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3. Paffing into a law regulations for preventing inconvenience and delay, tumult and expence, at elections.

Mr. Wyvill, anticipating the objections that may be made to his plan, thus replies to them:

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Against the plan of Mr. Pitt thus enlarged it may be forefeen that various objections will be urged; fome of which will undoubtedly deferve ferious confideration. But fhould the penfioned advocate of the present system of abufes contend, that the discontents of the people are groundlefs and unreafonable, that a parliament over which they have little regular influence, which has been named chiefly by the Crown and the ariftocracy, is beft calculated to obtain the great purpose of the conftitution, viz. the happiness of the people; and therefore, that no reformation is neceffary or ought to be conceded; the reader's patience fhall not be wearied here by an attempt to refute palpable abfurdities. Or fhould the more cautious foe to liberty admit that reformation is expedient, yet infift on the inexpediency of the time, the fallacy of that poor evafion, that frivolous but everlafting excufe, is too apparent to require detection. Or fhould the uncandid adversary shift his ground, and change the direction of his attack from the plan propofed to the person who propofed it, fhould he charge the author of this paper with the mean defign to difparage Mr. Pitt and his plan, or the malignant purpose to ir ritate popular difcontent, and to excite commotion by fuggefting more extenfive propofitions of reform, than thofe he formerly recommended; little previous remark furely can be neceffary to obviate the impreffion of thofe expected illiberalities. The plan of Mr. Pitt, if examined by theoretical rules, will certainly be found to fall far fhort of perfection; it did not even aim to remove fome of the groffeft abufes which difgrace the British reprefentation; but it was a wife propofal, and well adapted to the ftate of public opinion in 1785; the guarded moderation of it evinced his fincerity at that time; and if more extenfive changes had been propofed, they would have been unauthorized by the previously declared with of any confiderable portion of the community. But fince that time, the denial of redress, and a long protracted difcuffion have produced their ufual effects; upon the fubject of conftitutional rights, the ideas of the public have been expanded, and a more extenfive redrefs is fought in many parts of England, and throughout Scotland, than Mr. Pitt's original plan propofed to have given. The difcontent of the people under their conftitutional grievances is the refult of their enlarged knowlege of their rights, and of the ufurpations of minifters and peers; much has been well written, much has been eloquently spoken, to demonftrate the injuries the conftitution has fuffered; the fatal confequences which experience proves to flow from that fource, and the neceffity for fome better fecurity for the liberty of the people, have been infifted on with equal energy by the wifeft minifters and the most unblemished patriots.It is needlefs to enquire therefore, whether the difcontent of the people be owing more to the parliamentary speeches of a Pitt and a Savile, or to the political writings of a Burgh and a Price; to the late revolution in America; or to the more recent events in France. It is evident that difcontent exifts, and that it will be our true wifdom to allay that difcontent by timely accommodation.'

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He does not deny the right of univerfal fuffrage, but objects to it as inexpedient at this moment. For his reafoning on this important part of his fabject, we refer to the pamphlet.

It is impoflible for a candid man to perufe this little performance without being convinced that the author is a fincere friend to liberty and to mankind; and that his aim is to procure, through peaceable and moderate means, the objects which we all have in view, but which others would hazard every thing to gain; and which were well worth any hazard, if they were not, as they certainly are, attainable by the molt legal and conftitutional measures.

It is with this view, and only as the price of peace, that he propofes that a fund should be eftablished for buying up the franchises of the rotten boroughs by degrees. To effect this, he propofes a scheme which merits attention, but he offers it with becoming diffidence :-See p. 19 of the pamphlet. We wished to copy it, but are too much cramped for room.

On the whole, we mult in juftice to this pamphlet fay that it does its author's head as much credit as it reflects on his heart, evincing at the fame time the clearnefs and foundness of the one, while it teems with proofs of the goodnefs of the other. May his moderation be imitated, and his plans be diipaffionately and candidly difcuffed, both by the friends and the oppoters of reform!

AFFAIRS OF FRANCE.

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Art. 31. 7. P. Brifot, Deputy of Eure and Loire, to his Conftituents, on the Situation of the National Convention; on the Influence of the Anarchifts, and the Evils it has caufed; and on the Neceffity of annihilating that Influence in order to fave the Republic. Tranflated from the French; with a Preface and occafional Notes by the Tranflator. 8vo. pp. 122. 2s. 6d. Stockdale. 1794.. Art. 32. The Hifiory of the Briffotins; or, Part of the Secret History of the Revolution, and of the firft Six Months of the Republic, in anfwer to Briflot's Addrefs to his Conftituents. Printed at Paris by order of the Jacobin Club, and difperfed to their correfponding Clubs. Tranflated from the French of Camille Deimoulins, Deputy of Paris, in the National Convention. 8vo. pp. 68. is. 6d. Owen. 1794:

We fhall confider thefe pamphlets in one article, because they are intimately connected; the one containing a charge of a very ferious nature; the other purporting to answer it, but being in reality little more than a recrimination.

