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treaties. We learned the cruel manner in which the island of St. Euftatia was devastated, by seizing on the poffeffions of the merchants, which, when collected, formed treasures; while richly laden veffels returning from the ocean, were furprifed unawares in the channel by fmall veffels, which readily made them their prey. By fuch vile means, unworthy of a generous nation, did the British minifters difhonour the flag of their king; for can it be confidered in any other point of view, than that of acting, under the royal flag, the part of pirates? The Batavian republic was at length, after fo many loffes, forced to provide for her defence, to maintain her rights and independence by the dint of arms, and to protect her commerce and her poffeffions. Ah! if he could then have combated under the banners of liberty, how would the English miniftry have repented of its rathness and perfidy! But the English cabinet knew all its influence in this country. It was aware that it could fucceed in thackling within the republic the preparations of war: it was certain of finding in Holland partizans who would contrive to put into his poffeflion our fhips of war, and who would find the means to prevent the difplay of all our trength. The event foon proved that the English minifters were not mistaken. They mocked our feeble efforts, which, even before they they were carried into effect, were paralized in their outfet by the adherents they had in this country. Thefe adherents fupplied them with intelligence of all that was concerting here. Supported by the Stadtholderian influence, they even contrived to render

nugatory the orders given by their high mightineffes for the junction of the Batavian squadron with the French fleet. It was eafy for the Englith miniftry, after fuch treafons, to obtain fucceffes in that war. And this is what they call glory! But when a particular occafion prefented itfelf-when a fleet belonging to the ftates accidentally met with an opportunity to display its courage and its valour, the Batavian mariners, although novices in fighting, proved that they had not degenerated from the bravery of their ancestors. They drove the English fleet, covered with confufion and thame, into its own port, without having loft one of the merchant veffels they had under convoy.

A war carried on in fuch a way neceffarily terminated in a treaty of peace burthenfome to the States. Inftead of being indemnified for the incalculable loffes they had fuftained in their commerce, they confidered themfelves as fortunate to be enabled by the fpeedy affittance of the French forces, which checked the English in the two Indies, to fave a part of their pof feflions; while they found themfelves obliged to yield to the enemy the important factory of Negapatnam on the coaft of Coromandel; and to allow to British veffels the free navigation of the coafts of the Molucca iflands, notwithstanding it might have been forefeen that the navigation of the English in thofe feas would tend to nothing lefs than the complete deftruction of our trade in the East Indies.

We shall not enter into details concerning what patied in the fequel, when the Batavian nation, feeing how much its interefts were

conftantly

cenftantly every where facrificed to thofe of its ancient rival, even by the perfons appointed to defend its rights, meditated a fundamental regeneration in the form of the go. vernment. We fhall not retrace how England, knowing that the limitation of the fcandalous ufurpation of power and influence, on the part of the Stadtholder, would alfo diminith its influence in this republic. How, we fay, the British miniftry, far from interceding for the Batavian nation, or coming to its fuccour, when legions of foreign troops feized on these countries, committing the moft atrocious disorders, pillages, and violences, confidered, on the contrary, this devaftation and this op• preflion with a malignant fatisfaction; and concurred, when the mifchief was completed, in guaranteeing, in a folemn manner, the fyftem off a tyranny which resulted from it.

When the French nation, wearied with the infupportable tyranny of kings, fhook off its yoke, and formed itself into an independent republic, the British minifters thought that they could not have a better opportunity to dismember a part of that fine empire. They accordingly united in the treaty concluded at Pilnitz, on the 27th of Auguft, 1791, by the princes of Germany. The French republic, well knowing that that of the United Provinces of the Netherlands would be constrained by England to take a part in this plot against its liberty, declared war against the British minifters, as well as against their fubject William V. ftadtholder of the Seven United Provinces, and his partizans.-It

