Ο

Na general view of the war of 1799, in Europe, it appears, at first fight, that the armies of France met with lefs dilafter, and far more fuccefs in the latter part of the feafon than in the firft. This ftate of military affairs was very much connected with the internal fituation of the republic. The war in Italy, under Buonaparte, had not only fed and fupported itself, but afforded a furplufage of finance to the treafury at Paris. Scarcely had that renowned chief embarked on board the French fquadron at Toulon, when a remiffness was visible in the military affairs of France. Neither was the genius of thefe men, Barras alone excepted, fuited to war, nor did the fyftem on which they aimed at the establishment of their own power and fortune admit of that pure, faithful, and prompt diftribution of the resources of the nation, which was neceflary to a vigorous exertion in fo many fcenes, on fo extended a theatre. A majority of them, Rewbel, Lareveillere. Lepaux, and Merlin, were bred lawyers; a clafs of men, in whofe hands it is obferved, the grand affairs of nations, often infulting the bounds of precedent, are feldom profperous. They were jealous of military renown and influence. They dreaded the intervention of

the army. They wifhed not for any greater number of troops than might be neceffary barely to fecure the frontier, and above all, their own defpotifm in the internal affairs of the republic. The poffeffion of authority, and new avenues for governing, by corruption, diminished in their cyes, the, neceffity of fupporting themfelves by fupporting the army. They wished to reft on other foundations. With all their means and arts of corruption, however, the part they had to act, both for the maintenance of their own power, and fupporting a fhew of regular government, in fo populous. divided, and lively a nation, was fingularly arduous.

The French were divided into two great parties, the lovers of or der and the jacobins. The former were the most numerous, as well as refpectable; the latter, the moft united, daring, and active.— The directory endeavoured to ac quire popularity, by fparing the people. Supplies of men, and all ne ceffaries, were wanting to the ar mies; nor were the fums railed honeftly applied to that purpose. Military and naval affairs were not only neglected, but fteps were taken that feemed to indicate a deliberate defign of involving them in conta fion and difgrace. The gallant Joubert, the friend and imitator of

the

the fplendid actions of Buonaparte, otwithstanding his victories in Piedmont, was, early in 1799, as we have feen, fuperceded, in the command of the army of Italy, by the minifter of war, the peculator Scheerer. The admiral Bruix, paading, with a large fleet, between Toulon and Breft, and Brest and Toulon, afforded to many reafons for fufpecting that its equipment was intended for no other purpofe than that of a chain of peculation from the directory to the dock-yard. There was no meannefs or mifde meanor, or act of injuftice and oppreffion fo great, but that a numerous part of the nation thought their rulers capable of it. While the battalions were greatly deficient ir their complements of men; enormous exactions of money made, for the maintenance of numerus legions, on paper. The privations, miferies, and diftreffes of the armies abroad; multiplied inftances of corruption on the part of the government at home; arbitrary imprifonments and fequeftrations, and juftice and injuftice, bought or fold; all these circumftances produced a general odium against the directory, which foon proved an overmatch for all their means, great as they were, of maintaining their fway by influence and corruption.

were

It is not permitted, by the limits of our plan, to follow the directory through that variety of measures they took, from day to day, for the internal government of France, and the fupport of their own authority. We hall only ftate a few facts, which, however, will be fufficient to give fome idea of the principles

and artifices that governed their ge neral conduct.

By their influence in the affemblies, the moft diftinguifhed and zealous of their partizans were appointed fecretaries to the different committees or commiffions of the councils. Thefe, in general, found means of bringing over a majority to agree to whatever was propofed. But, whenever they experienced any difficulty, or ferious oppofition, they applied for new melages from the directory, of a more peremptory and menacing nature, which never failed to reduce oppofition to filence.

