As the fands a perfect deteftation of the man and the minister who had raised himself to power by his pretended zeal for the cause of parliamentary reform, and had now become the most implacable profecutor of those who still retained the principles which he had abandoned; preferring poverty, exile, and death, to the poffeffion of riches and honors purchasable only at the price of an infamous and profligate apoftafy. In relation to these trials, it was contended in vain, though with much strength of legal argument, that the crime charged upon these gentlemen was merely that of leafing-making, or public libel; the punishment for which, by the law of Scotland, is banishment, under which term transportation to a specific place, which is obviously a fentence of a feverer nature, could not be included. forms of procedure in the criminal courts of that kingdom are extremely arbitrary, and the evidence admitted in them to the last degree vague and flight, the punishment annexed ought at least to be mild and moderate: but admitting the charges against the prefent delinquents to be fully proven, the fentence paffed upon them was fo difproportionate to their guilt, that the whole tranfaction was calculated to excite, and in fact it did excite, general indignation and horror, not in Britain only, but throughout Europe. "The trial of the Scottish advocate, T. Muir," fays a refpectable German writer," who, for various endeavours to effect a reform of the parliament of his country, was condemned to be transported to Botany-Bay, must excite in the breast of every German an esteem for his native land. We here fee a man fent to Botany-Bay on account of an accufation to which a German court of justice would have been ashamed to liften."* The military operations of the autumnal months of the campaign remain to be narrated. In a feffion of the French Convention, held August 16th, the energetic and fertile VOL. III. E * ALTONA Journal, A. D. 1794. No. 3. genius genius of Barrere conceived the fublime project of exciting the whole people of France to rife en masse to expel the invaders from their territory: and by the unremitted exertions of the Committee of Public Safety, this plan, in appearance fo chimerical, was regularly digefted, and the new levies organized with fingular dispatch and ability. On the 25th of August the duke of York, with his army, arrived before Dunkirk, after waiting long for the train of artillery from England necessary for the fiege. During the delay a fecret correspondence, carried on by the duke with general O'Moran, governor of the place, was difcovered; O'Moran was difmiffed, and afterwards fuffered for his treachery; and the garrifon was augmented by a reinforcement of 12,000 veteran troops. The defign was therefore hopeless. The works were, however, carried on, though with trivial effect, till the 6th of September. on which day the covering army, commanded by the Hanoverian field-marshal Freytag, was unexpectedly attacked and totally routed by a large body of troops fuddenly collected by general Houchard; the marshal himself and prince Adolphus, fon of the king of England, were taken prifoners, though afterwards rescued. A grand fortie was at the fame time attempted by the garrison with complete. fuccefs, and the duke of York was compelled on the 7th to raise the siege with the greatest precipitation, fuffering very great lofs in his retreat, or, to speak more properly, flight. The fine train of heavy artillery from England was only landed to be loft-no less than 114 pieces falling into the hands of the enemy. The French government, however, far from being satisfied with what was effected, charged the general, M. Houchard, with culpable negligence, in not cutting off the retreat of the English army altogether, as it was generally allowed he might with much facility have done and being denounced by the Jacobin party, he fuffered by the fevere sentence of the Revolutionary Tri. bunal. What was ftill more extraordinary, general Cuf tine, who had fignalized himself by very brilliant exploits during the former and the prefent campaign on the banks of the Rhine, met with the fame cruel fate for not attempting, by fome grand and decifive effort, the relief of Valenciennes. The world ftood amazed at these inftances of republican ferocity, and it was imagined by those who were ignorant of the fprings by which human nature is actuated, that no general of talents would be found to assume in future the command of the French armies: but events foon demonstrated the groffness of this mistake. In fact, when fo much was exacted, nope but those who felt the confciousness of superior genius, combined with heroic courage, could venture to undertake so perilous a trust. The French army of the North now took a strong pofition, under general Jourdain, the fucceffor of Houchard and Cuftine, near the town of Maubeuge, in the blockade of which the allies were engaged with their whole recollected force under the prince of Cobourg. On the 15th of October the