doubted the right of the inhabitants of the United States thereto, but because it appeared to him to be an act exceeding his authority, and which he ought to leave to the royal determination of our sovereign. The governor of Louisiana saw the subject under a point of view more correct, in my judgement, and more favourable to the inhabitants of the United States.

From the whole, it results, that the suspension of the deposit not being an act of my court, and no person ever disputing the right of the American citizens in the case, -I shall now take upon myself to adopt measures which must ensure to the United States the enjoyment of all the rights stipulated in the 22d article of the treaty, on the arrival at New Orleans of the dispatches which will be forwarded under this date.

avail myself of the opportunity to beg of you, sir, in the name of the French government, whose interests are implicated in this case, maturely to consider the alarming consequences which may result if the intendant should persist in his measures. The intelligence which has been transmitted to the marquis D'Yrajo has at least made it appear indubitable that the measure alluded to was exclusively grounded on the personal opinions. of this officer, and supported by no order from his Catholic majesty, or any intimation from the French government. This information, while it screens from suspicion the dispositions of both governments, and lays entirely on the intendant the consequences of the present state of things, does not, however, remove the apprehensions which that state is calcu lated to excite. These advices, sir, give an additional force to the remonstrances, which, for my part, and in the anticipated conviction which I entertained that these measures had a cause merely local, I had no hesitation lately to address to the authorities, hourly expected, of the French republic at New Orleans, under cover to the intendant. So pressing are the circumstances, that I deem it my duty to renew these remonstrances, and tc entreat your excellency to exert your superior authority to prevent the consequences which the prolongation of the present order of things may produce.

It will not escape your notice, sir, that, France being now notoriously the proprietor of Louisiana, and the authorities of his Catholic majesty exercising in this colony, at present, only an intermediary power, any measure having a tendency to commit

France,

France, on whom the odium and the consequences of what has been done, visibly fall, ought, were its justice and its lawfulness doubtful only, to be suspended; otherwise France may find herself committed, and her relations with the United States materially changed without her consent.

I enter into no further details with your excellency, being satisfied that they would be superfluous. Your excellency will be aware that the present is a most critical moment. In the collision of two authorities, one of which undertakes to initiate a construction of treaties which may lead to war, it fortunately happens, that the paramount authority, which is eminently entrusted with the preservation and safety of the colony, is of an opinion calculated to maintain peace. In such an alternative, sir, your excellency ought to hesitate no longer in using your power to preserve this peace. If it should be disturbed, the responsibility of the event must inevitably lie upon your excellency. His Catholic majesty, who is in some measure guarantee to France for Louisiana, until France shall have occupied it, would have to blame you for not having taken the measures necessary to fulfil that guarantee towards his ally.

The contents of this letter, sir, will, I am confident, be fully justified to your excellency by the existing circumstances, which the marquis D'Yrajo, in behalf of his, court, will doubtless make known to you more particularly. It only remains for me, therefore, to pray your excellency to accept the assurance of my respect and high consideration.

(Signed) L. A. PICHON. His Excellency the Governor of his Catholic Majesty, in the Province of Louisiana.

FRENCH PAPERS.

Publication issued by Monsieur, Bro

ther to the King of France.

Monsieur, brother of the king of France, has deemed it his duty no longer to remain silent respecting an important fact, of which too vague an idea has hitherto gone abroad. The variety of lights in which it has been represented, and the false reports industriously circulated by an usurped government, imperiously require that the opinion of the public, but more particularly that of Frenchmen, should be set right respecting the real state of the matter.

Such are the reasons which at the present conjuncture induce Monsieur to make public certain details which particular circumstances do not allow, however interesting they may be, to be enumerated more at length than as follows:

On the 26th of February, of the current year, a personage of prominent distinction, empowered by high authority, waited on the king of France at Warsaw, and verbally made to his majesty, in terms the most respectful, but at the same time the most urgent, and, in the opinion of him who urged them, the most persuasive, the astonishing proposal to renounce the throne of France, and to require the same renunciation on the part of all the members of the house of Bourbon: the envoy, moreover, observed, that, as a price of this sacrifice, Bonaparte would secure indemnities to his majesty, and even a splendid establishment. His majesty, strongly animated by that sentiment which the hand of Adversity is never able to obliterate from elevated souls, and which

"I am far from being inclined to confound M. Bonaparte with those who have preceded him. I think highly of his valour, and of his military talents. Neither do I feel ungrateful for many acts of his administration; for whatever is done for the benefit of my people, shall always be dear to my heart. He is deceived, however, if he imagines that he can induce me to forego my claims, for otherwise he himself would confirm and establish them, could they be called in question, by the very step he has now taken.

"I cannot pretend to know what may be the intention of the Almighty respecting my race and myself, but I am well aware of the obligations imposed upon me by the rank to which he was pleased I should be born. As a Christian, I shall continue to fulfil these obligations to my last breath. As a descendant of St. Louis, I shall endeavour to imitate his example by respecting myself-even in captivity and chains. As successor of Francis I., I shall at least aspire to say with him-We have lost every thing but our honour."

At the bottom of this answer are written the following words:

"With the permission of the king, my uncle, I adhere, with heart and soul, to the contents of this note.

(Signed) Louis ANTOINE."

On the 2d of March the king wrote to Monsieur, acquainting him with what had passed, and instructed him to make known the same to the princes of the blood who were in England, taking charge himself to inform such of them respecting it who do not reside in that country. On the 22d of April, Monsieur called a meeting of the princes, who, with equal alacrity and unanimity, have signed the following adhesion to the answer of the king of the 28th February.

ADHESION OF THE PRINCES.