We confefs that it was with fome pain that we proceeded in the perufal of these performances; becaufe, if we may believe either of them, we must conclude that liberty has been trampled under foot in France, and the peace of Europe difturbed, by the most abandoned wretches on earth; for fuch Briffot declares the Jacobins to be, who have had the government of France, he fays, fince the revolution of the 10th of Auguft; and Defmoulins retorts the charge on Briffot and his friends, who poffeffed the fupreme power from the time at which the king was depofed till the 31st of May laft, when Briffot and the Girondifts, his partizans, were ordered into cuftody.

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No man had a better opportunity of being acquainted with the fubje on which he writes than Briffot; he was a member of the convention which he defcribes, and must be deemed no ftranger to the fecret fprings and movements of the revolution during the period to which he refers, as he was then at the head of affairs, and might be faid to be the leading man in France. He reprefents the convention as a body over which a party of anarchifts actually domincered; as an affembly incapable of giving efficacy to the laws,-feeing what was right, but not daring to purfue it;-one day paffing patriotic decrees after mature deliberation, and, the next, frightened or awed into a repeal of them at the command of the Jacobins ;-taking wife measures at one moment for fecuring the independence of the convention, by voting that guards fhould be brought for its protection from the departments, and then bowing to the clamours of the anarchifts, and abandoning their decrees through dread of affaffination;-fhewing at one period a due regard for juftice and an abhorrence of murder, by decreeing that the perfons charged as the authors of the horrid maffacres, in the beginning of September, fhould be brought to trial; and afterward, terrined by the power of the accufed, not only fufpending the profecution, but actually bestowing places of confidence and emolument on the very men by whom thefe maffacres were ordered or perpetrated; fending them, not to the guillotine, but to the Departments, with the lordly character of COMMISSIONERS;-manifefting, by a great majority, an inclination to leave the fate of Louis XVI. to the decifion of the fovereignty of the people, by referring to the people at large the fentence paffed on him; and afterward, yielding to calumny, vociferation, and terror, voting against an appeal, and adjudging that unfortunate prince to immediate death;-expreffing indignation against the perfons concerned in the pillage and plunder of individuals, and of fhops, in Paris, on the 26th of February (1793), but very foon after configning to oblivion thofe flagitious acts, which, by fhew. ing the infecurity of property and the impunity of crimes, were. (fays Briffot) the beft adapted to raise the hopes of our external enemies, and to augment the furfeits of liberty.'- In fhort, (continues he,) run over all the laws of the convention, and you will fee the very best decrees, paffed on the most mature difcuffion, repealed in a fingle inftant. What then is the fource of all these changes? With one fingle word you might compofe the hiftory of three affemblies; this word is-FEAR.'

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Such is the picture drawn of the convention by one who was a member of it, and who had by far the greateft fway in it for nine months!

M. Briffot was once a great advocate for infurrection and the revolutionary power; until he got to the head of the ftate, he was as loud as any man in proclaiming the facred duty of infurrection:' but, when he found himself raifed to that ftation, he began to preach up order and the conftitution. Every thing that he fays on this fubject is praifeworthy, and we fubfcribe to it moft cordially: but we think that his remarks on the occafion would come with a much better grace from a man, who, having overturned a hated government, had, like Washington, contented himself with a private ftation and patriotic obfcurity. When Briffot was pulling down the conftitution for the

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purpose of affuming the reins of empire, at the moment in which, after a dreadful conflict, he had wrefted them from the king, the world might have applied to him that expreffion of Tacitus which he applies to the anarchiits-Rerum potiri volunt; honores, quos quieta republicâ, defperant, perturbata, confequi fe poffe arbitrantur.

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The committee of inspectors of the hall of the convention, he says, had found out the fecret of filling the galleries with creatures of their own, hired to hoot their adverfaries; the circumference of the hall was made a ftage of gladiators;' and its environs, the lurking-places of affalfination.' The majority faw thefe outrages, but were afraid to reprefs them, and thought it wife to wink at what they must endure; thus, fays Briffot, with Tacitus, quod fegnitia erat, fapientia vocabatur.

Speaking of the revolutionary tribunal, (by which he himself was afterward tried and condemned,) M. Briffot fays, It makes one's hair stand an end! Yes, if it is a tribunal fit to make one regret the Baftiles of defpotijm; if it is an inftitution proper for ripening and rapidly bringing about a counter-revolution in favour of royalty; it is alio a tribunal as arbitrary in its forms, as abfurd, as partial in its proofs, as iniquitous in fome of its judgments.'

