce a system perfectly fimilar to its own, into the United States, without confulting them, and in defiance of the constitution already fettled among them. To this end, they comminfioned their refident, Genet, to use all manner of artifice and intrigue, in order to pervert the difpofitions of the commonalty, and to seduce them from their attachment and obedience to the exifting government. He had carried his misconduct fo far, as personally to infult the president of the congress, and endeavoured to set him and that body at variance with the people. This agent, of the French republic, had indeed been recalled

by his employers, but the feeds of mischief he had fown had produced their intended effect, in the divifions that had embroiled the Americans, and destroyed that unanimity of fentiments from which they had derived such internal tranquillity.

To these complaints the French replied, that the treaty of commerce with England had cancelled all pretenfions of amity from America to France. It violated, in a positive and hoftile manner, the treaty entered into by the French, in favour of the Americans, in the year 1778, by which the states agreed to guarantee the poffeffions of France in the West Indies: whereas, by the present treaty with England, the very furnishing of provisions to the French islands, was allowed to be an illegal trade. Such a falling off from their profeffions of friendship and attachment to France, at a time when they ought to have been realised by actions, after having been fo reiteratedly expressed in words, difplayed in glaring colours the contemptible interestedness of the Americans, and proved them to be void of all principles but those of avarice and gain, and that to these they would facrifice all confideration of honour and magnanimity.

Recriminations of this nature grew louder and more rancorous than ever, on the intelligence that the government of the united states had formally ratified this treaty. But fresh motives of inveteracy arofe from the discoveries contained in a letter, written by the president of the congress to the American ambassador at Paris. This letter, which was dated from Philadelphia, the 22d of December, 1795, had been dispatched in a vessel that was wrecked on the coast of France. It was preserved with other papers,

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and carried to the directory, by whom it was confidered as indubitable proof of the inimical difpofition of the American government to the French republic.

This letter, on a cool perufal, contained however, no hoftile defigns against France. Its contents were chiefly complaints of the arbitrary proceedings of the British ministry respecting the trade of the United States. Hedirected Mr.Morris, who had quitted his embassy at Paris, and acted as American agent at London, to lay before the English ministry the imprudence, as well as the unjustifiableness of those proceedings, at a time when Great Britain ought to be particularly folicitous to retain the good will of the Americans, in order to induce them to receive favourably the treaty of commerce just concluded, but which met with a multitude of opponents, on account of the harsh measures that had been so unseasonably taken against the commerce and navigation of the united states. It was with difficulty he had stemmed the torrent of discontent and resentment that had arisen on this occafion, and prevented the party, that favoured the French, from carrying matters to extremities. His own views, in which he was feconded by the better fort, were peace and neutrality. These would, in the course of a few years, raise the United States to a condition of profperity and power, that would render them formidable to all the world, and secure to them tranquillity at home, and respect from

abroad.

Such was the general tenour of this famous letter, the interception of which was looked upon as fo timely an occurrence for the interest

of France, by admonishing it to place no confidence in the Americans. But without the medium of this letter, the most judicious of the French were convinced that the interest of the Americans would lead them to act a neutral part in the conteft between France and England, and that it would be highly impolitic in either of these, to infst upon their acting any other. The French government did not however relinquish the hope of a future connection with the united states. They grounded this expectation on the numbers of people there, who teftified an aversion to all political ties with England, and whose republican difpofition inclined them to espouse the cause of all who opposed the government of kings. They also relied on a change of men and measures in the American administration. The prefidency, it was intimated to them by their American partisans, would, on a new election, be filled by another incumbent, less averse to an alliance with France than the prefent. These and other representations of a fimilar tendency, from the fame quarter, induced the French government to dissemble the resentment it bore to the American for its partiality to England, and to extend it no farther than to treat the subjects of the united states, employed in their commerce and navigation, in the fame manner in which these were treated by the English. These misunderstandings, between France and the states of America, had, in fome degree, been fufpended by the recall of Mr. Morris from his French embassy, and replacing him by a man whose principles were more conformable to their own, and his person, therefore, more acceptable.

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