would presently happen, when they should be left to themselves, which would afford a plausible pretext to justify his armed interference.

The aristocratic cantons of the ancient Swiss League were satisfied with the constitution finally adopted by the French party of their country; but not so the democratic, or small cantons, who, rather than submit to it, declared their resolution to July 19. withdraw from the general league, as new-modelled by the French, and to form under their own ancient laws a separate confederacy. This was to consist of the cantons of Schweitz, Uri, and Underwalden, forest and mountain regions, in which the Swiss have least degenerated from the simple and hardy manners of their ancestors. A civil war immediately broke out, in the course of which it was seen, that in popularity, as well as patriotism, the usurping Helvetic government, established by French interest, was totally inferior to the gallant foresters. These last were guided chiefly by the patriotic Reding, who strove, with undaunted though ultimately with vain resolution, to emancipate his unfortunate country. The intrusive government were driven from Berne, their troops every where routed, and the federative party were generally received with the utmost demonstrations of joy by their countrymen, few adhering to the usurpers, excepting those who were attached to them by views of emolument.

But while Reding and the Swiss patriots were triumphing in the prospect of restoring their ancient constitution, with all its privileges and immunities, the strong grasp of superior power was extended to crush their patriotic exertions.

The fatal tidings of the proposed forcible interference of France, were made known by the sudden arrival of Rapp, adjutant-general of Buonaparte, with a letter addressed to the eighteen Sept. 30. Swiss cantons.2 This manifesto was of a most extraordinary nature. Buonaparte upbraided the Swiss with their civil discords of three years standing, forgetting that these discords would not have existed but for the invasion of the French. He told them that, when he, as a boon granted, had been pleased to withdraw his troops from their country, they had immediately turned their arms against each other. These are singular pro

"In the conviction, that for a forced and unfortunate marriage, divorce is the only reasonable remedy, and that Helvetia and ourselves cannot recover repose and content, except by the rupture of this forced tie, we are firmly resolved to labour at that separation with all possible activity."

2 "The first consul instructed Ney to enter Switzerland with a corps of troops, and caused Reding, the instigator of the disturbances, to be arrested; and he despatched Rapp, in all haste, who providentially arrived at the moment when the parties were coming to blows. Rapp, with a rare presence of mind, alighted from his carriage, placed himself between the two armies, loudly declaring, in the German language, that he was authorised to denounce, as an enemy of the French nation, whichever of the two parties should commence firing, and that he was ordered to introduce a fresh body of French troops into the Swiss territory. His firmness produced the greater effect, as both parties had the same consequences to apprehend, from a second invasion."-SAVARY, tom. i., p. 301.

positions enough to be found in a proclamation addressed by one independent nation to another. But what follows is still more extraordinary. "You have disputed three years, without understanding one another; if left any longer to yourselves, you will kill each other for three years more, without coming to any better result. Your history shows that your intestine wars cannot be terminated without the efficacious intervention of France. It is true, I had resolved not to intermeddle with your affairs, having always found that your various governments have applied to me for advice which they never meant to follow, and have sometimes made a bad use of my name to favour their own private interests and passions. But I neither can, nor ought to remain insensible to the distress of which I see you the prey. I recall my resolution of neutrality. I consent to be the mediator of your differences; but my mediation shall be effectual, such as becomes the great nation in whose name I address you." "" 1

This insulting tone, with which, uninvited, and as if granting a favour, the chief consul took upon him, as a matter of course, to exercise the most arbitrary power over a free and independent people, is equally remarkable at the close of the manifesto. The proclamation commands, that a deputation be sent to Paris, to consult with the chief consul; and concludes with an assertion of Buonaparte's "right to expect that no city, community, or public body, should presume to contradict the measures which it might please him to adopt." To support the reasoning of a manifesto which every schoolboy might have confuted, Ney, with an army of forty thousand men, entered Switzerland at different points.

