Читать книгу Essential Writings Volume 1 - William 1763-1835 Cobbett - Страница 6

The proceedings of the United Irishmen, like those of the American self-created societies, contain general accusations against every branch of the government. An advantageous distribution of the words liberty, tyranny, slavery, &c., does wonders with the populace; but the intelligent reader looks deeper, general accusations do not satisfy; he seeks for instances of oppression, before he will believe that a government is oppressive. Let us extract, then, the instances of oppression complained of by the United Irishmen, from the bombastical rhapsody in which they are buried, and see to what they amount. They tell us that Butler, Bond, Rowan, and about four or five others, were detained some months in prison; and that Muir, ^{Ref 019} Palmer, and Margarot, with two or three more, were transported; and all this (they say), for having done no more than what the good of their country dictated. I am sure the reader is very well satisfied, that these men were all guilty of the crimes laid to their charge; but to avoid disputation with respect to this fact, I shall suppose them all innocent, and then the sum total of the tyranny against which the United Irishmen exclaim, will amount to eight or nine false imprisonments, and five or six unjust sentences of transportation. This is certainly a great deal too much; may the hand be withered that ever wields a pen in its justification! but, as the United Irishmen wished, as a mean of avoiding such acts of oppression in future, to overturn their monarchical government, and establish a democratic one in its stead, it becomes incumbent on the reader, who would not be their dupe, to contrast the conduct of the government which they wanted to overturn with that of the one they intended to adopt. They have represented the British Government as being arrived at its last stage of tyranny, it will not then, I hope, be esteemed unfair, if I oppose to it the democratic Convention of France, when about the midway of its career.

It is not my intention to give a general character of this assembly; that would be superfluous: nor will I give way to that indignation which every man, who is not by nature a slave, must feel at the very mention of such a divan. General charges against any man, or set of men, as they are very seldom accurate, so they are little attended to, particularly when addressed to a reader, who is rather inclined towards the party accused. For this reason, I shall confine myself to a particular epoch, and even a particular spot. Lyons affords us the properest scene to be described on the present occasion; not because the dreadful deeds committed there surpass those at Nantz, and many other places; but because, taking place within a short space of time, they admit with more facility the form of a compact relation.

In the perusal of this relation the candid reader will make me some allowances; my taste is far from the tragic; scenes such as these must lose half their terrors when drawn by a hand like mine: Melpomene alone should record the actions of the National Convention.

Some time after the death of Louis XVI. the city of Lyons was declared, by the Convention, in a state of revolt, it was attacked by a numerous army of democrats, and after having stood a siege of above two months, was obliged to surrender. What followed this surrender, it is my intention to relate; but first, it is necessary to go back to the causes that led to the revolt; for though no earthly crime could justify the cruelties inflicted upon the brave and unfortunate Lyonnese, yet those cruelties do not appear in their deepest hue, till the pretended crimes of the sufferers are known.

By the new constitution of France, ^{Ref 020} the King could not be dethroned, unless found at the head of an army marching against his country. This was to be regarded as the highest crime he could possibly commit, and even for this he could be punished no otherwise than by being dethroned. “No crime whatever,” says the constitution, “shall be construed to affect his life.” This constitution every Frenchman had sworn, “to obey, and to maintain with all his might.” When, therefore, it was proposed to the Lyonnese, by the emissaries of the National Convention, to petition for the death of the king, they replied almost with one voice: “No; we have sworn, with all France, to maintain the new constitution with all our might; that constitution declares that no crime whatsoever shall affect the life of the king. For any thing we have yet seen or heard, we believe him innocent of every crime that has been laid to his charge. The mode of his trial is unprecedented in the annals of injustice, the Convention being at once accuser, evidence, and judge. We believe him perfectly innocent; but whether he be or not, the constitution that we have, by a solemn oath, bound ourselves to maintain with all our might, declares that no crime whatever shall be construed to affect his life; that life, therefore, we cannot, we will not demand. The rest of the nation may sport with engagements which they have called the Almighty to witness, they may add the crime of assassination to that of perjury, they may stain themselves with the blood of their innocent and unfortunate prince, the Lyonnese never will.”

Reader, you will hardly believe that this answer, so full of good sense, justice, piety, and honour, drew down on the gallant Lyonnese the most dreadful chastisement that ever was inflicted on any part of the human race. Read and be convinced.

