England. The National Affembly of Batavia, by which appellation the Dutch convention chofe to be diftinguished, decreed, in imitation of that of France, the abolition of the national church, refolving henceforth to defray the expenfe of no form of worship, but allowing penfions or indemnities to those who might suffer by the prefent reform. Upon the whole, the policy of France respecting Holland at this period formed a striking contraft to that of Louis XIV, in the year 1672; and the military and other requifitions of the French were in the highest degree favorable, when compared with the extravagant demands of that merciless tyrant, which were fuch as to throw the republic into abfolute defpair, determining those who scorned to bow their necks to the yoke to renounce the country of their fathers, and to transport themselves and their families across the mighty deep, to feek, in the bofom of the Indian Ocean, an afylum from royal bigotry and barbarity. But from this ftate of extreme political depreffion they were happily refcued by the magnanimous exertions of a hero and patriot, whose name and memory will be revered as long as liberty and virtue fhall be deemed worthy of the esteem, or command the admiration, of mankind.

Although, on the first establishment of the new constitution of France, the perfons who compofed the executive government feemed inclined to favor the faction of the Jacobins, the majority having been themselves originally of the Mountain party, conceiving it expedient to adopt measures of feverity with refpect to thofe concerned in the infurrection of Vendemaire, who were oppofed to the faction of the Jacobins, it was foon apparent that the bulk of this dangerous faction would never peaceably acquiefce in the prefent, or indeed in any permanent order of things. The major part of the Jacobins who had been placed in offices immediately under the government, were gradually difmiffed; the police and municipality of Paris, where they poffeffed a decided afcendency, underwent a fevere

fcrutiny;

fcrutiny; the military force of that great city was reformed; and the alarm excited by these different measures was at length wrought up to the purposes of vengeance, when their affemblies were difperfed by order of government, and their places of meeting fhut up. For the fpace of fix weeks confused rumors prevailed of a projected infurrection of the Jacobins. On the evening of the 9th of May (1796), confiderable bodies of cayalry were ftationed in the neighbourhood of the Luxembourg and the Tuilleries, by order of the Directory; and the Pont Neuf was ftrongly guarded. On the morning of the 10th, the guard of the Directory and the legislative bodies was tripled, the streets were patroled, and the gardens of the Luxembourg were fhut. On the fame day the Council of Five Hundred received a meffage from the Executive Directory, informing them that a horrible confpiracy was prepared to burst forth the following morning at break of day; that the defign of the confpirators was to murder the Executive Directory, the members of the two councils, the constituted authorities of Paris, and to deliver up the city to pillage and massacre; and that the leading confpirators were actually feized. Among these perfons were, Drouet, remarkable as the man who had arrested the king in his flight to Varennes; Laignelot, an ex-deputy of the National Convention, and a member of the infamous Committee of Safety; Charles, Ricard, and Babeuf, ftyling himself Gracchus Babeuf, once the affociate of Marat of infamous memory, who had fallen under the virtuous dagger of a modern Judith; Roffignol, ex-general of La Vendée; Amar, a notorious terrorist, &c. were alfo of the number: but Vadier and Robert Lindet effected their efcape. Judging from the papers tranfmitted by the Directory to the councils, none of the various confpiracies which had convulfed the republic was more daring than the prefent, or had been more completely organized. A national convention, committees of general and public safety, and a municipality of

Paris, were to be immediately formed, and to administer in a revolutionary manner till the establishment of the conftitution of 1793. No doubt the aim of the Directory was to make the present confpiracy appear as black and atrocious as poffible; and there is indeed reafon to believe that the foundations of it were both deeply laid and widely extended, but the timely discovery of this plot occafioned the public alarm to fubfide almost as soon as it was excited. Babeuf, and divers of his accomplices, were tried by the high criminal court at Vendome, convicted, and put to death. Infurrections and disturbances in different parts of the country, excited by the Jacobins, were quickly fuppreffed-the authority of the new government being, as ufual in such cases, more firmly established by this abortive attempt to fubvert it But the Jacobins and royalifts throughout France joined in exclaiming against the tyranny of the Directory, and in representing this plot, popularly styled the Confpiracy of Floreal, as having no real existence.