is thus that the Batavian nation was once more drawn against its will into this bloody war by its dependence on those fame minifters: its treafures were lavithed, and its arfenals nearly emptied, to aid the extravagant plans of Pitt and his cabal. Auxiliary English troops. were fent to this republic, and when a defeat, fuftained near the Meufe by a part of the French army, had procured a momentary advantage, the army of the States was forced to pafs the limits of our frontiers, and thofe of France, and to wage an offenfive war on the French territory. Soon, however, the victorious French repulfed their enemies on all fides, and from day to day the armies of England and the States retrograded towards our frontiers. The republic found itself on the brink of its ruin, fince appearances pointed out that the theatre of war would be removed to the very heart of its provinces, and all the country inundated. Never were the States in fo critical a pofition fince the war with Spain; but this danger brought about their deliverance; Providences defeated the perfidious plans of its enemies, who were defirous rather that the republic fhould be deftroyed than that it fhould be free. When the froft permitted the croffing of the rivers, the valorous French troops drove before them the English bands with fo much speed, that the latter had not time to effect their infernal defign; they fled, but their road was traced by fire and pillage. It was nothing but their speedy and precipitate retreat that preferved the republic from a total devaftation. We foon witneffed the extraordinary

traordinary fpectacle which the citizens prefented on all fides, holding out their arms to their conquerors as to their only deliverers. We faw the allied troops fack and plunder, and thofe who were called our enemies refpect public and private properties.

It was thus that the Netherlands were delivered from their moft dangerous enemies. The ftadtholder abandoned, in a daftardly way, his country and his friends, and fought at afylum at the court of the king of England. The ftandard of liberty was planted in all places, while the French republic declared the Batavian nation free, and re-eftablished it in its primitive rights.

The British minifters, enraged at feeing this republic ftill exift without being in their hands, attempted at least to defroy it another way, by totally undermining its extenfive commerce. Upwards of one hundred fhips, the greater part richly laden, which either through foul winds, or as a measure of precaution, had fought fhelter in British ports, as well as feveral Dutch thips of war, were laid under embargo, as if to prevent them from falling into the hands of the French. Their high mightineffes, it is true, fent commiflioners to London to claim them, demonftrating by the moft folid proofs, that the Batavian republic was no longer under the dominion of France, fince the folemn declaration of its independence, and that England ought to conduct itielf towards the Batavian nation, as towards a free people; they added, that the Dutch merchants would hot rifque the entry of their veffels into the ports of the republic, if it VOL. XXXVIII.

was for no other purpose than to furrender them to the French. The British minifters had, however, already made up their minds to appropriate this booty to themfelves; and to augment it, they diffeminated on all fides falfe rumours touching the fituation of affairs in this country, to the end that they might, in the fame way, allure into their ports the merchant veffels belonging to the republic, which were ftill at fea. They have fince entirely violated the rights of nations; and all the Dutch veffels, to which his majefty the king of Great Britain had granted his high protection, were, in violation of the treaty of Breda, perfidiously declared lawful captures.

But what puts the feal to the acts of hoftility and bad faith which the prefent British minifters have exercifed against this republic, is the treacherous mode in which they have endeavoured to make themfelves matters of her colonies. For this purpose they fent letters, figned by the Prince of Orange, and dated at Kew, the 7th of Feb. 1795, to feveral of the colonies of the republic of the Netherlands in the Eaft Indies and to the Cape of Good Hope. In thefe letters, this perfidious and ci-devant minifter and commander in chief of these ftates, after having abandoned all his pofts, ordered, on his individual authority, the respective governors to put the colonies of the States under the protection of the British arms; that is to fay, in the artful and cufomary language of the English miniftry, to furrender thein to England. Notwithflanding this felonious ftratagem has failed in the greater part of the colonies, through the fidelity of

their

their governors, it was impoffible to prevent the Cape of Good Hope, from falling into the hands of the English; and feveral important poffeflions of thefe States, in the Eaft Indies, have fhared the fame fate.

While all this was taking place, the British miniftry conceived the plan of attacking alfo by land this free republic, and of employing for that purpose thofe foldiers, who being more attached to the prince of Orange than to their country, emigrated on the flattering promifes of England.-The fugitives were not only well received in the States of his Britannic Majefty in Germany, but were even kept in the pay of England; and if the defertion of the greater part of the army of the republic could have been brought about, there is no doubt but they would have been led against their country under English commanders, for the purpose of renewing here, if the fact were poffible, the fcenes of 1787 of kindling up, as in La Vendée, a difaftrous civil war, and of thus deftroying the Batavian republic by inteftine commotions.