No sooner was the determination of the Lyonnese made known to the Convention, than the latter began to concert schemes of vengeance. A numerous army was prepared, while the democratic agents of the Convention, who still had the executive authority at Lyons, spared no pains in endeavouring to drive the city to what they termed open rebellion, and thus to furnish a pretext for its destruction. The doctrine of equality, so flattering to those who possess nothing, had gained them many converts among the lower classes of the people. To these was committed all authority, civil and military, and it is hardly necessary to say that they exercised every species of tyranny that envy, revenge, and popular fury could invent. All this was borne with a degree of resignation that has been justly regarded as astonishing in people who have since exhibited such unequivocal proofs of inherent valour. A sense of more immediate danger, however, roused them from their lethargy.

There was held, every night, a meeting of the leaders among the partizans of the Convention. It consisted, in general, of men of desperate fortunes, bankrupts, quacks, the dregs of the law, apostate priests, and the like, not forgetting some who had been released from the galleys. In this infamous assembly, which took the name of Democratic Club, a plot was laid for the assassination of all the rich in one night; but this plot, notwithstanding the precautions of the conspirators, was happily discovered; the President Challier, and two others, were tried and condemned to die, the democrats were driven from all the public offices, and the former magistrates reinstated.

This act of self-preservation was called a revolt against the republic, and in consequence of it, the Convention passed ^{Ref 021} decree upon decree, bearing death and destruction against the Lyonnese. Thus, those very men who had formed a constitution, which declares resistance against oppression to be a natural right, passed an act of proscription against a whole city, because they had dared to lift their hands to guard their throats against the knives of a band of assassins!

The city now began to arm for its defence; but being totally unprepared for a siege, having neither fortifications nor magazines, and being menaced on every side by myriads of ferocious enemies, the people were backward in declaring for hostility, knowing that in that case death or victory must be the consequence. There were, therefore, but about ten thousand men who had the courage to take up arms; but the desperate bravery of these amply made up for every want. During the space of sixty days they withstood an army of fifteen times their strength, plentifully provisioned, and provided with every instrument of destruction. Never, perhaps, were there such feats of valour performed as by this little army; thrice their numbers did they lay dead before their injured city.

The members deputed from the Convention to direct the attack, left nothing untried that might tend to the accomplishment of their object. They succeeded at last, in opening a communication with their partizans in the city, and in seducing many of the mob to espouse their interest. This was the more easy to effect, as the besieged were, by this time, upon the point of starving; the flesh of horses, dogs, and cats, had been for some days their only food, and even that began to grow extremely scarce. In this situation, without the least hopes of succour, some of those who wished well to their city, and who had not borne arms during the siege, undertook to capitulate with the enemy; but these, knowing the extremities to which they were driven, insisted upon executing the decrees of the Convention, which ordered them to put to death indiscriminately, all those who had taken up arms against its authority.

The besieged, then, seeing no hopes of a capitulation, seeing the city without another day’s provision, and the total impossibility of succour from without (being completely invested on every side), had but one measure to adopt; to cut their way through their enemy, or fall in the attempt. A plan of retreat was therefore settled upon; the outposts were to be called in, and the whole were to assemble at the Vaise.

In the mean time, the deputies from the Convention, who were informed by their spies of all that was passing in the city, took care to have the road by which the retreating army was to pass, well lined with troops. The whole country round was under arms. Every person was ordered, on pain of death, not to let pass, or give shelter to, a single Lyonnese, man, woman, or child.

The out-posts were hardly called in, when their stations were taken possession of by the democratic army. Being so closely pressed, rendered the assembling more difficult; all was bustle, confusion, and terror. Not half of these who were under arms had time to join. A little corps was, however, at last formed. It consisted of between three and four thousand persons in all, headed by four field-pieces, and followed by six waggons, bearing the wreck of many a splendid fortune. Thus marched off the remains of these generous defenders of their city, bidding an eternal adieu to the scenes of their youth, the dwellings of their ancestors; resolving to die bravely, as they had lived, or find an asylum in a foreign land.

It was midnight when they began their retreat, lighted by the blaze of bombs and burning houses.——Reader, cast your eyes on this devoted city. See children clinging to their fathers, distracted mothers to their sons; wives, holding in their arms what they held dearer than life, forgetting all but their husbands, marching by their side, and braving death from ten thousand hands!

They had hardly begun their march, when a discharge of artillery, bearing full upon them, threw them into some confusion. One of their waggons, in which were several old men and some children, was set on fire by a shell. Morning coming on, they perceived themselves beset on every side; they were charged by the cavalry, exposed to the fire of a numerous artillery, harassed at every turning, fired upon from every house, every bank and every hedge. Seeing therefore no hopes of escape, they were determined to sell every drop of blood as dear as possible. They broke off into platoons, putting their wives and children in the centre of each, and took different directions, in order to divide the force of the enemy. But what were they to do against fifty times their number? The whole, about fifty persons excepted, were either killed or taken.

