constantly every where sacrificed to those of its ancient rival, even by the persons appointed to defend its rights, meditated a fundamental regeneration in the form of the go▼rnment. We shall not retrace how England, knowing that the limitation of the scandalous usurpation of power and influence, on the part of the Stadtholder, would also diminish its influence in this republic. How, we say, the British ministry, far from interceding for the Batavian nation, or coming to its succour, when legions of foreign troops seized on these countries, committing the most atrocious disorders, pillages, and violences, considered, on the contrary, this devastation and this oppression with a malignant satisfaction; and concurred, when the mischief was completed, in guaranteeing, in a solemn manner, the system of a tyranny which resulted from it. When the French nation, wearied with the insupportable tyranny of kings, shook off its yoke, and formed itself into an independent republic, the British ministers thought that they could not have a better opportunity to dismember a part of that fine empire. They accordingly united in the treaty concluded at Pilnitz, on the 27th of August, 1791, by the princes of Germany. The French republic, well knowing that that of the United Provinces of the Netherlands would be constrained by England to take a part in this plot against its liberty, declared war against the British ministers, as well as against their subject William V. stadtholder of the Seven United Provinces, and his partizans.-It is thus that the Batavian nation was once more drawn against its will into this bloody war by its dependence on those same ministers: its treasures were lavished, and its arsena's nearly emptied, to aid the extravagant plans of Pitt and his cabal. Auxiliary English troops were sent to this republic, and when a defeat, sustained near the Meuse by a part of the French ariny, had procured a momentary advantage, the army of the States was forced to pass the limits of our frontiers, and those of France, and to wage an offensive war on the French territory. Soon, however, the victorious French repulsed their enemies on all sides, and from day to day the armies of England and the States retrograded towards our frontiers. The republic found itself on the brink of its ruin, since appearances pointed out that the theatre of war would be removed to the very heart of its provinces, and all the country inundated. Never were the States in so critical a position since the war with Spain; but this danger brought about their deliverance; Providence defeated the perfidious plans of its enemies, who were desirous rather that the republic should be destroyed than that it should be free. When the frost permitted the crossing of the rivers, the valorous French troops drove before them the English bands with so much speed, that the latter had not time to effect their infernal design; they fled, but their road was traced by fire and pillage. It was nothing but their speedy and precipitate retreat that preserved the republic from a total devastation. We soon witnessed the extraordinary traordinary spectacle which the citizens presented on all sides, holding out their arms to their conquerors as to their only deliverers. We saw the allied troops sack and plunder, and those who were called our enemies respect public and private properties. It was thus that the Netherlands were delivered from their most dangerous enemies. The stadtholder abandoned, in a dastardly way, his country and his friends, and sought an asylum at the court of the king of England. The standard of liberty was planted in all places, while the French republic declared the Batavian nation free, and re-established it in its primitive rights. commerce. The British ministers, enraged at seeing this republic still exist without being in their hands, attempted at least to destroy it another way, by totally undermining its extensive Upwards of one hundred ships, the greater part richly laden, which, either through foul winds, or as a measure of precaution, had sought shelter in British ports, as well as several Dutch ships of war, were laid under embargo, as if to prevent them from falling into the hands of the French. Their high mightinesses, sent commissioners to London to claim them, demonstrating, by the most solid proofs, that the Batavian republic was no longer under the dominion of France, since the solemn declaration of its independence, and that England ought to conduct itself towards the Batavian nation, as towards a free people; they added, that the Dutch merchants would not risque the entry of their vessels into the ports of the republic, if it VOL. XXXVIII. it is true, was for no other purpose than to surrender them to the French. The British ministers had, however, already made up their minds to appropriate this booty to themselves; and to augment it, they dissemi nated on all sides false rumours touching the situation of affairs in this country, to the end that they might, in the same way, allure into their ports the merchant vessels bes longing to the republic, which were still at sea. They have since entirely violated the rights of na tions; and all the