In the club of the Jacobins, and not in the convention, (he says,) the fupreme power of France is to be found;' this club, he contends, was the fovereign of the convention and of the minifters.'

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Thefe minifters, he afferts, difregarded the convention, and paid their court to the Jacobins, and both plundered the country. This he proves by the official communications to the legislature. Bournonville, (he remarks,) on entering upon his adminiftration, and after having examined the ftate of the expences, has declared that there was a fum of 160 millions (of livres, about fix millions fterling) of the expenditure, of which there appeared no particulars. Cambon faid to the committee, from the roftrum, that it was impoffible to bring the expenditure of that department (that of minifter of war) to light; that a fpunge must be drawn over it.-I ufe his own words.' This great defaulter was Pache, now mayor of Paris; and Briffot obferves that, though Cambon was profecuting petty pillagers, he had never infifted that Pache fhould be made to account for this enormous fum.

• You will fee (continues Briffot) the provifions of the army every where paid for two or three times over; warehouses hired at an exceffive price; battalions, though reduced to a third or a fixth, still Why? because the contractors, paid for at their full complement. commiffaries, and the clerks in all the offices, were all creatures of the anarchifts, all profited by the disorder; all enriched themselves under the cover of their mafquerade of rough ftern virtue, and their continually theeing and thouing each other.'

Refpecting the war with England, &c. he plainly fays that, from the month of October, the poffibility of a war with the maritime powers was forefeen; and the diplomatic committee, and that of general defence, had forewarned Monge, (the minister at the head of the naval department ;) an ample fupply was given to him, and he promised to have 30 fail of the line ready for fea in April, and 50 in June.' He admits that England did not begin to arm till three months after the French.

Briffot had been accused of being the author of the war with EngLand: he retorts the charge on his accufers, and fays that the

anarchifts,

anarchists, by voting the death of the king, were themfclves the authors of the war.

He accufes the Jacobins of having prevented Holland from declaring for the French revolution, when they made declaration's which fhewed that, under the pretence of giving liberty to the Dutch, they wanted only to plunder them of their property. To prove this, he quotes a paffage from a fpeech made by Cambon, who prefided over the department of the finances; Let us not diffemble, (faid Cambon, one day, to the committee of general defence, in the prefence even of the patriot deputies of Holland,) you have no church lands to offer us for our indemnity; it is a revolution in their iron chefts that must be made among the Dutch. This fpeech, Briffot obferves, was worth an army to the Stadtholder.

He defcribes the commiffioners of the convention as the greatest tyrants; iffuing in one day more thousands of lettres de cachet than were diftributed in the old times by all the inquifitors.'

Refpecting foreign nations treating with France at prefent, he thus expreffes himself:

Have order, have a good constitution, and your mal-contents will foon be difperfed.

I go farther, have order, have a conftitution, and the foreign powers will foon afk peace of you. How can you expect, that in this uncertain and wavering ftate in which you are, foreign powers can con→ fent to treat with a Convention, which is every day dragged through the dirt; because it is the lowest difgrace to treat with an executive power which is without intermiffion denounced, humiliated, and tottering.'.

We have faid fufficient, and have quoted enough from this writer, to justify the declaration with which we fet out, that it was with difguft that we proceeded through a work in which the persons, on whom depends in a great measure the fate of Europe, appear, if they be fairly defcribed, in the light of men loft to all fenfe of genuine par triotifm.-Let it be remembered, however, that the picture is drawn by a man who, after having been a co-operator in their plans, turns evidence against them, and impeaches his accomplices.

Audi alteram partem is a dictum of justice: let us then hear what the champion of the Jacobins, CAMILLE DESMOULINS, fays, in anfwer to the charges brought by BRISSOT. This champion begins by founding the praife of Paris, a city which had lived only by the monarchy, and yet destroyed it, to create a republic. He then proceeds to charge the right fide of the convention, and principally its leaders, with being almoft all partizans of royalty, accomplices in the treafon of Dumourier and Bournonville, and directed by the agents of Pitt, Orleans, and Pruffia; and he fays that they wanted to divide France into twenty or thirty federative republics, in order that no republic might exift.-To prevent his adverfaries from preffing him for convincing proofs of this treafon, he makes ufe of the following obfervation; which might be a fufficient argument ad hominem, when applied to Briffot, but can have no weight with the world at large:

But in the first place one preliminary obfervation is indifpenfable. -There is little candor in afking from us facts which prove confpiracy. The only trace which memory yet preferves of the famous orations of Briffot and Genfonné, in which they attempted to prove

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