The victors showed such mercy as might be expected from them: not content with butchering their prisoners in cold blood, they took a pleasure in making them die by inches, and insulting them in the pangs of death. Placing several together, they killed one of them at a time to render death more terrible to the rest. Neither sex nor age had any weight with them; above two hundred women, thirty of whom had children at the breast, whom conjugal love had led to follow their husbands; more than fifty old men, whom filial piety had snatched from the assassin’s stab, were all most savagely butchered. The death of Madame de Visague deserves particular notice. This young lady was about seventeen years of age, and very near her time of delivery: a party of the democrats found her behind a hedge, to which place she had drawn her husband, who was mortally wounded. When the cannibals discovered her, she was on her knees supporting his head with her arm: one of them fired upon her with a carabine, another quartered her with his hanger, while a third held up the expiring husband to be a spectator of their more than hellish cruelty.

Several wounded prisoners were collected together, and put into a ditch, with sentinels placed round them to prevent them from killing themselves, or one another; and thus were they made to linger, some of them two or three days, while their enemies testified their ferocious pleasure by all the insulting gesticulations of savages.

Such was the fury of the triumphant democrats, that the deputies from the Convention gave an order against burying the dead, till they had been cut in morsels. Tollet, the infamous Tollet, a democratic priest (that is to say, an apostate) of Trevoux, went, blood-hound like, in quest of a few unhappy wretches who had escaped the bloody 9th of October; and when, by perfidious promises, he had drawn them from their retreats, he delivered them up to the daggers of their assassins.

Of all the little army that attempted the retreat, only about forty-six escaped; six hundred and eighteen were brought back in chains; some of them died of their wounds, and all those who were not relieved from life this way, were dragged forth to an ignominious death.

During these dreadful scenes the deputies from the Convention, who were now absolute masters of the unfortunate city, were preparing others, if possible, still more dreadful. As a preliminary step, they reorganized the Democratic Society. To this infernal rendezvous the deputy Javouges repaired, and there broached his project in a speech, the substance of which was nearly as follows: After having represented Challier as a martyr in the cause of liberty, as the hero of the republic, and the avenger of the people, he addressed himself to the assembly in nearly these terms. “Think,” said he, “of the slavery into which you are plunged by being the servants and workmen of others; the nobles, the priests, the proprietors, the rich of every description, have long been in a combination to rob the democrats, the real sans culotte republicans, of their birthright; go, citizens; take what belongs to you, and what you should have enjoyed long ago.—Nor must you stop here, while there exists an aristocracy in the buildings, half remains undone: down with those edifices raised for the profit or pleasure of the rich; down with them all: commerce and arts are useless to a warlike people, and destructive of that sublime equality which France is determined to spread over the whole globe.” He told this enslaved, this degraded populace, that it was the duty of every good citizen to discover all those whom be knew to be guilty of having, in thought, word, or deed, conspired against the republic. He exhorted them to fly to the offices (opened for receiving such accusations), and not to spare one lawyer, priest, or nobleman. He concluded this harangue, worthy of one of the damned, with declaring, that for a man to accuse his own father was an act of civism worthy a true republican, and that to neglect it was a crime that should be punished with death.

The deeds that followed this diabolic exhortation were such as might be expected. The bloody ruffians of democrats left not a house, not a hole unsearched; men and women were led forth from their houses with as little ceremony as cattle from their pens; the square where the guillotine stood was reddened with blood, like a slaughter-house, while the piercing cries of the surviving relations were drowned in the more vociferous howlings of Vive la Republique!

It is hard to stifle the voice of nature, to stagnate the involuntary movements of the soul; yet this was attempted, and in some degree effected, by the deputies of the Convention. Perceiving that these scenes of blood had spread a gloom over the countenances of the innocent inhabitants, and that even some of their soldiers seemed touched with compunction, they issued a mandate, declaring every one suspected of aristocracy, who should discover the least symptoms of pity, either by his words or his looks!

The preamble of this mandate makes the blood run cold: “By the thunder of God! in the name of the representatives of the French people; on pain of death it is ordered,” &c. &c. Who would believe that this terrific mandate, forbidding men to weep, or look sorrowful, on pain of death, concluded with, Vive la Liberté! (Liberty for ever!)? Who would believe that the people, who suffered this mandate to be stuck up about their city like a play-bill, had sworn to live free, or die?

However, in spite of all their menaces, they still found that remorse would sometimes follow the murder of a friend, or relation. Conscience is a troublesome guest to the villain who yet believes in an hereafter; the deputies, therefore, were resolved to banish this guest from the bosoms of their partisans, as it had already been banished from their own.