*

In order to avoid the odium attending the impofition of fair and neceflary taxes, they had recourfe to rapine, whenever they had any kind of pretext for its commiffion; in which rapine they were cordially fupported, even by the council of five hundred, who bore fome analogy to the British houfe of commons, and were the more immediate reprefentatives of the people: though their fchemes were fometimes vigorously oppofed in the council of eklers. Thus, when they found that a propofed tax on falt would not go down, and the deficit was but im-` perfectly fupplied by a tax on doors and windows, they fell upon the poffeffions, moveable and immoveable, of the proteftant clergy of Alface." It was remonftrated in vain that these were fecured to the clergy by treaties between the former fovereigns of Alface and France. The poffeflions of the proteftant clergy, it was faid, belonged origi nally to the catholics; that tranfactions between princes and people

did not alter the nature and origin of things; that liberty and equality fhould prevail throughout the whole French republic; that the Lutherans, who had their minifters, fu periors, confiftories, and even canons, formed a state within a state, which was abfurd; that the interefts of individuals ought not to be put in competition with that of the public, &c. It was decreed as a law, that all donations and eftablishments, founded either by Lutherans or Calvinifts, whether for the fupport of divine worship, religious orders, or even for hofpitals, or other charitable purposes, were national property.

The difcomfiture and defeats that every where attended the French armies, in the early part of 1799, united with a general contempt and deteftation of the executive government, awakened the courage with the hopes of the jacobins, and threatened the moderate and peaceable part of the nation with a revival of the fyftem of terror. While a general infurrenction prevailed in the western departments, a coalition of parties was formed at Paris against the directory, whofe power was overthrown by the election of a new third of the legiflature, and, on the eighteenth of June, by the appointment of their fucceffors. The rapacious Rewbel was ftript of his power by the lot of feceffion. Trailhard, Merlin, and Lareveillere Lepaux, were threatened into refignation. Barras remained, and received for his new colleagues, Gohier, prefident of the court of revifion, and, at a former period, minifter of juftice; Roger du Cos, an ex-legiflator, of whom little was faid or known; Moulins, a terrorift or jacobincial general; and the filent, fpeculative, and pertinacious abbé

Sieyes, at that time French ambaf fador at the court of Berlin. It fcarcely falls within the province of general hiftory, on the most diffu five plan, and certainly not within our defign, to be more particular in an account of the political com fufions and changes of an unfettled and capricious government, agitated by fo many individual interefts, paffions, and vices. It is not worth while to mark the relative pofitions of particles of matter toft about in a whirlwind. Suffice it to fay here, what has already been oblerved, that the new rulers, on their en trance into office, had recourfe to the ufe and renown of arms. Still, however, while the voice of the jacobins was for war, contribu tions, and confcriptions, the cry of the best part of the nation was perfonal fafety, the preservation of property, and peace. In this al ternative, menacing on the one hand, a return of the royalifa (which must take place, if the o alefced powers fhould not be re fifted with vigour and effect) and the fyftem of terror, with all the burthens of war, on the other, the French nation, with admiration and regret, called to their remembrance, the hero, who, without confcrip tions of men, or contributions of money from France, led on the French to victory, and glory. In thefe circumftances, early in 08 ber, Buonaparte landed fuddenly at Frejus, in Provence, like a fpirit from another world. He as fud denly overthrew the revolutionary work of ten years, and affumed the fovereign power over a nation in capable of republican freedom, and the prey of contending factions, al moft equally corrupt, under the name of chief conful.

CHRONICLE

$..

JANUARY.

3d. THE

rivers and fhores along the Effex coaft were this week fo covered with ice, that moft of the corn and other veffels were frozen up. The wild fowl collected upon it in great abundance. Several accidents happened to perfons hooting with long guns. The landlord of the Feathers-inn, at Tillingham, fhattered his arm fo that it was obliged to be immediately amputated; and lieutenant Seave, of the Acute, gun-boat, in Bradwell-river, had his face feverely wounded. Both were occafioned by the bursting of their fowlingpieces.

4th. His grace John Henry, duke of Rutland, having attained the twenty-first year of his age on this day, it was celebrated with the greatest feftivity, both at Belvoircaftle and Grantham. In the morning the bells of Grantham-church uhered in the day. Jofeph Law rence, efq. commander of the volunteer infantry, went, at ten o'clock, with his detachment, to Belvoir-caftle, where they were reviewed by the duke of Rutland and the duke of Beaufort, and at one o'clock they fired a feu de joie. On this day every magnificence was exhibited at the caftle, and every joy which mirth and enterVOL. XLI.

tainment could give the ruftic was found around its walls. The heir apparent to the throne, the nobility and gentry of the county, and the fons of the first and most diftinguished families in the kingdom, to the number of about two hundred and eighty, honoured his grace with their prefence on this occafion.