enemy made a grand attack upon the army of the prince with fuch vigor and effect as to compel that able commander to abandon his chain of pofts and repass the Sambre. General Jourdain was by this means at liberty to fend detachments, in various directions, to Maritime Flanders, where they took poffeffion, with little resistance, of Werwick, Menin, and Furnes. They then proceeded to Nieuport, which was faved only by having recourse to the defperate expedient of an inundation, and Oftend itself was thought not free from danger. Early in the month of September, Landau had been invefted by the combined powers; but that important fortrefs being covered and protected by the French army posted, under general Irembert, at Weiffemburg on the Lauter, general Wurmfer, the Auftrian commander, on the 13th of October made a grand attack upon the lines, which were carried, with the towns of Lauterburg and Weiffemburg, after a comparatively feeble refiftance. The French retreated Б 2 retreated with precipitation, and the forts of Haguenau and Vauban were fucceffively reduced by general Wurmfer. In the beginning of November the Conventional commiffioners, St. Juft and Le Bas, arrived for the purpose of encouraging and re-organizing the troops. They ordered immenfe reinforcements from the neighbouring departments; and, to afford a third example of what they styled falutary feverity, general Irembert, charged with treachery in the affair of Weiffemburg, was fentenced to be fhot at the head of the army. General Hoche, who, as commander of the army of the Mofelle, had checked the progrefs of the duke of Brunfwic, now advanced to fuftain the army of the Rhine under general Pichegru; and these two heroes, who were oppofed by the equal bravery and skill of the veteran Wurmfer, performed in conjunction prodigies of valor. At length the Auftrian commander, overpowered by fuperior force, was compelled flowly and reluctantly to relinquifh his conquefts; and, after a continued series of the most obftinate conflicts, the Republican army, on the 27thof December, entered Weiffemburg in triumph, the Imperialists retreating behind the Rhine, and the duke of Brunswic hastily falling back to cover the city of Mentz. The fiege of Landau was immediately raifed, and Keifarflautern, Germersheim, and Spires, were repoffeffed by the French troops. Notwithstanding the very ferious afped which the rebellion in La Vendée had for a time worn, the efforts of the Convention were eminently fuccefsful alfo in that quarter. The character of the infurgents, who were the devoted adherents of CHURCH and KING, was made up of ignorance, fuperftition, and barbarity. It was faid that they mingled the facramental wine with the blood of their adverfaries, and administered it to the people. On one of their captured ftandards, prefented to the Convention, was embroidered, on one fide the figure of a bishop in his pontificals, and on the reverse the Virgin Mary with an infant Jefus. Jefus. General Charette, their commander, affaulted the city of Nantz while the citizens were celebrating the civic feast of the 10th of Auguft, but was vigorously repulsed; after which the infurgents were defeated in a variety of engagements madly contefted with the generals Westerman, Beyffer, and Roffignol; and at the end of October they no longer appeared in any confiderable force. An expedition had been planned by the British government, but with many concomitant and characteristic circumftances of incoherence and imbecility, for the purpose of co-operating with the royalifts on the coafts of Britanny, and the command entrusted to an officer of high and approved merit, the earl of Moira. But this was only a fecondary object with the English cabinet, who ftrained every nerve to exhibit to the best advantage the military talents of the duke of York at the head of a numerous army in Flanders-lofing the opportunity, never to be retrieved, of ftriking a mortal blow into the vitals of France on the oppofite quarter. At length, on the ift of December, when the infurrection was in a manner fubdued, the British armament failed from Portsmouth, and early the next morning they made the coaft of Normandy near Cherbourg; but not one of the concerted fignals was answered from the fhore; upon which his lordship retired to Guernsey, where he learned from undoubted intelligence the discomfiture and difperfion of the royalists, upon whom the vengeance of the Convention, by this time wholly Jacobinical, was exercifed with the moft favage and wicked ferocity. To the proceedings of this famous assembly, fince the æra of the trial and execution of the king, it is now become neceffary to advert, On the 15th of February, 1793, the plan of a new conftitution, on pure republican principles, was prefented to the Convention by M. Condorcet, a leader of the Briffotine faction, in a report from the committee appointed for that important purpose. As the plan in question was univerfally regarded by all perfons, of all parties, as altogether visionary and |