Dutch vessels, to which his majesty the king of Great Britain had granted his high protection, were, in violation of the treaty of Breda, perfidiously declared lawful captures. But what puts the seal to the acts of hostility and bad faith which the present British ministers have exercised against this republic, is the treacherous mode in which they have endeavoured to make themselves masters of her colonies. For this purpose they sent letters, signed by the Prince of Orange, and dated at Kew, the 7th of Feb. 1795, to several of the colonies of the republic of the Netherlands in the East Indies and to the Cape of Good Hope. In these letters, this perfidious and ci-devant minister and commander in chief of these states, after having abandoned all his posts, ordered, on his individual authority, the respective governors to put the colonies of the States under the protection of the British arms; that is to say, in the artful and customary language of the English ministry, to surrender them to England. Notwithstanding this felonious stratagem has failed in the greater part of the colonies, through the fidelity of their their governors, it was impossible to prevent the Cape of Good Hope from falling into the hands of the English; and several important possessions of these States, in the East Indies, have shared the same fate. While all this was taking place, the British ministry conceived the plan of attacking also by land this free republic, and of employing for that purpose those soldiers, who, being more attached to the prince of Orange than to their country, emigrated on the flattering promises of England.-The fugitives were not only well received in the States of his Britannic Majesty in Germany, but were even kept in the pay of England; and if the desertion of the greater part of the army of the republic could have been brought about, there is no doubt but they would have been led against their country under English commanders, for the purpose of renewing here, if the fact were possible, the scenes of 1787 of kindling up, as in La Vendée, a disastrous civil war, and of thus destroying the Batavian republic by intestine commotions. Is it therefore surprising that the Batavian nation, now free, seeks to reinforce itself against such unprecedented and numerous out rages, by an intimate alliance with a republic which snatched it from the gripes of its enemies? A treaty of peace and alliance was accord ingly concluded at the Hague, on the 16th of May, 1795, between the two free republics of France and Holland. That treaty of mutual defence by which the independent Batavian nation, supported by a powerful neighbour, and unshaken by the influence of a foreign minister, will be put into a condition to employ for the future its forces against its aggressors, and of paying them in their own coin, has also been cemented. His majesty, the king of Great Britain, after so many hostilities have been exercised, was at length pleased to proclaim, on the 19th of September, 1795, by his council of state, a manifesto of war against the republic, but in which no ground of complaint was alledged. His majesty, it is true, says in this manifesto, "that for some time divers acts of outrage, contrary to the honour of his majesty's crown, and of the legitimate rights of his subjects, had been committed in the United Provinces, and that the ships of war which sailed from the ports of the United Provinces, had received orders to take and sink all British vessels." The acts contrary to the honour of his majesty's crown, which have been committed in the Netherlands, are the acts of his majesty's own troops, and the English nation will, undoubtedly, sooner or later, punish their authors; and with respect to the orders given to the ships of war of the republic, to repel violence by violence, has not the independent republic, so cruelly treated, a right of resistance? His majesty had forgotten that the Netherlands were no longer under the stadtholderian yoke, and that his majesty's ministers had lost for ever, as we trust, for the safety of the country, all influence over the independent Batavian republic. It is, therefore, with a perfect confidence in that love of the country, in that energy, and in that courage with which liberty alone can inspire a nation, for a long time insulted and oppressed, that that the independent Batavian nation solemnly declares in the face of Europe, through the organ of its legitimate representatives, that, obliged to defend itself against the acts of perfidy and violence of the neighbouring kingdom of Great Britain, it will repel every act of aggression on its liberty, its independence, its rights, and its legitimate possessions; and that it will put in execution all possible means to receive satisfaction and indemnity for the incalculable losses it has sustained through a perfidious ally—in the firm hope that Divine Providence, who has so miraculously preserved this country from a total ruin, will bless its arms, and will not allow violence and oppression ever to fix their fatal abode on its free territory. Done at the Hague, May 2, 1796, second year of Batavian free dom. Manifesto of Spain against Great Britain. Madrid, October 