6th. Turnbull, a foldier, who ftands charged with having ftolen, from the mint in the Tower, two bags of 1000 guineas each, was apprehended, at Dover, by the master of a trading veffel, to whom he applied for the purpofe of hiring his boat to carry him to Calais, and offered thirty guineas for his paffage.

Some doubts of the propriety of his application arifing in the mind of the boatman, inducing him to fcrutinize the countenance of his employer, he was ftruck with ́ his refemblance to the perfon advertifed; in confequence of that idea, he had him fecured until he infpected the advertisement, which leaving no doubt as to his being the perfon, he was fearched in a publichoufe, and on his perfon were found 1010 guineas of the year 1798; in the afternoon of the fame day he was brought to town in the mailcoach, and lodged in fafe cuftody.

Same day, at half paft one o'clock, the manfion at Walworth, the property of the widow of the late theB

riff

1

riff Fenn, and inhabited by her daughter and son-in-law, fir John and lady Rose, unfortunately caught fire, and in less than two hours was burnt to the ground. On inveftigation it appeared, that the old lady (Mrs. Fenn) was fitting by the fire, in her bed-room, on the first floor; a coal flew out of the fire and burnt the carpet; the old lady, as fhe thought, extinguished it, but in a few minutes after it blazed out; and in her attempt to put it out, her handkerchief caught fire, which fo alarmed her as to put her in a fenfelefs ftate. Sir John and lady Rose, who had been on a vifit to Dover, arrived juft in time to witness the deftruction of their premises.

7th. An account was received in town, from Portsmouth, of the arrival there of the Wolverene gun-veffel, commanded by captain Mortlock. This veffel failed from the Downs only on Thursday laft on a cruize off the French coaft, and on the following day he fell in with two large French luggers, one carrying 16 guns, and the other 14, and having on board 140 men each. A very warm action immediately commenced, which was fuftained for near two hours, during which, the Frenchmen attempted to board the Wolverene. Captain Mortlock, with his own hands, lafhed one of the French veffels to an iron flanchion of his own fhip, which, however, unfortunately gave way, and the enemy got off, and being clofe in with their own fhore, they both elcaped. Captain Mortlock was badly wounded, and the mafter was likewife wounded, and eight men, and a feaman and marine were killed. The Wolverene mounts only 12 guns, and carries but 70 men, and the united force

of the enemy was 30 guns, and 280 men. She is the gun-veffel fitted out by commiffioner Schank, with the inclofed plane in the gun-carriages.-Captain Mortlock is fince dead of his wounds.

8th. The lease of Don Saltero's coffee-house, at Chelsea, was fold, with all the curiofities. This wellknown coffee-house was first opened in the year 1695, by one Salter, a barber, who drew the attention of the public by the eccentricities of his conduct, and by furnishing his houfe with a large collection of natural and other curiofities, which till now remained in the coffeeroom, where printed catalogues were fold, with the names of the principal benefactors to the collection. Sir Hans Sloane contributed largely out of the fuperfluities of his own museum. Vice-admiral Munden, and other officers who had been much upon the coafts of Spain, enriched it with many curio fities, and gave the owner the name of Don Saltero; fee Tatler, No. 34, Nichols's edition, where Sal tero is ridiculed for his credulity in appropriating his pincufhion and hats to queen Elizabeth's chamber maids, &c. In the fame light is to be confidered a famous relic we have feen in the mufeum of the royal fociety at Crane-court, under the name of Pontius Pilate's wife's grandmother's hat, but better cal culated to fit mother Shipton or her grandame. Such collections, how ever, aided by thofe of Tradefcant, Afhmole, and Thorefby, cherished the infancy of science, and thould be appreciated as the plaything of a boy after he is arrived at man hood.

9th. Paris. The whole range of edifices erected in the interior of the gardens