were none of the exiles who, fince the eighteenth of Fructidor, had claimed either their eftates or their liberty. That it was a grofs act of injuftice; as those who had returned from tranfportation were not more culpable than they had been before the eighteenth of Fructidor. Farther, that it was unreafonable that men fhould be punished twice for the fame crime; both by tranfportation and by fequeftration of their fortunes. The meafure propofed, he observed, was impolitic. Repeated ftrokes of vengeance tended to loofen confidence in governments. Never, even under the revolutionary tyranny, had perfons, efcaping from prifon, been forced to undergo the punishment of death. Both Barrere and Drouet had efcaped from prifon before receiving judgement. No one ever dreamt of putting their names on the lift of emigrants, as was proposed to be done with the returned exiles, who fhould not prefent themselves for receiving their deftined punishment. Maillant finally conjured the council to abstain from the exercife of a rigour that was not necellary, and that might fubject them to the imputation of perfecution--which never made profelytes.

At the demand of Perrin the bill was read a fecond time and paffed into a law, with only feven or eight

dif ntient voices.

The attacks that were made on the proceedings of Fructidor either endeared them more than ever to the French legiflature, or induced a fufpicion that it might be neceffary to vindicate them from reproach, by outward and permanent marks of approbation. A monument, in remembrance of the happy events of the eighteenth of VOL. XLI.

Fructidor, ann. 5, was erected in the hall of the council of five hundred; and a law was paffed, for celebrating the annivefary of that day as a feftival.

By a decree, passed on the ele venth of November, former laws against priests were enforced; and it was farther enacted, that, if they did not, within a month after the date of the decree, prefent themselves to the central administration of the department where they fojourned, they fhould be judged and punified as emigrants, if found on the territory of the republic. If they had been banished by the eighteenth of Fructidor, or fhould be banished by any fubfequent law, two months were allowed to them for making their appearance. Infirm priefts and all who had paffed their fixtieth year were exempted from deportation, but to be confined together in a habitation to be def tined, in each department, for the purpose, and on no account to be permitted to go at large in their refpective communes or municipalities.

Thole who were without the means of fupport were to be maintained at the expenfe of the republic. Perfons, giving an afylum, in their houfes, to priests returned from deportation, were to be punifhed by confifcation of the house that had offered the afylum, if it were the property of the perfon who lent it for that purpofe; or, if . only a tenant, by a pecuniary fine equal to its value. They were, befides, to undergo not lefs than fix months and not more than two years imprifonment.

Meanwhile, military commiflion-ers, appointed after the revolution of Fructidor, in the different departments, were employed in ar[H]

refting,

reiting, condemning, and executing, lurking priefts and emigrants, and other perfons convicted, or there is too much reason to believe, as was loudly afferted, only fufpected of the new crime of royalifm. The commiffioners for Paris,being accufed, by the common exaggerations of fame, of great feverity, exculpated themselves by the publication of a lift of no more than twenty persons, in all, that had been tried, in the space of ten months; whereof twelve only were condemned to death, five acquitted, one fent to the directory, one to the central department, and and one banifhed. That even twelve perfons fhould have fuffered death, in Paris, for a dutiful attachment to the church and the king, was matter of deep and juft concern. But what was a more dreadful engine of tyranny and oppreffion, in the hands of the

directory, than even the laws against emigrants and ecclefiaftics, was that which was paffed for inquiring into all the attacks that had been made against perfons and property, public and private, from motives of enmity to the public and its friends. This opened fo wide a door for the gratification of revenge or avarice, that there was scarcely any perfon of note who might not be harassed by charges of this kind; which, if they fhould not be substantiated or followed by punishment, might yet prove extremely vexatious and troublefome. Exemptions from fuch fuits were frequently purchased by bribes to the agents of government, in all its various departments. On a furvey of the internal government of France, at this time, we are ftruck, on every fubject, with a fpirit of profufion, plunder, pro fligacy, venality, and corruption.

CHAP.