Is it therefore furprifing that the Batavian nation, now free, feeks to reinforce itself against fuch unprecedented and numerous outrages, by an intimate alliance with a republic which fnatched it from the gripes of its enemies? A treaty of peace and alliance was accordingly concluded at the Hague, on the 16th of May, 1795, between the two free republics of France and Holland. That treaty of mutual defence by which the independent Batavian nation, fupported by a powerful neighbour, and unfhaken by the influence of a foreign

minifter, will be put into a condi tion to employ for the future its forces against its aggreffors, and of paying them in their own coin, has alfo been cemented.

His majefty, the king of Great Britain, after fo many hoftilities have been exercifed, was at length pleafed to proclaim, on the 15th of September, 1795, by his council of ftate, a manifefio of war againft the republic, but in which no ground of complaint was alledged, His majefty, it is true, fays in this manifefto," that for fome time divers acts of outrage, contrary to the honour of his majefty's crown, and of the legitimate rights of his fubjects, had been committed in the United Provinces, and that the fhips of war which failed from the ports of the United Provinces, had received orders to take and fink all British veffels." The acts contrary to the honour of his majefty's crown which have been committed in the Netherlands, are the acts of his majefty's own troops, and the English nation will, undoubtedly, fooner or later, punish their authors; and with refpect to the orders given to the fhips of war of the republic, to repel violence by violence, has not the independent republic, fo cruelly treated, a right of refiftance? his majefty had forgotten that the Netherlands were no longer under the ftadtholderian yoke, and that his majesty's minifters had loft for ever, as we truit, for the fafety of the country, all influence over the independent Batavian republic.

It is therefore with a perfect confidence in that love of the country, in that energy, and in that courage with which liberty alone can infpire a nation, for a long time infulted and oppreffed,

that

that the independent Batavian nation folemnly declares in the face of Europe, through the organ of its legitimate reprefentatives, that, obliged to defend itself againft the acts of perfidy and violence of the neighbouring kingdom of Great Britain, it will repel every act of aggrefiion on its liberty, its inde pendence, its rights, and its legitimate poffeffions; and that it will put in execution 21 poffible means to receive fatisfaction and indemnity for the incalculable loffes it has fuftained through a perfidious ally:-in the firm hope that Divine Providence, who has fo miraculoutly preferved this country from a total ruin, will blefs its arms, and will not allow violence and oppreflion ever to fix their fatal abode on its free territory.

Done at the Hague, May 2, 1796, fecond year of Batavian free

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Madrid, October 11. HIS Majefty has tranfmitted to all his councils a decree of the following tenor:

One of the principal motives that determined me to make peace with the French Republic, as foon as its government had begun to affume a regular and ftable form, was the manner in which England behaved to me during the whole of the war, and the juft miftruft which I ought to feel for the future from the experience of her bad faith, which began to be manifefted at the most critical moment of the first campaign; in the manner with which Admiral Hood treated my fquadron at Toulon, where he was employed folely in

ruining all that he could not carry away himfelf; and afterwards in the expedition which he undertook. against the Ifland of Corfica-an expedition which he undertook without the knowledge, and which he concealed with the greatest care from Don Juan de Langara, while they were together at Toulon.

This fame bad faith the English minifter has fuffered clearly to appear by his filence upon the fubject of all his negotiations with other powers, particularly in the treaty concluded on the 19th November, 1794, with the United States of America, without any regard to my rights, which were well known to him. I remarked it again in his repugnance to the adoption of my plans and ideas which might accelerate the termination of the war, and in the vague reply which Lord Grenville gave to my ambailador, the Marquis del Campo, when he demanded fuccours of him to continue it. He completely confirmed me in the certainty of his bad faith, by the injuftice with which he appropriated the rich cargo of the Spanish hip le St. Jago, or l'Achille, at first taken by the French, and afterwards retaken by the English fquadron, and which ought to have been restored to me according to the convention made between my Secretary of State and Lord St. Helens, ambaffidor from his Britannic Majefty; afterwards by the detention of all the ammunition which arrived in the Dutch fhips for the fupply of my fquadrons, by affecting always different difficulties to put off the reftitution of them. Finally, I could no longer entertain a doubt of the bad faith

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