With this object in view they ordered a solemn civic festival in honour of Challier. His image was carried round the city, and placed in the churches. Those temples which had (many of them), for more than a thousand years, resounded with hosannas to the Supreme Being, were now profaned by the adorations paid to the image of a parricide.

All this was but a prelude to what was to follow the next day. It was Sunday, the day consecrated to the worship of our blessed Redeemer. A vast concourse of democrats, men and women, assembled at a signal agreed on, formed themselves into a sort of a mock procession, preceded by the image of Challier, and followed by a little detached troop, each bearing in its hand a chalice, or some other vase of the church. One of these sacrilegious wretches led an ass, covered with a priest’s vestment, and with a mitre on his head. He was loaded with crucifixes and other symbols of the Christian religion, and had the Old and New Testament suspended to his tail. Arrived at the square called the Terreaux, they then threw the two Testaments, the crucifixes, &c. into a fire prepared for the purpose; made the ass drink out of the sacramental cup, and were proceeding to conclude their diabolical profanations with the massacre of all the prisoners, to appease the ghost of Challier, when a violent thunder-storm put an end to their meeting, and deferred the work of death for a few hours.

The pause was not long. The deputies, profiting by the infamous frenzy with which they had inspired the soldiery and the mob, and by the consternation of the respectable inhabitants, continued their butchery with redoubled fury. Those who led the unhappy sufferers to execution were no longer ordered to confine themselves to such as were entered on the list of proscription, but were permitted to take whoever they thought worthy of death! To have an enemy among the democrats, to be rich, or even thought rich, was a sufficient crime. The words nobleman, priest, lawyer, merchant, and even honest man, were so many terms of proscription. Three times was the place of the guillotine changed, at every place holes were dug to receive the blood, and yet it ran in the gutters! the executioners were tired, and the deputies, enraged to see that their work went on so slowly, represented to the mob that they were too merciful, that vengeance lingered in their hands, and that their enemies ought to perish in mass!

Accordingly next day, the execution in mass began. The prisoners were led out, from a hundred to three hundred at a time, into the outskirts of the city, where they were fired upon or stabbed. One of these massacres deserves a particular notice. Two hundred and sixty-nine persons, taken indiscriminately among all classes and all ages, were led to Brotteaux, and there tied to trees. In this situation they were fired upon with grape-shot. Here the cannoneers of Valenciennes, who had not had the courage to defend their own walls, who owed theirforfeited lives to the mercy of royalists, valiantly pointed their cannons against them, when they found them bound hand and foot!—The coward is ever cruel.—Numbers of these unfortunate prisoners had only their limbs broken by the artillery; these were dispatched with the sword or the musket. The greatest part of the bodies were thrown into the Rhone, some of them before they were quite dead; two men in particular had strength enough to swim to a sand-bank in the river. One would have thought, that thus saved as it were by miracle, the vengeance of their enemies would have pursued them no farther; but no sooner were they perceived, than a party of the dragoons of Lorraine crossed the arm of the river and stabbed them, and left them a prey to the fowls of the air.—Reader, fix your eyes on this theatre of carnage.—You barbarous, you ferocious monsters! You have found the heart to commit those bloody deeds, and shall no one have the heart to publish them in a country that boasts of an unbounded liberty of the press? Shall no one tell, with what pleasure you plunged your daggers into the defenceless breasts of those whose looks had often appalled your own coward hearts? Shall no one tell, with what heroic, what godlike constancy they met their fate? How they smiled at all your menaces and cannibal gesticulations? How they despised you in the very article of death?—Strewed with every sweetest flower be the grave of Mons. Chapuis de Maubourg, and let his name be graven on every faithful heart! This gallant gentleman, who was counted one of the first engineers in Europe, fell into the hands of the democrats. They offered to spare his life, if he would serve in the armies of the Convention: they repeated this offer, with their carabines at his breast. “No,” replied he, “I have never fought but for my God and my king; despicable cowards! fire away!”

The murder in mass did not rob the guillotine of its prey: there the blood flowed without interruption. Death itself was not a refuge from democratic fury. The bodies of the prisoners who were dead of their wounds, and of those who, not able to support the idea of ignominious death, had given themselves the fatal blow, were carried to the scaffold, and there beheaded, receiving thousands of kicks from the sans culottes, because the blood would not run from them. Persons from their sick beds, old men, not able to walk, and even women found in child-bed, were carried to the murderous machine. The respectable Mons. Lauras was torn from his family of ten children and his wife big with the eleventh. This distracted matron ran with her children, and threw herself at the feet of the brutal deputy Collot d’Herbois.—No mercy!—Her conjugal tenderness, the cries of her children, every thing calculated to soften the heart, presented themselves before him, but in vain. “Take away,” said he, to the officious ruffians by whom he was surrounded, “take away the she rebel and her whelps.” Thus spurned from the presence of him who alone was able to save her beloved husband, she followed him to the place of execution. Her shrieks, when she saw him fall, joined to the wildness of her looks, but too plainly foretold her approaching end. She was seized with the pains of childbirth, and was carried home to her house; but, as if her tormentors had shown her too much lenity, the sans culotte commissary soon after arrived, took possession of all the effects in the name of the sovereign people, drove her from her bed and her house, from the door of which she fell dead in the street. ^{Ref 022}

