The fiege of Toulon was commenced immediately after the reduction of Marfeilles. On the 8th of September general Carteaux arrived at the paffes of Olioulles, and the city was formally invested. After various encounters, in which the befiegers and the befieged were alternately fuccessful, general Carteaux was removed into Italy, and general Dagobert affumed the command about the beginning of November. Nearly at the fame time general O'Hara arrived from Gibraltar with confiderable reinforcements, compofed of various nations. On the 30th of November the garrifon made a vigorous fally under general O'Hara in perfon, with a view to deftroy fome batteries upon the heights near the city. The French troops were surprised, and fled; but the victors, purfuing the enemy too far, fell in with a formidable force fent to cover the retreat of the fugitives. The allies fled in their turn, and general O'Hara being wounded, was obliged to furrender himself prisoner. On the morning of the 19th of December the French attacked, with enthufiaftic impetuofity, the forts L'Eguillette and Balaguier, which command the city, and made themfelves mafters of both with great flaughter. A refolution was immediately taken to evacuate the place, which was executed not without extreme danger and difficulty. The town was bombarded from noon till ten in the evening, during which preparations were making for a general embarkation, the wretched inhabitants crowding to the fhores, and demanding the promised protection of the English. But though great efforts were made, and thoufands conveyed on board the shipping, thousands more were left to fuffer all that the rage and vengeance of their countrymen could inflict. The ftores, and the men of war in the harbour, were fet on fire, threatening every instant to explode, and blow all around them into the air. Three fhips of the line only, of thirty-one in the harbour, were all that the British admiral was able to carry away, amidst

the

the appalling cries of agony and deftruction which completed the horror of the scene.

Such were the fruits of the first continental campaign in which England took an active fhare. The foul fickens at the view. The defencelefs and abandoned royalists every where vanquished and butchered; the energy of the French arms triumphing in every quarter; and the armies of the allies driven back with unheard-of flaughter, traverfing with giant strides the ground which by inches they had won, and with inceffant labour.

Scarcely had the savage and brutal faction of the Jacobins acquired a complete afcendency, than Marie Antoinette, late queen of France, was removed from the Temple to the common prison of the Conciergerie, where the remained till she was brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal on the 15th of October. The main charge against her, under a variety of heads, was founded upon her continued and diverfified attempts to effect a counter-revolution. A remarkable and very characteristic circumftance was ftated in one of the articles of accufation, "that on the 10th of Auguft, 1792, the day of the attack upon the castle of the Tuilleries, the kept the Swiss guards in a state of intoxication, and presenting the king with a pistol, she said, "This is the moment to fhew yourself ;" on his refufal calling him " COWARD!" After an hour's confultation the jury brought her in guilty of all the charges. The queen, on hearing the verdict pronounced, fixed her eyes fedfaftly on the ground, from which she never was obferved to raise them more. The fortitude and dignity with which fhe conducted herself on her trial did not forfake her to the last. In her degraded and forlorn eftate The might indeed confider death less as a punishment than as a release; and, on the day following, she expiated her errors and frailties, whatever they might be, with calm refignation, on the public fcaffold, and on the fame spot where Louis XVI. had previously suffered. This unhappy princess, whose faults

are

are absorbed in pity for her fate, poffeffed in the most critical fituations great firmness of refolution, not a single particleof which could fhe by any effort infufe into the mind of the king her husband; but she was equally deftitute of those intellectual talents which command refpect, as of the softer virtues, more appropriate to her fex, which conciliate and engage affection.

The fate of the unfortunate deputies of the Gironde. party was deferred from time to time, till the complete overthrow of their adherents in the departments fhould give fecurity to their profecutors, and afford the proper materials for their conviction. On the 24th of October the trial commenced before the Revolutionary Tribunal, which was on this occafion crowded with anxious spectators. The perfons accufed were Briffot, Vergniaud, Valaze, Sillery, Fauchet, Fronfrède, Lafource, Genfonné, and fourteen others of inferior note. It is remarkable, that among the crimes laid to their charge was that of having caused war to be declared, firft against Auftria, and afterwards against England and Holland. As, at the different periods alluded to, the Girondifts were the ruling party in the ftate, the charge was doubtlefs in a certain fenfe true; and, as France fufficiently felt the evils refulting from the war, it perfectly answered the infidious purpose of the Jacobins to reprefent it as occafioned by the erroneous or criminal politics of the Briffotines, who, in their turn, did not fcruple to retort the charge upon the Jacobins, as the perfons whofe clamour and violence made thefe feveral declarations unavoidable. The plain truth is, that both parties concurred in both inftances, and that the fucceffive declarations in queftion were at the time regarded by all France, and not without ftrong colour of reason, as just and neceffary: and this reciprocation of reproach was manifcftly no other than the malignant effufion of an inveterate and infuriate spirit of faction. But the article on which they were convicted was, the having confpired

