princes, to the perfect knowledge of all Germany; he has not complained of the debt of Venice not having been discharged, contrary to the spirit and the letter of the treaties of Campo Formio and of Luneville; he has not complained of the denial of justice experienced at Vienna by his subjects of Milan and Mantua, none of whom, notwithstanding the formal stipulations, have been paid their demands; neither has he complained of the partiality with which Austria has recognised the right of blockade, which England so monstrously arrogates to herself; and when the neutrality of the Austrian flag was so often violated to the injury of France, he was not provoked by this conduct of the court of Vienna to make any complaint; thus making a sacrifice to his love of peace, in preserving silence upon the subject. The emperor has evacuated Switzerland, rendered tranquil and happy by his act of mediation; he has not kept in Italy a greater number of troops than is indispensibly necessary to maintain the positions which they occupy to the extremity of the peninsula, in order to protect the commerce of the Levant; and to insure himself an object of compensation which may determine England to evacuate Malta, and Russia to evacuate Corfu; he has not upon the Rhine, and interior of his empire, any more troops than are indispensibly necessary to garrison the different places. Engaged entirely in the operations of a war which he has not provoked, which he sustains as much for the interests of Europe as for his own, and in which his principal end is the re-establishment of the equilibrium of commerce, and the equal right of all flags upon the sea, he has united VOL. XLVII.

all his forces in the camps upon the borders of the ocean, far distant from the Austrian frontiers; he has employed all the resources of his empire to construct fleets, to form his marine, to improve his ports; and it is at the same moment when he reposes with entire confidence upon the execution of treaties which have re-established the peace of the continent, that Austria rises from her state of repose, organises her forces upon the war establishment, sends an army into the states of Italy, establishes another equally considerable in the Tyrol; it is at this moment that she makes new levies of cavalry, that she forms magazines, that she strengthens her fortifications, that she terrifies by her preparations the people of Bavaria, of Suabia, and of Switzerland, and discovers an evident intention of making a diversion so obviously favourable to England, and more injuriously hostile towards France, than would be a direct campaign, and an open declaration of war. In these grave circumstances the emperor of the French has deemed it his duty to invite the court of Vienna to return to a proper sense of its true interests. All the expedients which an ardent love of peace could suggest have been resorted to with avidity, and several times renewed. The court of Vienna has made high professions of its respect for the treaties which exist between it and France; but its military preparations have developed her intentions, at the same time that 'her declarations have become more and more pacific. Austria has declared that she has no hostile intention against the states of his majesty the emperor of the French. Against whom, then, are her preparations Tt directed?

directed? Are they against the Swiss? Are they against Bavaria ? Will they, in the end, be directed against the German empire itself?His majesty the emperor of the French has charged the undersigned to make known, that he will consi. der, as a formal declaration of war directed against himself, all aggressions which may be attempted against the German Body, and especially against Bavaria. His majesty the emperor of the French will never separate the interests of his empire from those of the princes of Germany who are attached to him. Any injury which they may sustain, any dangers by which they may be menaced, can never be indifferent to him, or foreign from his lively solicitude. Persuaded that the princes and states of the German empire are penetrated with the same sentiments, the undersigned, in the name of the emperor of the French, invites the diet to unite with him in pressing, by every consideration of justice and reason, the emperor of Austria not to expose for any longer period the present generation to incalculable calamities, to spare the blood of a multitude of men, doomed to perish the victims of a war, the object of which is foreign to Germany, which, at the moment of its breaking out, is every where the subject of enquiry and doubt, and whose real motives cannot be avowed.The alarms of the continent will not be allayed, until the emperor of Austria, yielding to the just and pressing representations of Germany, shall cease his hostile preparations, shall not keep in Suabia and in the Tyrol more troops than are necessary for garrisoning the places, and shall replace his army on the peace establishment. Was it not under

stood, since the conventions entered into in consequence of the treaty of Luneville, that the Austrian armies could not pass the territories of Upper Austria, without committing actual hostility? Was not Austria sensible at that period that France, being then engaged in a foreign war, having withdrawn her troops from Suabia, and having put a stop to the movements which it could make by means of the corps of troops she had in Switzerland, it was not just to oppose to such marks of confidence precautions truly aggressive? The circumstances being the same at present on the part of France, why are the measures of Austria so different? Why does she keep sixty battalions in the Tyrol and Suabia, whilst the forces of France are collected at a distance for an expedition against England? There exists no difference at this moment between the Swiss republic and the German empire; no difference between Bavaria and Austria; and, if any credit is to be given to the declarations of the court of Vienna, there exists none between it and France. what unknown objects, then, has the court of Vienna assembled so many troops? It can have but one plausible object, that is, to keep France in a state of indecision, to place her in a state of inactivity; and, in a word, to arrest her progress on the eve of a decisive effort.

For

But this object can only be attained for a time. France has been deceived; she is no longer so. She has been obliged to defer her enterprises; she still defers them; she waits the effect of these remonstrances; she waits the effect of the representations of the Germanic diet. But, when every effort shall be fruitlessly made to

peace, but more destructive than war, in which a single power, formidable by its greatness, alone remains armed, and is prevented by no opposition from occupying with its troops, oppressing and subject. ing one independent peaceable state after another. To put an end to this state of things, is the object of the arming of the Austrian and Russian imperial courts; and that the former, from the menacing armaments of the French in Italy has the most pressing motives to be care ful for its own safety, must be evident to all who have had experience in the affairs of the world; and for further proof it is only necessary to refer to the extracts of the Moniteurs of the 12th of May, and 13th of June, of the present year. That only this object, and not any selfinterested views, have produced the determination of Austria and Russia, appears from their readiness to enter into any negociation on principles of justice and moderationfrom their assurances to the states of the empire, that, in case war should prove unavoidable, they will maintain the legal state of the German constitution and possessions invio late: which assurance the Austrian envoys have orders to repeat and confirm in the most solemn manner. The threats of the French emperor to attack the German empire, shews how necessary it is to be guarded against such an attack by adequate preparations; experience, never to be forgotten, has taught with what consequences the fullment of such threats on the part of France is connected; and it is the more necessary to be active in preventing them, as already the most certain indications are apparent, that several princes of the fron

tier circles of the empire have been encouraged, on the part of the French, to take up arms against their emperor and co-estates, and to this end new secret connections have been entered into, and those exist ing abused. His majesty trusts, with confidence, that if not all, at least the greater part of the states of the empire, will see the dangerous tendency of such proceedings, and the necessity of warding off from Germany, by unanimity, fidelity, and courage, the fate of Italy, and other neighbouring countries of France, which have been rendered either half, or entirely dependent upon her; and that they will consequently approve and promote those measures, without which the salutary views of Austria and Russia cannot be carried into effect; for it is most evident that the possibility of maintaining a real peace depends on being prepared with those effectual means, which, in case it should be impossible to attain the object wished, can alone furnish the last hope of deliverance and succour.

Louis Count Cobentzel.

[The statements mentioned in the above rescript, are extracts from the Moniteurs of the 11th of May, and 19th of June. The former gives an account of the camp of Marengo, where thirty battalions of infantry of the line, four battalions of light infantry, and seven squadrons of cavalry, were assembled. The other article is from the camp of Castiglione, dated the 13th of June, saying, "at the moment of our arrival, forty-eight battalions of infantry, and forty-five squadrons of cavalry, with sixty pieces of cannon, are exercising in the immense plain of Montechiaro. France never had better troops, which per

formed