About three hundred women hoped, by their united prayers and tears, to touch the hearts of the ferocious deputies; but all their efforts were as vain as those of Madame Lauras. They were threatened with a discharge of grape shot. Two of them, who, notwithstanding the menaces of the democrats, still had the courage to persist, were tied during six hours to the posts of the guillotine; their own husbands were executed before their eyes, and their blood sprinkled over them!

Mademoiselle Servan, a lovely young woman of about eighteen years of age, was executed, because she would not discover the retreat of her father! “What!” said she nobly, to the democratic committee, “what! betray my father! impious villains, how dare you suppose it?”

Madame Cochet, a lady equally famed for her beauty and her courage, was accused of having put the match to a cannon during the siege, and of having assisted in her husband’s escape. She was condemned to suffer death; she declared herself with child, and the truth of this declaration was attested by two surgeons. In vain did she implore a respite, in vain did she plead the innocence of the child that was in her womb: her head was severed from her body amidst the death-howl of the democratic brigands.

Pause, here, reader, and imagine if you can, another crime worthy of being added to those already mentioned. Yes, there is one more, and hell would not have been satisfied if its ministers had left it uncommitted. Libidinous brutality! Javouges, one of the deputies from the Convention, opened the career. His example was followed by the soldiery and the mob in general. The wives and daughters of almost all the respectable inhabitants, particularly of such as had emigrated, or who were murdered or in prison, were put in a state of requisition, and were ordered on pain of death, to hold their bodies (I spare the reader the term made use of in the decree) in readiness for the embraces of the true republicans! Nor were they content with violation: the first ladies of the city were led to the tree of Liberty (of Liberty!) and there made to take the hands of chimney-sweepers and common felons! Detestable wretches! At the very name of democrat, humanity shudders, and modesty hides its head!

I will not insult the reader’s feelings by desiring him to compare the pretended tyranny of the British Government with that I have here related; nor will I tell the United Irishmen, that even an Irish massacre is nothing compared to the exercise of the democratic laws of France; but I will ask them to produce me, if they can, an instance of such consummate tyranny in any government, or in any nation. Queen Mary of England, during a reign of five years, caused about five hundred innocent persons to be put to death; for this, posterity has, very justly too, branded her with the surname of bloody. What surname, then, shall be given to the assembly that caused more than that number to be executed in one day at Lyons? The massacre of St. Bartholomew, an event that filled all Europe with consternation, the infamy and horrors of which have been dwelt on by so many eloquent writers of all religions, and that has held Charles IX. up to the execration of ages, dwindles into child’s play, when compared to the present murderous revolution, which a late writer in France emphatically calls “a St. Bartholomew of five years.” According to Mons. Bousset, there were about 30,000 persons murdered, in all France, in the massacre of St. Bartholomew; there has been more than that number murdered in the single city of Lyons and its neighbourhood; at Nantz there have been 27,000; at Paris, 150,000; in La Vendée, 300,000. ^{Ref 023} In short, it appears that there have been two millions of persons murdered in France, since it has called itself a republic, among whom are reckoned two hundred and fifty thousand women, two hundred and thirty thousand children (besides those murdered in the womb), and twenty-four thousand Christian priests!

And is there, can there be a faction in America so cruel, so bloody-minded, as to wish to see these scenes repeated in their own, or any other country? If there be, Great God! do thou mete to them, ten-fold, the measure they would mete to others; inflict on them every curse of which human nature is susceptible; hurl on them thy reddest thunder-bolts; sweep the sanguinary race from the face of the creation!

AN ACCOUNT OF SOME RECENT FEATS PERFORMED BY THE FRENCHIFIED CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

If such, then, are the principles of those men called Democrats, ought not every good man in this country to be very cautious how he gives them the least countenance? Ought he not to follow them in all their actions with an attentive eye, and let slip no opportunity of exposing their ambitious and destructive designs? For my part, I by no means desire to assume the dubious name of patriot; what I am doing, I conceive to be my duty; which consideration, as it will justify the undertaking, will in some measure apologize for the want of abilities that may appear in the execution.