As the presence of such an overpowering force rendered resistance vain, Aloys Reding, and his gallant companions, were compelled to dismiss their forces after a touching address to them. The Diet of Schweitz also dissolved itself in consequence of the interference, as they stated,2 of an armed force of foreigners, whom it was impossible, in the exhausted state of the country, to oppose.

Switzerland was thus, once more, occupied by French soldiers. The patriots, who had distinguished themselves in asserting her rights, were sought after and imprisoned. Aloys Reding was urged to conceal himself, but he declined to do so; and when upbraided by the French officer who came to arrest him, as being the head of the insurrection, he answered nobly," I have obeyed the call of conscience and my country. do you execute the commands of your master." He was imprisoned in the castle of Aarsbourg.3

1 Annual Register, vol. xliv., p. 671.

2 Annual Register, vol. xliv., p. 678.

3 Aloys Reding was born in 1755. After being confined several months in the castle of Aarsbourg, he was liberated, and being in 1803 elected landemann of the canton of Schweitz, he assisted, in that capacity, at the diet of Fribourg, in 1809. He died at Schweitz in 1819.

The resistance of these worthy patriots, their calm, dignified, and manly conduct, their simple and affecting pleas against overmastering violence, though they failed to procure the advantages which they hoped for their country, were not lost to the world, or to the cause of freedom. Their pathetic complaints, when perused in many a remote valley, excited detestation of French usurpation, in bosoms which had hitherto contented themselves with regarding the victories of the Republic with wonder, if not with admiration. For other aggressions, the hurry of revolution, the extremity of war, the strong compulsion of necessity might be pleaded; but that upon Switzerland was as gratuitous and unprovoked as it was nefariously unjust. The name of the cantons, connected with so many recollections of ancient faith and bravery, hardy simplicity, and manly freedom, gave additional interest to the sufferings of such a country; and no one act of his public life did Buonaparte so much injury throughout Europe, as his conduct towards Switzerland.1

The dignified resistance of the Swiss, their renown for courage, and the policy of not thwarting them too far, had some effect on the chief consul himself; and in the final act of mediation, by which he saved them the farther trouble of taking thought about their own constitution, he permitted federalism to remain as an integral principle. By a subsequent defensive treaty, the cantons agreed to refuse all passage through the country to the enemies of France, and engaged to maintain an army of a few thousand men to guarantee this engagement. Switzerland also furnished France with a subsidiary army of sixteen thousand men, to be maintained at the expense of the French Government. But the firmness which these mountaineers showed in the course of discussing this treaty was such, that it saved them from having the conscription imposed on them, as in other countries under the dominion of France."

Notwithstanding these qualifications, however, it was evident that the voluntary and self-elected-Mediator 3 of Switzerland was in fact sovereign of that country, as well as of France and the north of Italy; but there was no voice to interdict this formidable accumulation of power. England alone interfered, by sending an

1 "Never did Buonaparte less abuse his vast preponderance; and Switzerland is, without contradiction, of all states, near or distant, over which he has exerted his influence, that which he has spared the most, during the fifteen years of his ascendency and glory. In order to pay a proper tribute to truth, I will add, that the act of mediation was impregnated, as much as possible, with the conciliatory and characteristically moderate spirit of Barthélemi.” — FOUCHE, tom. i., p. 254.

2 Montgaillard, tom. vi., p. 5; Jomini, Vie Politique et Militaire de Napoleon, tom. i., p. 532; Savary, vol. i., p. 302.

3 "The deputies, pleased with the result of their mission, requested the first consul to retain the title of Mediator which had been conferred upon him. The country was restored to its wonted tranquillity without the effusion of blood; and the celebrated M. de la Harpe (formerly tutor to the Emperor Alexander,) who had governed it under the title of Director, came to fix his residence in Paris."-SAVARY, tom. i., p. 302.