The affairs of finance greatly occupied the attention of the French government at this period. The credit of the affignats had been fo much depreciated as to render that paper altogether ufelefs. An order was therefore made to fell the remainder of the national domains at a low valuation, for which a new paper fabrication, under the name of mandats, was to be received in payment as money: but, owing to causes which foreigners are ill able to develope, this paper fell almost immediately to the fame or even a greater degree of depreciation than the affignats. Recourse was then had to the expedient of a forced loan, the produce of which fell far fhort of expectation; and the fanguine hopes of the English minister were again excited by the heavy and repeated complaints of the Directory of the impoverished state of the public revenue :-but persons of deeper penetration were perfectly aware that the phyfical refources of fuch a country as France could never be really

and

and truly exhaufted, and that, under the government of able men, the political means could never be wanting of bringing these resources into action.

It being decreed, by an article of the new constitution, that no one should be disturbed in the exercise of religious worship, provided he conformed to the laws, the constitutional priests, who, during the Robefpierrian tyranny, had been involved in one common proscription with those who refufed the oaths to government, again took poffeffion of the churches, though unendowed, under the authority of the different communes. Meanwhile the non-juring priests continued to exercise their profeffion, and found everywhere devotees who confidered them as the only fure guides in the road to falvation; and a great schism arose in France between the two fects of Catholics. The conforming clergy, defirous to preserve their reputation for religious orthodoxy, which they held to be perfectly confiftent with an attachment to republicanifm, had, so early as the spring of 1795, convened a kind of fynod for the purpose of examining into the ftate of the defolated church, and to take measures for the re-establishment of ecclefiaftical discipline, and the reftoration of public worship. The bishops who compofed this fynod, now reduced to the state of primitive episcopacy, published a circular letter addreffed to the Faithful in Christ, and containing a declaration of principles little differing from thofe which had formed the creed of the Gallican church. The pope was admitted to be their visible head; and the whole of the doctrines taught by the Apoftolic and Roman church, defined by the cecumenical councils, and explained by Boffuet, were adopted as the ftandard of the Catholic faith. In the government of the church, epifcopacy was acknowledged to be of divine original, and the authority exercised by the hierarchy was confequently ́asferted to be of divine right. This authority they immediately exercised, by formally expelling from their communion fuch as they adjudged to be unworthy of their profef

fion, or to have incurred in any mode the guilt of apostasy during the late period of perfecution; amongst whom they reckoned those who had renounced their functions, or had contracted marriage. But the offence which most excited their indignation was what they were pleased to style the crime of LAICISM, which they defined to be the ufurpation of priestly offices, declaring it to participate of the double character of error and facrilege. The laymen, who were the objects of this priestly anathema, were thofe who prefided at the religious affemblies of the people, where no ecclefiaftic was to be found—a practice, during the violence of the Robespierrian perfecution, by no means uncommon in France. Poffeffing not the fhadow of temporal power, or the remoteft profpect of acquiring it, this humble-minded fynod declared, in a fecond letter or address published at the close of the year, their authority to be merely spiritual. After denouncing their cenfures and anathemas, they avowed the diftinctive characteristic of Chriftianity to be charity! Reluctant to acknowledge any jurisdiction superior to their own, they affirmed that the bishop of Rome was first in dignity only, and not in power; and, the storm of perfecution having yet fcarcely ceafed, they inculcated the principle of toleration with great earnestness. Upon the whole, though there is no reafon to doubt but that this felf-created fynod might be composed of virtuous and refpectable individuals, the spirit of priestly domination, alike in all ages, in all countries, and under all circumftances, appeared extremely confpicuous in all its proceedings; and the affembly being again convoked at Versailles, in the month of March in the following year (1796), were immediately difperfed by an order from the executive power. In all other refpects the new government maintained a wife neutrality between the contending parties, and appeared to concern itself little or nothing in the contest.

Under the aufpices of the Directory a grand literary and fcientific affociation, bearing the appellation of the National Institute,