narrow to contain two claffes of people fo oppofite in their principles and manners. There will be no peace among us until there fhall be but one party in the republicthat of equality, liberty, independence, and fraternity: until the enemies of the people fhall be for ever prevented from revolting against them. The experience of what has paffed ought to inftruct you. How has it been contrived, that at various times the momentary fucceffes of the friends of liberty were foon followed by great mifcarriages: that the tranfitory checks of ariftocracy were the fore-runners of the moft fignal fucceffes on their fide? It is because the friends of liberty were fo fimple as to think that the enacting of laws was fufficient for fheir fecurity. What is it that has propped the criminal audacity with which ariftocracy has unceasingly renewed its pretenfions and its enterprizes?-Impunity, and the clemency of the people, which has encouraged their enemies to defy, to combat, and to make a sport of them. You must have perceived, revolutionary citizens, that ariftocracy needed a leffon which it fhould never ceafe to remember; that it fhould be for ever fickened from a repetition of its criminal projects. It is for the accomplishment of this aim that you have established a revolutionary tribunal, charged to make an example, as well of the chief ariftocrats who wish to found their fupremacy on the degradation of their fellow-citizens, as of the fubaltern ariftocrats who have degraded their qualities of man and citizen, by becoming the fervile tools of the upper ariftocracy. By this terrible meafure we muft begin; but it will not be fufficient to complete the revolution. There are ftill greater additional plans to be adopted to confolidate its fuccefs, to purify the air of our country of every ariftocratic infection, and to obtain for the country a fatisfaction for all the damages and wrongs it has fuftained from its perverie children. It is to be our talk to accomplish a revolution of principles and manners, to regenerate the public mind, and to found, without any delay, inftitutions calculated to enfure the profperity of the people, to form true citizens, and to beftow happinefs on all. The revolutionary tribunal, engaged in the trial of prifoners, cannot efficacioufly attend to thefe objects. It is, notwithstanding, urgent to provide for them; and this tribunal ought therefore to be fo organized, as to facilitate its labours, and to procure the means of reaching its high deftination with celerity and regularity. We, in confequence, offer for your confideration and difcuffion the following plan: I. There fhall be added to the 21 members of the revolutionary tribunal, 11 other members to be named by the revolutionary clubs. II. Thefe 32 citizens, in conjunction, fhall inftantly chufe 11 of their own body to form a revolu tionary committee. III. The remaining 21 members fhall compofe the revolutionary tribunal, properly fo called, to be altogether engaged in the trials. IV. The revolutionary committee fhall be charged 1. To regulate the mode and maximum of the confifcations and indemnities towards the republic. 2. To adopt all the measures calculated to ensure the fuccefs of the revolution, as well as thofe which concern the public safety. 3. To form the plans of fuch public establishments as will concur towards the happiness of the people. 4. To fuperintend all the objects of an adminiftration, purely revolutionary. And, 5. To lay before the revolutionary focieties fuch extraordinary measures as circumftances may re quire. V. The powers of the committee fhall continue for one month after the functions of the revolutionary tribunal shall have ceased. VI. With refpect to whatever does not belong to revolutionary measures, the conftituted authorities fhall continue to exercife their functions, each of them conforming in this respect to the customary regulations. (Signed) BousQUET, Prefident. VOULAIRE, Secretary. and notwithstanding, when they entered on their functions, they found on the books of the gaoler more than 400 prifoners; they ac cordingly began by establishing the offences which were to be fubmitted to their judgement, and these they divided into the feven following claffes: 1. The refolution for the guarantee, and of confequence, for the entry of foreign troops. 2. The armaments against the patriots, both in the city and territory. 3. The machinations against the establishment of equality and liberty. 4. The machinations against the independence of the republic. 5. The manoeuvres known under the title of ftock-jobbing, by which the public credit has been injured, feveral families ruined, and the state embroiled with the French republic. 6. The manœuvres practised on our neighbours and allies, the Swifs, to engage them to break the alli Proclamation published in Auguft, ance. And, 7. The manœuvres set on foot to corrupt the public morals. The accufed have all of them been examined by the revolutionary tribunal, as well by public and private interrogations, as by precepts taken. The following is the total amount of the fentences pronounced, the detailed lift of which, with the names, will be printed and published at the end of this report: Thirty-feven fentenced to death, twenty-fix of whom are in a state of outlawry. Ninety-four fentenced to perpetual banishment, twenty-eight of whom have not appeared before the tribunal. 0 2 Four Three bailiffs, or common fer jeants, have been deprived of their pofis. Eighty-nine have been difmiffed. This makes a total of 508 individuals. Thus are the people at length avenged; and thus is the ftruggle, which lafted for a century between the oppreflors and the oppreffed, terminated. Independence has fuffered no outrage; liberty and equality triumph; and national justice has for ever taken up her abode in the republic. In the midft of the immenfe labours with which it has been charged, the tribunal has not been able to pay an attention to all thofe who, having conducted themfelves in a way contrary to liberty and equality, were perhaps deferving of punishment. For this purpofe, it would have been neceflary to protract the existence of the tribunal a third time, but every citizen must be fatisfied, that the leffon which has been given, as terrible as it is juft, ought to be fufficient. If, however, fuch thould be the refult of the immediate events, that the ariftocracy, now fo completely fubjugated, fhould again dare to raife its head; that those who have not been tried fhould prefume to avail themfelves of that clemency, by employing any maneuvres whatever, recollect, revolutionary citi zens, that in fuch a cafe there re mains an authority capable of repreffing thefe attempts. The revolutionary committee has the intermediate power of punishing them, as will appear by two claufes of the refolution by which it is conftituted. They are as follow: Art. 4. Section 2.