"We, the undersigned princes, the brother, nephews, and cousins of his majesty Louis XVIII., king of France and of Navarre,

"Thoroughly impressed with the same sentiments with which our sovereign lord and king has shown himself to be so honourably ani mated in his answer to the proposal made to him of renouncing the throne of France, and of requir ing all the princes of his house in like manner to renounce all the imprescriptible claims to the suc cession to that same throne, DECLARE,

"That, as our attachment to our rights, to our duty, and to our honour, can never permit us to forego our claims, we adhere, with heart and soul, to the answer made by our king.

"That, in imitation of his example, we shall not lend ourselves in any manner whatever to any step or proceeding that can imply on our part a failing in what we owe to ourselves, to our ancestors, to our descendants.

"WE FINALLY DECLARE, that, being fully convinced that a large majority of the French people inwardly participate in all the senti

ments

ments by which we are animated, it is in the name of our loyal countrymen, as well as our own, that we renew upon our sword, and to our king, the solemn and sacred oath to live and die faithful to our honour, and to our legitimate sove, reign.

(Signed)

"CHARLES PHILIPPE OF FRANCE, "CHARLES FERDINAND OF ARTOIS, Duke of Berri, "LOUIS PHILIPPE OF ORLEANS, Duke of Orleans,

ANTOINE PHILIPPE OF ORLEANS, Duke of Montpelier, "LOUIS CHARLES OF ORLEANS, Count of Beaujolois,

LOUIS JOSEPH DE BOURBON, Prince of Condé, "LOUIS HENRY JOSEPH DE BOURBON-CONDE, Duke of Bourbon." Wansted House, April 23, 1803.

these invariable sentiments that I remain, sire,

"Your majesty's most humble, most obedient, and very faithful subject and servant, (Signed) Louis ANTOINE HENRY DE BOURBON." Ettenheim, in the Dominions of the Margrave of Baden, March 22, 1803.

Declaration of the First Consul, in a Message to the Senate, the Legislative Body, and the Tribunate.

Saint Cloud, May 20.

The ambassador of England has been recalled. Compelled by this circumstance, the ambassador of the republic has quitted a country where he could no longer hear the language of peace. At this decisive moment, the government submits to your view, and it will

GHIEN.

«Sire, "The letter of the Sd March, with which your majesty has vouchsafed to honour me, reached me in due time. Your majesty is too well acquainted with the blood which flows in my veins, to have enter tained a moment's doubt respecting the tenor and spirit of the answer which your majesty calls for. I am a Frenchman, sire, and a Frenchman faithful to his God, to his king, and to the oaths that are binding on his honour; many others may perhaps one day envy me this triple advantage. Will your majesty therefore vouchsafe to permit me to annex my signature to that of the duke d'Angouleme, adhering, as I do, with him, in heart and soul, to the contents of the note of my sovereign? It is in

of Europe, its first relations with the British ministry, the negotiations which were terminated by the treaty of Amiens, and the new discussions which seem to finish by an absolute rupture. The present age and posterity will there see all that it has done to put an end to the calamities of war, and with what moderation, and what patience it has laboured to prevent their return. Nothing has been able to interrupt the course of the projects formed to rekindle discord between the two nations. The treaty of Amiens had been negotiated amid the clamours of a party hostile to peace: scarcely was it concluded, when it was the object of bitter censure. It was represented as fatal to England, because it was not disgraceful to France. Soon after alarms were disseminated; dangers were pretended, on which

was

was established the necessity of a state of peace, such as to be a permanent signal of new hostilities. There were kept in reserve, and hired, those vile miscreants who had torn the bosom of their country, and who were intended to tear it anew. Vain calculations of hatred! We are no longer that France which was divided by factions, and buffeted by storms; but France, restored to internal tranquillity, regenerated in her administration and her laws, and ready to fall, with her whole weight, upon whatever foreign state may dare to attack her, or to unite with the banditti whom an atrocious policy would once more cast upon her shores to organise pillage and assassination. At length an unexpected message, all at once, terrifies England with imaginary armaments in France and Batavia: she supposes the existence of important discussions which divided the two governments, while no such discussion was known to the French government. Immediately formidable armaments take place on the coasts and in the ports of Great Britain; the sea is covered. with her ships of war; and it is in the midst of these preparations that the cabinet of London demands of France the abrogation of a fundamental article of the treaty of Amiens. They wanted, they said, new guarantees; and they despised the sanctity of treaties, the execution of which is the first of gua-, rantees which nations can give to each other. In vain did France invoke that faith which had been sworn; in vain did she appeal to the forms received among nations; in vain did she consent to shut her eyes to the actual non-execution of the article of the treaty of Amiens, from which England pretended to

release herself; in vain was she willing to delay taking a definitive resolution, until Spain and Batavia, both of them contracting parties, could have manifested their disposition. In vain, in short, did she propose to request the mediation of the powers, who had been invited to guarantee, and who, in effect, did guarantee the stipulation required to be abrogated. Every proposition was rejected, and the demands of England became more imperious and more absolute. It is not in the principles of our government to yield to menace; it is not in their power to bend the majesty of the French people to laws prescribed to them with forms so haughty and so new. Had they done so, they would have consecrated, in favour of England, the right of annulling, at her sole pleasure, all the stipulations which bind her toward France. It would have authorised her to demand from France new guarantees on the slightest alarm which she might have thought proper to pretend; and hence two new principles would have been placed in the public code of Great Britain, by the side of that by which she has disinherited the other nations of the common sovereignty of the seas, and submitted to her laws and to her regulations the independence of the flag. The government stopped at the limit traced out by its principles and its duties. The negotiation is interrupted, and we are ready to fight, if we are attacked. We shall, at least, fight to maintain the faith of treaties, and for the honour of the French name. Had we yielded to a vain terror, we should soon have had to fight to repel new pretensions; but we should fight dishonoured by a previous weakness, fallen in our own

eyes,