Upon a view of the horrible revolution that at present agitates the world, we perceive that though the grand object of the democrats has been every where the same, yet their pretended motives have varied with their situation. In America, where the Federal ^{Ref 024} Constitution had just been put in movement, and had begun to extend its beneficent effects, it was impossible to talk of reformation; at least it was impossible to make the people believe that it was necessary. The well-known wisdom and integrity and the eminent services of the President, ^{Ref 025} had engraven such an indelible attachment for his person on the hearts of Americans, that his reputation or his measures could be touched but with a very delicate hand. A plan of indirect operations was therefore fixed upon; and it must be allowed, that, by the help of a foreign agent, it was not badly combined. The outlines of this plan were to extol to the skies every act of the boxing legislators of France; to dazzle those who have nothing with the sublime system of “equality;” to make occasional reflections on the resemblance between this government and that of Great Britain; to condemn the British laws (and consequently our own at the same time) as aristocratic, and from thence to insinuate that “something yet remained to be done;” and finally, to throw a veil over the insults and injuries received from France, represent all the actions of Great Britain in the most odious light, plunge us into a war with the latter, put us under the tutelage of the former, and recall the glorious times of violence and plunder. Thanks to Government; thanks to the steady conduct of the executive power, this abominable plan has been disconcerted; the phalanx has been broken; but it is nevertheless prudent to pursue the scattered remains, draw them from their caballing assemblies, and stretch them on the rack of public contempt. ^{Ref 026}

I do not know whether there were any of the United Irishmen, or their retainers, at the last St. Patrick’s feast, in this city; but I know that they drank to the memory of “Brutus and Franklin (a pretty couple), to the Society of the United Irishmen, to the French, and to their speedy arrival in Ireland.” After this, I think it would be cruel to doubt of the patriotism of the United Irishmen, and their attachment to the British constitution.

In these toasting times it would have been something wonderful if the sans culottes in America had neglected to celebrate the taking of Amsterdam by their brethren in France. I believe from my soul there have been more cannons fired here in the celebration of this conquest, than the French fired in achieving it. I think I have counted twenty-two grand civic festivals, fifty-one of an inferior order, and one hundred and ninety-three public dinners; at all which, I imagine, there might be nearly thirty thousand people; and as twenty thousand of them, or thereabouts, must have been married men, it is reasonable to suppose that eighteen or nineteen thousand women with their children were at home wanting bread, while their husbands were getting drunk at a civic feast.

There is in general such a sameness in those feasts, that it would be tiring the reader to describe them; and it would, besides, be anticipating what I intend to treat more at large, as soon as my materials for the purpose are collected. The grand civic festival at Reading (Massachusetts), however, deserves a particular mention, as it approaches nearer to a real French civic feast than any thing I have yet heard of in this country.

“The day was ushered in by the ringing of the bells, and a salute of fifteen discharges from a field-piece. The American flag waved in the wind, and the flag of France over the British in inverted order. At noon a large number of respectable citizens assembled at citizen Rayner’s, and partook of an elegant entertainment—after dinner Captain Emerson’s military company in uniform assembled, and escorted the citizens” (to the grog-shop, I suppose, you think?) “to the meeting-house!! where an address, pertinent to the occasion, was delivered by the Reverend citizen Prentiss, and united prayers and praises were offered to God, and several hymns and anthems were well sung; after which they returned in procession to citizen Rayner’s, when three farmers with their frocks and utensils, and with a tree on their shoulders, were escorted by the military company, formed in a hollow square, to the common, where the tree was planted in form, as an emblem of freedom, and the Marseillois hymn was sung by a choir within a circle round the tree. Major Bondman, by request, superintended the business of the day, and directed the manœuvres.”

These manœuvres were very curious to be sure, particularly that of the Reverend citizen Prentiss, putting up a long snuffing prayer for the successes of the French atheists! A pretty minister truly! There was nothing wanted to complete this feast but to burn the Bible, and massacre the honest inhabitants of the town. And are these the children of those men who fled from their native country to a desert, rather than deviate from what they conceived to be the true principles of the gospel? Are they such men as Prentiss, to whom the people of Massachusetts commit the education of their children and the care of their own souls? God forgive me if I go too far, but I think I would as soon commit my soul to the care of the devil.

Nor was the Reverend citizen Prentiss the only one who took upon him to mock Heaven with thanksgivings for the successes of the French sans culottes. From Boston they write: “It was highly pleasing to republicans to hear some of our clergy yesterday returning thanks to the Supreme Being for the successes of the good sans culottes.” Yes, reader, some of the clergy of Boston put up thanksgivings for what they imagined to be the successes of a set of impious wretches, who have in the most solemn manner abolished the religion these very clergymen profess, who have declared Christianity to be a farce, and its Founder an infamous impostor, and who have represented the doctrine of the immortality of the soul as a mere cheat, contrived by artful priests to enslave mankind. There is but too much reason to fear that many of those whose duty it is to stand on the watch-tower, whose duty it is to resist this pernicious doctrine, are among the first to espouse it; but let the clergymen of Boston remember—

“That those whose impious hands are join’d

From Heaven the thunderbolt to wrest,

Shall, when their crimes are finished, find,

That death is not eternal rest.”

