communion of the See of Rome.

He was followed in his fchifm by three prelates only out of one hundred and thirty-two. A rare and unprecedented example worthy of better times, that fo large a portion of a flourishing and long established clergy should facrifice honours, pomp, and opulence to the fevere calls of duty in deprivation, exile, and indigence. The confidential letter which was written on this occafion by the late unfortunate monarch of France to the King of England, was ftrongly expreffive of his pacific difpofition, and of his hopes, that no circumftance would ever break through the amity of the two courts.

A general court mourning was about this time announced for the death of the unfortunate Guftavus III. King of Sweden, who was murdered on the 16th of March at a masquerade by Baron Ankarstrom a military officer. This murder of a King, at a time when the prevailing power in France had expreffed the most marked execration of royalty, and was generally fufpected to propagate their anti-bafilican fpirit through every country which was open to their intrigues and treachery, was by many zealous oppofers of the French Revolution attributed to the wicked machinations of their emiffaries. The reprefentation acquired credit from the known zeal, with which this monarch had promoted the armed combination against France.

The Swedish Revolution of 1772, by which Guf tavus had established an abfolute monarchy upon the ruin of the aristocratical powers of his kingdom, was ever supposed to have been planned in the cabinet of Verfailles, where this unfortunate monarch had spent several months previous to his acceffion to the throne. Being naturally fond of abfolute power, he retained an affectionate regard for the court, through the influence and intrigues of which he had acquired it, and from which he received an annual I

fubfidy

fubfidy till their late financial diftreffes put a stop to the payment. On the other hand many of the Swedish nobility still kept up an indignant refentment for the lofs of their influence in the ftate, which, though filently, they determinately waited for an opportu nity to regain. The King had conftantly fupported his power by the unpopular means of a standing army and exorbitant taxes. Averfe as he was from fum noning a diet, his neceffities compelled him to it in the beginning of the prefent year. He unadvifedly iffued a proclamation for affembling the diet only three weeks previous to its meeting, for the exprefs purpose of preventing deliberation in the choice of the reprefentatives: and inftead of the capital he ordered them to meet at Gefle, a folitary town on the Gulf of Bothnia, which during the whole of their deliberations was furrounded with mercenary foldiers. But the Public and the King were disappointed in the refult of the meeting. No reform was effected, nor cenfure paffed upon the King for entering into a war without the confent of the States, which was an infraction of the new as well as of the old Conftitution. In return the diet only granted the King a part of the fupplies he demanded. Thus unfatisfactorily ended this diet, which proved fo im. mediately fatal to the monarch. The nobles and the people reprobated the idea of entering into the confederacy against France; their country was then grievously oppreffed with taxes, and they could not be brought to confent to weaken it still more, by the additional wafte of its blood and treafure, in order to fupport or revive a government, which had been fo inftrumental in fettering them with the galling chains of unlimited monarchy. It is generally afferted, that fome perfonal and private refentments from the King's having deprived one of his noblemen of an advantageous match, which he procured for a court favourite, co-operated also with the gene

ral

ral difcontent to bring forward that confpiracy of the nobility, to which this unfortunate monarch fell a victim. I have faid thus much of Sweden, merely to detect the falfity of the affertions, that the murderer was an emiffary from the Jacobins at Paris. Are not their crimes fufficiently numerous to withhold their enemies from fuch falfe charges.

The first public act of the French ambaffador to our court was the presentation of a memorial to Lord Grenville which ftated the reafons, why France had declared war against the King of Hungary and Bohemia; infifting particularly upon the right, which France claimed to change and model her own government without the interference of any foreign power; and upon the fame principle holding out a guarantee to all other nations at peace with her, that the French will ever refpect their laws, their ufages and all their forms of government. The memorial clofed with a claim of the obfervance of the treaty of commerce of the 26th of September 1786 on the part of England, particularly as to the refraining from any hoftilities. This memorial produced almost immediately a royal proclamation prohibiting any of his Majefty's fubjects to arm or act at fea against the French under any foreign commiffion or power whatfoever, and enjoining a ftrict obfervance of the treaty of commerce in every respect.

Mr. Burke's Reflections upon the Revolution in France appeared in the year 1790; and early in the year 1791, was publifhed Thomas Paine's Rights of Man, being an Anfwer to Mr. Burke's Attack on the French Revolution. The public are too fully apprifed of the nature and tendency of these two works, to expect any fresh comments upon them: incredible was the avidity with which this book of Thomas Paine was read by the middle and lower claffes of people. The draught was too palatable for those to refift who knew not its poifonous quality. By im

I 2

punity

punity its credit extended, and in less than a year more than fifty thousand impreffions of it had been circulated through the kingdom. It is a matter of notoriety, that in many places it was fold for four pence, and in others diftributed gratis to thofe who hefitated at paying their groat. Though Paine during this time lived publicly in London, and enjoyed the fatisfaction of feeing under his own eyes this unprecedented circulation of his book, and propagation of his doctrines, he braved and defied the arm of justice, which had not as yet been attempted to be raised against him; not a fingle procefs had been inftituted against publisher, printer, or feller of thefe libellous doctrines. Secure in his impunity, and flufhed with the fuccefs of his first publication, he published a Second Part of the Rights of Man, com bining Principle and Practice. This work, though written perhaps with more audacity and malice, than the firft, was notwithstanding an innocuous performance in comparison of his first publication. For the mischievous effects of the first work were not increafed by the lecture of the fecond; nor was the Second Part of the Rights of Man fought for by those who had neither feen nor relifhed the first. When however the fervour of the firft profelytifm had abated, and the credit of this levelling evangelift was on the wane, his Majesty's minifters, informed by Mr. Burke that these * writings deserved no other than the refutation of criminal juftice, directed the Attorney General to file an information against Thomas Paine for his libellous publications; which was accordingly done in Easter term; and in order to difpofe the minds of the Nation to thefe neceffary, though late acts of justice, a proclamation was published on the 21ft of the current month against the publication and fale of feditious writings, with strong

* Appeal, 95.

injunctions

injunctions to all perfons to inform against those who fhould be guilty of fuch daring attempts, &c.

Scarcely had the proclamation been published, when M. Chauvelin, the French ambaffador, prefented an official declaration to Lord Grenville, by which he complained that certain expreffions in it appeared to give credit to the erroneous opinions propagated by the enemies of France, both as to the hoftile intentions of Great Britain towards France, and the treacherous defigns of France to promote fedition and confufion in the kingdom of Great Britain it was expreffive of the most pacific and honourable difpofitions of France towards this country, and it produced an answer from Lord Grenville, which was afterwards read in the National Affembly, that breathed the strongest sentiments of peace and amity, with an unequivocal engagement from our King directly and pofitively to maintain the treaty of navigation and commerce between the two nations.

This proclamation, fingular as it was, occafioned very warm and interefting debates in both Houfes of Parliament, and became the test, upon which Mr. Burke's profelytes read openly their recantation of their former opinions, and enlifted formally under the banner of his doctrines. The proclamation was. more oppofed and difapproved of in the Commons than in the Lords, though the number and confequence of the perfons who on this occafion feceded from thofe, with whom they had formerly acted, was proportionably greater in the Lords than in the Commons. The arguments, by which the proclamation was opposed in both Houses by those who had the fteadiness to judge and the firmnefs to act upon their old principles in this hour of alarm, were nearly the fame. That the Minifters of the Crown had through the most criminal neglect or timidity permitted the free circulation of Paine's books, against which they admitted the proclamations to be aimed, and were

confe