against

against the unity and indivifibility of the republic, and exciting a rebellion in the departments of the South, and in that of Calvados. Valazé ftabbed himself as foon as he heard the fentence pronounced. The remaining one and twenty deputies were, on the 30th of October, conveyed from the prifon to the Place de la Revolution, and there executed-meeting their fate with the utmost fortitude, and many of them, actuated by the nobleft fentiments of patriotifm, exclaiming, under the fatal axe of the guillotine, "Vive la République !"

Thefe horrid executions were fucceeded by a vast number of others equally abhorrent to every principle of justice and humanity-for the most part it is fcarcely poffible to ftate upon what pretences; though the real fact doubtless was, that the victims fingled out by revenge or fufpicion were facrificed in confequence of their attachment to the vanquished party. In the direful catalogue were found the names of Manuel, prefident of the Commune of Paris; the brave and veteran general Luckner; the learned and philofophic Bailly; the young and amiable Barnave; the virtuous Rabaut de St. Etienne; and, to mention no more, the celebrated and accomplished madame Roland, wife of the minifter of that name, who himself indeed, with Petion, Le Brun, Condorcet, and fome others, efcaped the fcaffold, but terminated their lives no lefs miferably in various modes. France now began to wear a face of univerfal horror; and, amongst the tygers in human. fhape who polluted the air which they breathed and the land on which they trod, the deteftable name of Robefpierre became about this period incomparably the most confpicuous in infamy. Amid the innumerable facrifices made by the infernal Revolutionary Tribunal, there was one which feemed to fhed a pale gleam of pleasure over the deep and dreadful gloom-this was the execution of Philip duke of Orléans, whofe character was made up, of an affemblage of vices and crimes, without the intervention of one fingle folitary virtue. He poffeffed not, according

to

to common opinion, even the courage almost inseparable from high birth, and which gives, when carried to a certain pitch of elevation, a fort of fictitious luftre to villany. Finding his fate inevitable, he fuffered nevertheless with apparent compofure, amid the infults and reproaches of the populace.

As if eager at this period to carry every species of extravagance to the height, the National Convention, if the remnant of the national reprefentation which still retained their feats in the affembly could merit that appellation, feemed on the fudden feized with the wildest phrenzy of impiety. On the 7th of November, Gobet, the republican bishop of Paris, with his grand-vicars and various other unworthy members of the ecclefiaftical body, entered the hall of the Convention, and folemnly refigned their functions, renouncing, in terms of profane contempt, their profeffion as Chriftians, amidft loud acclamations of applaufe. By a decree of the Commune of Paris, the churches were fhut up, and a number of allegorical divinities, Liberty, Equality, &c. were confecrated as objects of worship; and a painted harlot was publicly enthroned in the cathedral of Notre Dame in the character of the goddess of Reason. The obfervance of the Sunday, that antient and venerable inftitution, and even the æra in ufe for fifteen centuries throughout Christendom, were abolished, and a new calendar fubftituted analogous to that of Greece, agreeably to which the year was divided into twelve months of thirty days each, with five intercalary days fet apart as a fort of Saturnalian feftival; each month being divided into decades, and a respite from labour allowed on the tenth day.

The example of the bishop of Paris feemed to excite an enthufiaftic fpirit of emulation. Lequinio and Laignelot, deputies of the Convention, wrote to that affembly from Rochefort, Oct. 2. "We pafs from miracle to miracle--Eight priests of the Catholic perfuafion, and one minifter of the Proteftant church, difrobed themfelves on the day

of