But they tell us that it is because the French are true republicans, that we ought to applaud them. What a sarcasm on republicanism! As if fire and sword, prisons and scaffolds, the destruction of cities, the abolition of all religious worship, the inculcation of a doctrine which leads to every crime, stifles remorse, and prevents a return to justice and humanity, were the characteristics of a true republic. If it be so, we ought to blush to call ourselves republicans.

Some of the democratic tribe have cried aloud against me, for speaking of the Dutch and French under the names of Nick Frog and the Baboon; but let them remember, that while they talk about John Bull, I must, and will be permitted to keep up the allegory, ^{Ref 027} particularly at a time when it is become more strikingly à-propos than ever. “Jupiter,” says the fable, “sent the frogs a log of wood ^{Ref 028} to reign over them; but a bull being let loose in the pasture, and having trod the guts of a few of them out, they set up a terrible outcry against the stupidity and negligence of king log. Jupiter tired at last with their everlasting croakings, and determined to punish them for their ingratitude to his anointed log, sent them a huge baboon that gobbled them up by hundreds at a meal.”

Patriot Paine, the heathen philosopher, has observed that republics never marry. There is more humour than truth in this observation; for though one would imagine that the name of sister which they give to each other would be an insuperable bar to such an union, yet experience proves the contrary; for the French republic does not only marry, but is guilty of polygamy. She has already espoused the republic of Batavia (commonly called Holland), and the poor little Geneva, and she is now swaggering about like a Jack wh—e with a couple of under punks at her heels. She wanted to make love to the cheek of John Bull, but John, beast as he is, had too much grace to be seduced by her. “No,” said John, “you heathenish cannibal, I will not touch you; you reek with blood; get from my sight, you stabbing strumpet!” John was half right; for she is indeed a cruel spouse; something like the brazen image formerly made use of in Hungary, that cracked the bones, and squeezed out the blood and guts of those who were condemned to its embraces.

How happy were we in escaping a marriage with a termagant like this! we were, indeed, within an inch of it. Brissot and his crew sent out one of their citizens ^{Ref 029} (who had been employed with so much success in negotiating the marriage with Geneva) to marry us by proxy, and the democrats were beginning to sing “Come haste to the wedding,” when the president, who had not burnt his bible, saw that the laws of consanguinity did not allow of a marriage between two sisters, and therefore, like a good old father of his country, he peremptorily forbad the bans. Heavens bless him for it! if he had not done this, we might long ago have seen the citizen inviting the Congress, as Pichegru does the Dutch assembly, to send him five hundred oxen for breakfast. He had already begun to scamper about our streets with his sans culottes dragoons (among whom, be it remembered, some of our democrats were base enough to enrol themselves), and he would by this time, perhaps, have ordered us, and not without reason, to call Philadelphia, Commune Affranchie.

The Convention, finding that we were not to be won by this boorish kind of courtship, began to send us billets-doux to soothe us into compliance. Among these, that which invites us to change our weights and measures ^{Ref 030} is remarkable enough to merit a particular notice. A citizen somebody had been to measure the terrestrial arc contained between Dunkirk and Barcelona, from which operation it appeared that we ought (at the invitation of the French) to divide our pound into ten ounces, our gallon into ten quarts, our day into ten hours, our quadrant into a hundred degrees, &c. &c. &c., just like Hudibras,

“For he by geometric scale

Could take the size of pots of ale,

And tell by sines and tangents straight,

If bread and butter wanted weight.”

This communication was a sort of a present by way of breaking the ice; artful gallants begin with trifles—a handkerchief, a ring, any bauble marked with the lover’s name, paves the way in affairs of love. If we had set about making the alterations, which we were invited to make, we should, undoubtedly, have been invited to divide our year according to the decadery calendar, abolish Christianity, and punish with death those who should have dared to worship “the ci-devant God.” I almost wonder that these generous enlighteners of the world, these generous encouragers of the arts and sciences, had not sent us, along with the models of weights and measures, models of their lantern-posts and guillotines. They talk about their nautical discoveries, why had they not sent us, then, a model of their drowning-boats, by which fifty women and children were sent to the bottom at a time? They might also have obliged us with an essay on the method of making bread, without taking the bran out of the flour; and how well pleased must the Congress have been with a treatise on legislative boxing! ^{Ref 031} But, as the French have all the honour of these discoveries, so, I suppose, they mean to have all the profit too; and God punish the villain that would wish to rob them of it, I say.