11. HIS Majesty has transmitted to all his councils a decree of the following tenor: One of the principal motives that determined me to make peace with the French republic, as soon as its government had begun to assume a regular and stable form, was the manner in which England behaved to me during the whole of the war, and the just mistrust which I ought to feel for the future from the experience of her bad faith, which began to be manifested at the most critical moment of the first campaign; in the manner with which Admiral Hood treated my squadron at Toulon, where he was employed solely in ruining all that he could not carry away himself; and afterwards in the expedition which he undertook against the island of Corsica-an expedition which he undertook without the knowledge, and which be concealed with the greatest care from Don Juan de Langara, while they were together at Toulon. This same bad faith the English minister has suffered clearly to appear by his silence upon the subject of all his negociations with other powers, particularly in the treaty concluded on the 19th November, 1794, with the United States of America, without any regard to my rights, which were well known to him. I remarked it again in his repugnance to the adoption of my plans and ideas which might accelerate the termination of the war, and in the vague reply which lord Grenville gave to my ambassador, the Marquis del Campo, when he demanded succours of him to continue it. He completely confirmed me in the certainty of his bad faith, by the injustice with which he appropriated the rich cargo of the Spanish ship le St. Jago, or l'Achille, at first taken by the French, and afterwards retaken by the English squadron, and which ought to have been restored to me according to the convention made between my Secretary of Ssate and Lord St. Helens, ambassador from his Britannic Majesty; afterwards by the detention of all the ammunition which arrived in the Dutch ships for the supply of my squadrons, by affecting always different difficulties to put off the restitution of them. Finally, I could no longer entertain a doubt of the bad faith of England, when I learnt the frequent landing from her ships upon the coasts of Chili, in order to carry on a contraband trade, and to reconnoitre the shore under the pretence of fishing for whales, a privilege which she pretended to have granted her by the convention of Nootka. Such were the proceedings of the British minister to cement the ties of friendship and reciprocal confidence, which he had engaged to maintain according to our convention of the 25th May, 1793. Since I have made peace with the French Republic, not only have I had stronger motives for supposing an intention on the part of England to attack my possessions in America, but I have also received direct insults, which persuade me that the English minister wishes to oblige me to adopt a part contrary to the interests of humanity, torn by the bloody war which ravages Europe, for the termination of which I have not ceased to offer my good offices, and to testify my constant solicitude. In fact, England has developed her intentions, has clearly evinced her project of getting possession of my territories, by sending to the Antilles a considerable force, and particularly destined against St. Domingo, as the proclamations of her general in that island clearly demonstrate. She has also made known her intentions by the establishments which her commercial companies have formed upon the banks of the Missouri, in South America, with a design of penetrating through those countries to the South Sea. Finally, by the conquest which she has made of the colony of Demerary, belonging to the Dutch, and whose advantageous position puts her in a condition to get possession of posts still more important. But there can no longer remain any doubt of the hostile nature of these projects, when I consider the frequent insults to my flag, the acts of violence committed in the Mediterranean by her frigates, which have carried away soldiers coming from Genoa to Barcelona, on board Spanish ships to complete my armies; the piracies and vexations which the Corsican and Anglo-Corsican corsairs, protected by the English government of that island, exercise against the Spanish trade in the Mediterranean, and even upon the coasts of Catalonia, and the detention of different Spanish ships, laden with Spanish property, and carried to England, under the most frivolous pretences, and especially the rich cargo of the Spanish ship the Minerva, on which an embargo was laid in the most insulting manner to my flag, and the removal of which could not te obtained, though it was demon. strated before the competent tribunals that this rich cargo was Spanish property. The attack committed upon my ambassador, Don Simon de las Casas, by a tribunal of London, which decreed his arrest, founded upon the demand of a very small sum, which was claimed by the undertaker of an embarkation. Finally, the Spanish territory has been violated in an intolerable manner upon the coasts of Galicia, and Alicant, by the English ships the Cameleon and the Kanguroo. Moreover, Captain George Vaughan commodore 3. |