-To take all meafures calculated to fecure the fuccefs of the revolution, as well as all thofe relative to public fe crecy. Section 5.-To propose to the revolutionary focieties every meafure which circumstances may call for. Let thofe tremble, then, who may form the culpable project of impeding the progrefs of the revolu tion in any manner whatever, and of thus preventing the attainment of the aim which every good citizen ought to have in view, that of making the Genevefe at length a nation of brethren. It becomes the tribunal to remind the revolutionifts, that, having been eftablished by them, it has never for a fingle infiant left fight of the direct and immediate power of its conftituents. That conformably to this principle it has confidered it as a duty to attend to all the requifitions made to it in the name of the revolutionary mafs; and that thus all the operations and fentences of the tribunal, against which no proteft has been made, are confirmed by the tacit approbation of the revolu tionis. The tribunal has not neglected to provide for the means of executing the fentences it has passed: and to the end that no 'doubt should remain on that head, declares that it has charged the revolutionary committee to carry thefe fentences into execution without abatement Revolutionary citizens, now that the critis of the revolution is paffed; now that the vengeance of the people has been exercifed, the ideas of the citizens ought to be directed to the means of fecuring the profperity of the nation. To attain this end, each citizen ought to use his beft endeavours to convert the revolution itfelf to the advantage of the people. For this purpose you have a revolutionary authority to which this charge is intrufted; its principal duty being to determine on the reftitutions to be made by the enemies of the people, and of course on the contributions which the country has a right to exact from every citizen proprietor. It is to make a juft application of the fums which may refult from this meafure, by appropriating them to public eftablishments, agricultural rewards, manufactories, &c. This plan demands the concurrence of all the citizens, who are well informed on any of thefe heads: and the country accordingly puts them in a ftate of requifition. Be confident, revolu tionary citizens, in the iffue of the revolution. Confine yourfelves at this time to the cuftomary vigilance it behoves every citizen to obferve; refume your civil duties; return to your manufactories and avocations; and fay to yourselves, that next to the love of the country, the love of " induftry is your chief duty. Recollect that tyrants employ two A principal means to enflave nations idlenefs and corruption. Men who aim at being independent always become fo; and there can be no republic where debauched and corrupted men are to be found. The country requires that in this revolution all the virtues fhould be difplayed, and morality, both pub-. lic and private, prevail in all the actions of the citizens. It demands a complete regeneration; and be confident of it, revolutionary citizeus, you will in vain have brought about a revolution to crush arifiocracy, and all its vices; you will in vain have repreffed the abufes of riches, if you neglect to proclaim juftice, probity, and virtue, not by words, but by deeds and good examples; you will otherwife, fooner or later, witnefs the return of corrupters and corrupted. The members of the tribunal return into the clafs of fimple citizens: in that quality they haften back with earneftnels to their fire-fides, and unite themfelves in every particular to the revolutionary citizens to defend the equality, the liberty, and the independence of the republic, emergencies of the war, are creating a pernicious increase of that fort of money in the country, which, in becoming incommodious to the public, might produce an interruption of the commerce of the interior; and, therefore, in order to prevent the difadvantageous confequences of this circulation of the enormous quantity of the fmall money, and at the fame time to procure means to proprietors of confiderable quantities of that clafs of money, to difpose of it without difficulty or difadvantage, we, with our ufual paternal care, have determined to open a loan, to be accepted from our excife-officers in all provinces, in fmall money, at four per cent. intereft per annum; the whole to be under the direction of our minifter of ftate, count Struenfee, and the bills to the bearer will confift of the fums of 25, 50, 100, to 1000 rix dollars. Given at Potfdam, November 18, 1794. (Signed) I feel very fenfibly that the world judges of military characters by their fuccefles, without examining caufes. Raifing the fiege or the blockade of Landau will make an epoch in the hiftory of this unfortunate war; and I have the misfortune of being implicated in it. The reproach will fall upon me, and the innocent will be confounded with the guilty. Notwithstanding all misfortunes, I would not have given way to my inclination of laying at your majefty's feet my defire of relinquifhiug a career which has been the principal ftudy of my life: but when one has loft one's trouble, one's labour, and efforts; when the objects of the campaign are loft, and there is no hope that a third campaign may offer a more favourable issue, what part remains to be taken by the man the most attached to, the moft zealous for, your majefty's interefts and your caufe, but that of avoiding farther difafters? The fame reafons now divide the powers which have hitherto divided them: FREDERICK WILLIAM, Rex. the movements of the armies will fuffer from it, as they have hitherto done; their motions will be retarded and embarraffed, and the delay Letter from the duke of Brunfuick to of re-establishing the Pruffian army, the king of Prufia. THE motives, fire, which make me defire my recal from the army are founded upon the unhappy experience, that the want of connection, the diftruft, the egotism, the fpirit of cabal, have difconcerted the meafures adopted during the two laft campaigns, and ftill difconcert the measures taken by the combined armies. Oppreffed by the misfortune of being involved, by the errors of others, in the unfortunate fituation wherein I find my felf, politically neceflary, will become, perhaps, the fource of a train of misfortunes for next campaign; the confequences of which are not to be calculated. It is not war which I object to; it is not war which I wifh to avoid; but it is difhonour which I fear in my fituation, where the faults of other generals would fall upon me, and where I could neither act according to my principles nor according to my profpects. Your majefty will, perhaps, remember what I had the honour to reprefent to you the day you quitted Efcheveiler: |