Reply to the Commander in Chief of the French Forces in Italy. THE laws of honour and of duty compel me to defend, to the lat extremity, the place entrusted to me.

I have the honour to be, with perfect efteem and confideration, Sir,

(Signed) LE COMTE CANTO D'IRLES.

(A true Copy.)

The General in chief

(Signed)

Mantua, July 20, 1796.

BUONAPARTE.

Refolution of the Council of Five Hundred, on the 8th Thermidor, (26th July) refpecting Mandats.

1. THE

HE last quarter of the price of the national domains fubfcribed for, fhall be paid in mandats, according to their ! current value, in the manner and at the periods hereafter fixed. II. The currency of the mandats fhall be declared daily by the treasury: the executive directory thall proclaim the average of the five preceding days, and fhall addrefs this proclamation to each department, which fhall immediately tranfmit it to the receiver.

III. Each payment fhall be regulated by the receiver, according to the last currency which fhall have been proclaimed, and the receiver fhall be obliged to clofe his regifter every day, immediately after the last payment fhall have been registered.

IV. Of the 4th quarter a difcount of ten per cent. fhall be made on the houfes which, in execution of the law of the 6th Floreal, have been valued feparately.

Arret of the Executive Directory, on the 8th Thermidor (26th July.)

THE

HE executive directory having heard the report of the minifter of marine :

Confidering that the maritime armaments of the French Republic have required levies of feamen in the ci-devant Belgium, as well as in the other united departments, and that thofe levies cannot be attended with all the fuccefs which there was reason to expect, on account of the enormous bounties for enrolment, which the Batavian government feemed to grant to the Belgians and the Liegeois; and that by virtue of the general difpofitions of the refolution of the executive directory, of the 12th Germinal, 4th year, which permits the failors of the Macfe, and of the other rivers that open into it, to man the fhips of the faid Republic.

3

The

The executive directory cancel their refolution of the 12th Germinal, in the 4th year, which authorifes the minifters of the marine and the colonies to expedite paffports for fuch Belgic or Liegeois failors, as wish to ferve on board the fhips of the Batavian Republic, and charges the minifter of the marine and the colonies with the execution of the prefent refolution. This prefent refolution fhall be printed. (Signed)

CARNOT, prefident.
LAGARDE, fecretary gen.

Refolution of the Executive Directory of the 12th Thermidor, (July: 30) fourth Year of the Republic, refpecting the Western Departments. THE Executive Directory, finding it expedient that the de

partments of the weft, formerly infeited by the chouans, and fubject to the military government, fhould enjoy the benefits of the conftitution,

Refolve as follows:

The ftate of fiege is raifed in all the communes of the departments of the weft, who had been fubjected to it in execution of anterior refolutions of the Directory.

The minifters of the interior, of general police, and of Finances, are charged with the execution of the prefent refolution, which fhall be printed.

(Signed)

REVEILLIERE LEPEAUX, prefident.
LAGARDE, fecretary, general.

Paris, 13 Thermidor (July 31) 4th Year of the French Republic.

The Executive Directory to Citizen Buonaparte, Commander in Chief of the Army of Italy.

THE

HE Executive Directory, who cannot but praife, Citizen General, the indefatigable activity with which you combat the enemies of liberty; the Executive Directory, who participate with all the good citizens, with all the true friends of their country, with all the fincere republicans in the admiration which the great military talents you difplay do infpire, and which give you a juft claim to national gratitude, fee with indignation the efforts which libellers, under different mafks, are daily making to miflead the public. and to fecond the enemies of our country, by rumours which can have no other end, than to diffeminate diffention among the friends of order and peace. The Directory fee with indignation the perfidy with which thofe confederate libellers have dared to attack the loyalty, the conftant fidelity of your

VOL. V.

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fer.

fervices; and they owe to themselves the formal denial which they give to the abfurd calumnies which the neceflity of foftering malignity has made them hazard, by accounts which tended to prove a flimulus to the Directory to read their productions.

Some, avowed royalifts, flatly circulate a falfehood; others, calling themfelves prime patriots, but pursuing the fame end, com, ment upon it, and eke it out in their own way, under the pretence of combating their pretended antagonist. Both parties are thus at work to ftop the progrefs of order, which is establishing; both fecond the enemies of the revolution; both wifh to fow difcord, and to diforganize the armies; both wifh thus to fport with the good faith of their readers, of thofe who afford them fubfiftence, and indecently prefent to them, as facts, accounts which are nothing but the fruit of a difordered imagination.

