fentiments engraved on it, that would well justify the confidence of the nation. All distrust would then be banished from their bosoms, and we should all be happy." This, however, was but a tranfient and fallacious calm; nor was distrust, for a fingle moment, really banished from their minds, Unhappily the event but too well juftified their supicions. On the night of the 20th of June (1791), the king, queen, dauphin, and princess Elizabeth, fister to the king, also the count and countess de Provence, fuddenly disappeared. They had, as it was quickly discovered, made their escape through a fubterranean passage extending from the Tuilleries to the Seine. Monfieur and madame took the road to Mons; the rest of the royal family that of Montmedi. The king left behind him a paper, in which he formally revoked all his past oaths and folemn declarations, as the effect of compulsory influence, prohibiting the ministers from signing any order, and enjoining the keeper of the feals to fend them to him when required in his behalf. On the first emotions of resentment at the discovery of this event, the king's arms and effigies were taken down and broken by the populace of Paris. A proclamation of the affembly, however, foon restored order. The royal authority was formally suspended by a decree of the affembly, and a provisional executive council appointed. The national guard were instantly in arms; and deputations from all the different public bodies appeared at the bar of the affembly, with the strongest and firmest profeffions of patriotifm and obedience. Scarcely had the first emotions of indignation subsided, when it was announced that the king and queen had been arrested in their progress, at a place called Varennes, near the frontier. They were quickly brought back to Paris, and again quietly configned to the palace of the Tuilleries. On the 27th of June, commiffioners from the affembly waited upon the king, to receive his written declaration respecting the late event. His majesty asserted, " that he had no intention of leaving the kingdom, but meant merely to fix at Montmedi, till the vigor of the government should be restored, and the conftitution SETTLED." The refpect due to majesty was still preserved, but confidence was for ever at an end. It was incontrovertibly proved, that the king had long carried on a fecret correfpondence with M. de Bouillé, governor of Metz, and commandant of the forces on the German frontier, who had fent a detachment to efcort the king to Montmedi; a pofition to be maintained only by force, and whence, in case of neceffity, he could eafily retreat to the Austrian territory of Luxembourg. The accidental arrest of the king entirely difconcerted these measures; and M. de Bouillé made his escape into Germany, where he published a furious declaration against the affembly, calculated only to injure the cause he meant to serve. In consequence of the repeated perfidies of the king, it was proposed by fome of the bolder, perhaps the wifer members of the affembly, to declare an abdication, and to place the dauphin on the throne. On the queftion being agitated in the affembly, it was afked, what could be done with the king in cafe of a depofition; to which one of the members replied, "Let him go and keep school at Corinth." But the milder and more moderate counsels prevailed. The king remained at the Tuilleries, vigilantly guarded, till the fabric of the constitution was completed. On the 3d of September, the CONSTITUTIONAL ACT was presented to the king, who fignified his acceptance of it in writing, September 13; and on the following day he appeared at the affembly, introduced by a grand deputation of fixty members, folemnly to confecrate the affent he had given; concluding with an oath " to be faithful to to the nation and to the law, and to emply the powers vested in him for the maintenance of the constitution. On the 30th of September (1791), the constituent national affembly, after an uninterrupted feffion of two years and four months, terminated its existence by a fpontaneous diffolution; leaving behind it, notwithstanding some human errors and frailties, an illuftrious and never-dying fame. Under whatever varying form freedom may fubfift in France, the primary establishment of it must doubtless be ascribed to the heroic courage and enlightened patriotism of this assembly: and in the emphatic words of the Roman orator it may with propriety be asked, " enim res unquam, prob fancte fupiter! in omnibus terris eft gefta major, quæ gloriofior, que commendatior hominum memoriæ fempiternæ ?” qua In England the anniversary of the revolution in France was again celebrated, not without a certain mixture of indifcretion, confidering the lowering afpect of the political horizon in France, contrasted with the brilliant profpect of last year, and the odium it had incurred in confequence of the events which had fince taken place in both kingdoms. Party spirit at this period raged throughout England in a more violent degree than had been known fince the days of Sacheverel; and in no place more than in the great and opulent town of Birmingham, diftinguished by the refidence of the celebrated PRIESTLEY, equally famous in the different capacities of philosopher and divine. As a theologian he had fignalized himself as the grand restorer of the antient Unitarian system, maintained at the æra of the reformation by Socinus and other learned men of the Polish or Cracovian school; and which, refusing divine honors to the founder of the christian religion, acknowledged him merely in the character of a teacher and prophet fent from God, and demonftrating the authenticity of his mission by signs and wonders, which God did by him. ! The The extraordinary and transcendent ability with which this fimple but obnoxious system was vindicated by Dr. Priestley, as the genuine unadulterated doctrine of primitive christianity, had brought over to his opinions numerous converts, and had excited against him ftill more numerous enemies. Regarding civil establishments of christianity as the grand barrier to the propagation of the truth, he had in various publications argued against them with great force, inveighing against the corruptions to which they had given rife, though otherwise of a disposition mild and beneficent, with extreme bitterness and acrimony. He had on all occafions expressed himself on the subject of government, as an intrepid and zealous defender of the civil and religious rights of mankind; of this he had given a recent proof in a most able and masterly reply to Mr. Burke's famous book on the French revolution. It is fuperfluous to say that he was under these circumstances the object of detestation to the bigoted, of wonder to the ignorant, and of dread to the interested and the artful. Every possible artifice having been put in practice to excite the paffions of the populace against him, the day of the commemoration of Gallic liberty was deemed a fit occasion to carry the nefarious designs previoufly concerted into execution. The friends of liberty, assembled for that purpose at an hotel in the town, were during the dinner infulted by a furious mob without, shouting, with the occafional intermixture of horrid imprecations, CHURCH and KING! which words, it may be observed, however innocent or venerable in their unconnected state, are when conjoined the symbol of all mischief. At five o'clock the company difperfed, but the windows of the hotel were nevertheless broken by the mob, who seemed then inclined to feparate. But this would have been a petty and common revenge. Incited and inflamed anew by their leaders, they bent their course course to the chapel where Dr. Priestley usually officiated; this they fet on fire, and afterwards proceeded to the old meeting, which they demolished in the same manner. At ten o'clock the mob, now mad with rage and intoxicated with liquor, took the route of Fair-hill, the refidence of Dr. Priestley, about a mile distant from the town. Happily the family had notice just sufficient to effect their efcape; but the house, furniture, library, and philofophical apparatus were set on fire, and confumed in their more than Vandalian rage of destruction. The four following days were employed in the demolition of the elegant houses and villas in the town and its vicinity, belonging to those persons who had chiefly diftinguished themselves as advocates in the cause of Gallic liberty, or by their attachment to the religious principles of the great herefiarch Dr. Prieftley. During this time the magistrates of the place, who were suspected of conniving at the first beginning of this tremendous riot, and who had not read or attempted to read the riot act, were struck with terror and confternation; nor was any effectual effort made to check these infamous and difgraceful proceedings-far worse indeed than any diforders that had as yet occurred in the progress of the French revolution-till the arrival, on the Sunday evening, of three troops of dragoons from Nottingham; in a short time after which, reinforcements daily arriving, order and tranquillity were perfectly restored. Many of the rioters were taken into custody and brought to trial, but three only were capitally punished. Such was the superior lenity of the government on this occasion, contrasted with the rigors of the special commiffion issued for the trial of the London rioters in 1780, on which occasion thirteen perfons were, under the sanction of the lord president Loughborough, included in the same indictment! The latter months of the year passed over in gloomy filence. The parliament was not convened till the 31st of January |