We have already, in our last volume, feen their attempts to levy a contribution from the American ftates. About the fame time, they attempted to play the fame game, though not more fuccefsfully, with Portugal. The Portuguefe minif try, intimidated by the uninterrupted fuccefies of the French, and dreading an invafion from Spain, now become their ally, and through which a French army was to march againit Portugal, had fent an ambafador to Paris, with offers to relinquish the coalition. A treaty of peace had, accordingly, been concluded with Portugal, towards the end of 1797, by the directory, on the condition of their receiving a fum for their own pockets, befides a large pecuniary contribution for the public fervice of France. This treaty was to be ratified in two months. But, in that interval, the court of Lisbon, hefitating about this measure, and being averfe to forfake England, its ancient and faithful ally, the directory, as foon as that fpace was expired, without the arrival of a ratification, annulled the treaty, and difmilled don d'Aranjo, the Portuguese ambaflador. As he delayed his departure, in hope of reviving the negociation, and obtaining more favourable terms, he was arrefted, and imprifoned in the Temple, though it was well known that he had been impofed upon, and made to believe that the directory was willing to liften to his propofals. As he had not tied againft the fiate, this was certainly against the laws of nations, and was confidered, as fuch, in all Europe. D'Aranjo was duped by a fharper, who had defrauded him of immenfe fums, by parfhading him that they had been

.

paid, to certain members of the directory, for the purpofe of procuring more favourable terms of peace for his government.

The fame defigns that the directory laboured to accomplish in America and Portugal, in the end of 1797 and the beginning of 1798, they purfued, throughout the whole of this laft-mentioned year, in Germany; as we shall have occafion to relate, in the next chapter. There were no earthly bounds to their rapacity and ambition. If a small or weak ftate lay contiguous to France, they fnapped it up, and either incorporated it with the French republic, always taking care to avail themselves, in their perfonal or private capacities, of the acceffions that were made by fuch incorporations to the refources of the republic; or, if fuch a state did not lie conveniently for being incorporated, as one or more de partments of France, they drew it into the vortex of the republic by affimilation, and, as they called it, affiliation. If a ftate, kingdom, or empire, was placed beyond their immediate controul, by political power, or remoteness of fituation, they attempted to fpring revolutionary mines, by various intrigues, and proper lodgements of the combuftibles of liberty and equality.

To the fmall state of Geneva, that had long enjoyed its political independence, by the precarious tenure of fuffrance on the part of its powerful neighbours, affuranceshad been given, by the agents of the French republic, and allo by the convention, that no attempt fhould be made againft it: and the arbitrary difpofitions, announced by the executive government, in the fummer of 1796, had been checked

by

by a spirit apparently more generous and equitable in the legiflative authorities. But the project, though feemingly abandoned, was deferred only to a more favourable conjuncture; and fuch a conjuncture was prefented, in the invafion of Swit zerland. The intercourfe which had taken place between France and Geneva, from the date of the conqueft of Savoy, had given a confiderable afcendancy to French principles of government. Though the mafs of the Genevese remained attached to the ideas of territorial independence, a confiderable number of them began to look with indifference on the form by which they held their liberties, whether as part of the fovereign people of Geneva, or as a portion of the fovereign and more powerful people of the French republic. The agents of the French government had foftered this fraternizing spirit, and made confiderable progrefs in proselytism, by reprefenting the benefits which would accrue from a more intimate alliance between the two nations. "" Geneva, relieved from a cumbrous and ftormy independence, would become, as the capital of a province or depar!ment, the most flourishing place of the frontiers. Its inhabitants would find more eafy outlets for the produce of their induftry. As a portion of a powerful ftate, their city would have nothing to fear, hereafter, from the ambition of neighbouring states; nor be placed under the difagreeable neceffity of afking affiftance from encroaching allies.

They would lofe nothing of their former liberty, but, on the contrary, enjoy a greater portion of it, in peace and tranquillity. From the moment of their union with France, the various parties, which often diftracted their little ftate, would ceafe. And, as Geneva had of late been the theatre of contending palfions, of difcord, hatred, and perfecution, fo it would ftill continue to be, till the acrid but chimerical independence, for which it contended,* *fhould be diluted in the wide-fpreading ocean of French freedom."

Whatever influence thefe reprefentations might have had, the partifans of its territorial independence were not lefs animated in rejecting the proffered fraternity. They af ferted, that "The interefts of both republics, as well as the morality of both nations, were in uniforin oppofition to this meafure. The republican- fimplicity and feverity, manifefted by the Genevefe, for ages, ought to be refpecied, by a nation which had confecrated the great principle of the fovereignty of the people. Geneva, in a state of independence, was an open and never-failing fource, to France, of both wealth and knowledge. Every clafs, whether merchants, manufac turers, artists, or men of letters, had at all times made the French nation the depofitory of their infor mation and their commerce. the other hand, Geneva, becoming a frontier town, fortified and garrifoned, fubjected to requifitions, and befieged two or three times

On