The Convention, in this communication, resemble Jack in the Tale of a Tub: “Flay, pull, tear all off,” say they, “let not a single stitch of the livery of that d——d rogue, John Bull, remain.” The Congress, however, have thought proper to imitate the phlegmatic good-nature of Brother Martin. “Steady, boys, steady,” said they one to another; “those fellows, there, are got keel uppermost, and they want to see us in the same plight.” I would have given a trifle for a view of the senators when they received this ten-ounces-to-the-pound proposal; the gravity of a senator surpasses what I conceived of it, if they did not run a risk of bursting their sides. The notice they have taken of it will, I hope, prevent like invitations for the future; and convince the French that our Congress is not an assembly

“Where quicks and quirks, in dull debates,

Dispute on maximums and weights,

And cut the land in squares;

Making king mob gulp down the cheat,

And singling for themselves the wheat,

Leave for the herd the tares.”

I do not know whether the French are irritated at our sang froid, or at our consulting our interests with other nations, or how it is, but certainly they begin to show their good-will to us in a very odd manner. Their depredations on our commerce have already surpassed those of the English. One captain writes, “I have been robbed by them; they have broken open my trunks, and took my all.” Another says: “They have called me a damned Anglo-American, beat me, and thrown me into prison.” Another says: “They have kept me here these four months; they do what they please with my cargo; and the Lord knows what will become of me!” Another petitions the sans culotte general, and concludes with, “your petitioner shall ever pray!”—And is this all? Do they now talk of these things with the humility of slaves? No, execrations! Have they emptied their galls on the English? Is there not one curse, one poor spiteful curse, left for the sans culottes? Ye Gods! how men are sometimes ice and sometimes fire! When the English took our vessels, what patriot bosom did not burn with rage? There was nothing talked of but vengeance, war, and confiscation. ^{Ref 032} Where is now all this “republican ardour,” where are all those young men who “burnt for an opportunity to defend the liberty, rights, and property of their country?” Where are all those courageous captains who entered into an association to oblige the government to declare war? Are they dead? do they sleep? or are they gone with their chief, Barney, to fight, like Swisses, for the French Convention? Last year, about this time, nothing was to be heard but their malicious left-handed complaints; a rough word or a wry look was thought sufficient to rouse the whole Union to revenge the insults they received on the high seas. They now seem as insensible to every insult as the images at the head of their vessels; submit to their fate with Christian resignation, with, “Lord have mercy upon us,” and, “your petitioners will ever pray!”

If any one wants to be convinced that the democratic outcry about the British depredations was intended to plunge us into war and misery, let him look at their conduct at the present moment. An Envoy ^{Ref 033} Extraordinary was sent to England to demand restitution, which has not only been granted, but a long wished-for commercial treaty has also been negotiated. One would think that this would satisfy all parties; one would think that this would even shut the mouths of the democrats;—but no; this is all wrong, and they are beginning to tear the treaty to pieces, before they know any thing about it; they have condemned the whole, before they know any single article of it. They were eternally abusing Mr. Pitt, because he kept aloof in the business; and, now he has complied, they say that no such thing should ever have been thought of. “What!” say they, “make a treaty with Great Britain!”—And why not, wiseacres? Who would you make a treaty with, but those with whom you trade? You are afraid of giving umbrage to France, eh? Is this language worthy an independent nation? What is France to us, that our destiny is to be linked to hers? that we are not to thrive because she is a bankrupt? She has no articles of utility to sell us, nor will she have wherewith to pay us for what she buys. Great Britain, on the contrary, is a ready-money customer; what she furnishes us is, in general, of the first necessity, for which she gives us, besides, a long credit; hundreds and thousands of fortunes are made in this country upon the bare credit given by the merchants of Great Britain.

Think not, reader, whatever advantages we are about to derive from the treaty with Great Britain, that I wish to see such a marked partiality shown for that nation, as has hitherto appeared for the French; such meannesses may be overlooked in those despicable states that are content to roll as the satellites of others, in a Batavia or Geneva, but in us it never can. No; let us forget that it is owing to Great Britain that this country is not now an uninhabited desert; that the land we possess was purchased from the aborigines with the money of an Englishman; ^{Ref 034} that his hands traced the streets on which we walk. Let us forget from whom we are descended, and persuade our children that we are the sons of the gods, or the accidental offspring of the elements; ^{Ref 035} let us forget the scalping knives of the French, to which we were thirty years exposed; but let us never forget that we are not Frenchmen.