No, Citizen General, never have the friends of Austria been able to prepoffefs the Directory against you, because the friends of Auftria have neither access to, nor influence over the Directory because the Directory know your principles, and your inviolable attachment to the Republic. No, never has your recal been the queftion; never have any of the members wifhed to give a fucceffor to him who fo glorioufly leads on our republicans to victory. The libeller, who would feign to be your defender, dares affert that he knows the intrigues hatched against you, and of which fome money affair was only the pretence: who affuming a virtue not his own, dares add, that delicacy made him pafs in filence events which would only have made our enemies laugh; fuch a man impofes upon, fuch a man deceives the public, and is evidently unworthy their confidence. If this well-informed man, who, like his fellow calumniators, wifhes to give himfelf an air of importance, pretending to know all the fecrets of fiate; if this man knows of an intrigue of fuch a nature as he ftates, let him difcover it; let him make it known to the Directory: it is important enough; it has no doubt, fufficient intereft for the public welfare. The march of our armies for him who can bring it to light, not to difpenfe himfelf from denouncing it to thofe whom it is deftined to lead into error. But the filence of that man, his filence, which will be his condemnation, will open the eyes of the public respecting the confidence they ought forthwith to give to his infinuations. You poffefs, citizen general, the confidence of the Directory; the fervices you render every day entitle you to it; the confiderable fums which the Republic owes to your victories, prove that you at once occupy yourself with the glory and the interefts of your country; all the good citizens agree on this point: you will not find it difficult to confign the boafts and calumnies of the reft to the contempt they from themfelves merit, and ftill more from the spirit which dictates them.

(Signed)

REVEILLIERE LEPEAUX, prefident,
LAGARDE, fecretary general.

Proclamation iffued at Copenhagen by the French Minifter, Citizen

Grouvelle.

Copenhagen, 5th Thermidor, (July 23) Fourth Year of the French Republic, one and indivifible.

IN conformity to a refolution of the Executive Directory, every Frenchman refident in Denmark, from principles which are not rejected by the laws of the French Republic, and who, not having taken the oath of allegiance to any other government, wishes to preferve the rights of citizenship, and the advantages of national protection, is obliged to appear before the minifter of the Republic at Copenhagen, or before the French conful whofe refidence is nearest to his own abode, to legitimate his quality of citizen, and have his name inferted in the protocol prefcribed by the faid refolution. He muft alfo conftantly wear the French national cockade. Every one who does not fulfil this double ftipulation, will not be confidered as a Frenchman, nor fhall he, in any cafe, have a claim to the good offices of the agents of the Republic.

The minifter plenipotentiary of the French Republic with the King of Denmark.

(Signed)

PH. GROUVELLE.

Drefden, July 30.

THERE has been published here, both in French and German, the following ftate paper:

His most ferene highnefs, the Elector of Saxony, has taken no part in the prefent war, as a principal belligerent power. As a co-eftate of the empire, and in that character only has he fulfilled thofe obligations which the Germanic conftitution impofed on him as a duty; and his Electoral Highnefs, being fully impreffed with the with of feeing the mifeties of this defolating war terminated, has often endeavoured to accelerate a pacification by his vote in the Germanic Diet, and by other means. These are facts of public notoriety.

The meafures which are dictated by the prefent ftate of things, and by the precaution of his Electoral Highnefs, agree with the principles which he has uniformly manifefted. He will in no refpect deviate from them; and the refolution of collecting a corps of his troops on the frontiers of his territories, and those of the circle of Upper Saxony, which are now fo contiguous to the theatre of war, will prevent any mifunderftanding with refpect

to his motives.

In order, however, that no doubt may remain on this fubject, this Electoral Highnefs has thought proper hereby expressly to declare, that the affembling of thofe troops has no other object than to cover his territories, and thofe of the other states of Upper Saxony, against all foreign violence.

They are, of courfe, mere meafures of defence, unconnected with a defign of acting offenfively with them against any power, beyond the skirts of his territories, and of thofe of the faid circle, whofe first prince he is.

Given at Drefden, July 26, 1796.

By his molt ferene highnefs the Elector of Saxony's most gracious and special command.

LIBERTY, EQUALITY.

(July) Cape François, 4th year of the French Republic, one and indivifible.

The fpecial Agents of the Executive Directory, Commiffioners of the Government of St. Domingo, to the Minifter Plenipotentiary of the French Republic to the United States of North America.

CITIZEN MINISTER,

IMMEDIATELY on our arrival at St. Domingo, we haften to inform you of the delegation which the Executive Directory have made us of their powers, by virtue of the CLIV article of the new French conftitution. We are to exercise them to their difcharge in this colony; and that the important authority with which we are vested, may turn to the utmost advantage of the people under our government, we think it our duty to make ufe of every means which circumstances afford to minds defirous of doing good, and anxious folely for its attainment.

If the endeavours of the late French Ambassador had but a partial success, it was owing to a series of events infeparable from a great revolution; the colonists in Paris had a momentary influence; but the deceptive illufion, with which they had furrounded the government, diflipated as a vapour, and the Legislative Body, as well as the Executive Directory, pronounced themselves, in a moft decifive tone, against thofe external enemies of the principles of France, and of its facred laws.

An active correfpondence between you and us appeared to us well calculated to attain this end. It was the frequency and the intimacy of the communication between the laft commiffion to St. Domingo and your predeceffors, which at that time moft contributed in fruftrating the infamous plots of our emigrants, in preventing their arm. ing against this colony, and in neutralizing the effect of their ma

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