envoy (Mr. Moore) to the diet of Schweitz, to inquire by what means she could give assistance to their claims of independence; but ere his arrival, the operations of Ney had rendered all farther resistance impossible. A remonstrance was also made by England to the French Government upon this unprovoked aggression on the liberties of an independent people.1 But it remained unanswered and unnoticed, unless in the pages of the Moniteur, where the pretensions of Britain to interfere with the affairs of the Continent, were held up to ridicule and contempt. After this period, Buonaparte adopted, and continued to bear, the title of Grand Mediator of the Helvetian Republic, in token, doubtless, of the right which he had assumed, and effectually exercised, of interfering in their affairs whenever it suited him to do so.2

1 For Lord Hawkesbury's note-verbal to M. Otto, Oct. 10, 1802, together with his lordship's directions to Mr. Moore, and Mr. Moore's reply, see Annual Register, vol. xliv., pp. 674-678.

2 "That which Sir Walter Scott here advances concerning the blameable policy of Napoleon with respect to the Swiss, when he gave them this act of mediation, is not correct, and I will prove it to be so. I was in Switzerland in 1814, after the invasion of the allies, and certainly this was the period of the greatest enmity towards my brother; it was the epoch of the calumniators and libellers; nay, there existed those who carried their effrontery so far, as to declare that the name of Napoleon was not his own, and that he was called Nicholas. Nevertheless, even at this period, some of the deputies of the Diet, and the landemanns of the different cantons, and the principal Swiss, who frequented the baths of Baden, near Zurich, where I then was, did not refrain from openly declaring, that they could not complain of the Emperor Napoleon, that he had put an end to their difficulties, and that they could feel nothing but gratitude towards him."-LOUIS BUONAPARTE, p. 38.

APPENDIX.

No. I.

BUONAPARTE'S LETTER TO GENERAL PAOLI.

[See p. 9.]

GENERAL,

I was born when our country was perishing. Thirty thousand Frenchmen, vomited on our coasts, drowning the throne of liberty in streams of bloodsuch was the odious spectacle which first presented itself to my sight.

The cries of the dying, the groans of the oppressed, the tears of despair, were the companions of my infancy.

You quitted our island, and with you disappeared the hope of happiness. Slavery was the reward of our submission; weighed down under the tripple chain of the soldier, the legislator, and the collector of imposts, our countrymen live despised-despised by those who have the forces of the administration in their hands. Is not this the severest of suffering for those who have the slightest elevation of sentiment? Can the wretched Peruvian, groaning under the tortures of the rapacious Spaniard, experience a vexation more galling?

The traitors to our country-the wretches whom the thirst of sordid gain has corrupted-to justify themselves, have circulated calumnies against the national government, and against you in particular. Writers, adopting them as truths, transmit them to posterity.

While reading them, my blood has boiled with indignation; and at length I have resolved to disperse these delusions, the offspring of ignorance. An early study of the French language, long observation, and documents drawn from the portfolios of the patriots, have led me to promise myself some success. I wish to compare your government of our country with the present one. I wish to brand with infamy the men who have betrayed the common I wish to summon before the tribunal of public opinion the men now in power-to set forth their vexatious proceedings, expose their secret intrigues, and if possible, interest the present minister 1 in the deplorable situation we are now in.

cause.

If my fortune had permitted me to live in the capital, I should doubtless have found out other means of making known the wrongs of my country: but, obliged to serve in the army, I find myself compelled to resort to this, the only means of publicity; for, as to private memorials, they would either not reach those for whom they were intended, or, stifled by the clamour of interested individuals, they would only occasion the ruin of the author.

Still young, my undertaking may be a rash one; but a love of truth, my native land, and fellow-countrymen-that enthusiasm, with which the prospect of an amelioration in our state always inspires me, will be my support. If you, general, condescend to approve of a labour, of which your deeds will form so large a portion-if you condescend to encourage the efforts of a young man, whom you have known from the hour of his birth, and whose parents were always attached to the good cause, I shall dare to augur favourably of my success.

I at one time indulged a hope, that I should have been able to go to London, to express to you in person the sentiments you have given birth to in my bosom, and to converse together on the misfortunes of our country; but the distance is an obstacle. The day, perhaps, will arrive, when I shall be able to overcome it.

1 M. Necker.