the ancient monarchy, and that the chaus in which the finances of the country were involved, had thrice fwallowed up the focial edifice. By what magic fpring therefore could government hope to profper, in the eyes of which property was nothing, and which abforbed to itlelf all the revenues both from land and industry, by pallying them by requifitions, maximums, and forced loans? In order to break afunder this compact of violence and mifery, fuch events were neceflary as had taken place on the ninth and tenth of November, by which the nation had quickened into new life and activity by bold and profound conceptions. Of the fum total above-mentioned, he propoled that one hundred and fifty millions of livres fhould be raised upon territorial infcriptions, of one thoufand livres each, which were to have for pledge or mortgage a far greater fum, to be derived from the fale of national domains. Other means would be reforted to for enfuring an intereft of fix per cent. on thofe infcriptions until the capital fhould be repaid, which fhould be on the twenty-third of September, anno 9. Ór, after that period, it would be at the option of the bearer of fuch infcriptions to place out their capital at a permanent intereft of five per cent. or to have it paid in annuities with in the period of twenty years. It was accordingly refolved, and afterwards carried into a law, by the affent of the commiffion of elders, and the confuls, that on the twentyfecond of December, there fhould be raised a fum of one hundred and fifty millions of livres on territorial infcriptions, to be made good out of the bulk of the national property, comprized in a statement annexed to the prefent law. These infcriptions to be shared out in notes of one thousand livres each, payable to bearer; or in tenths, of notes of one hundred livres, alfo payable to bearer. Payment for these notes to be made, two-fifths in fpecie, and the other three-fifths in exchequer-bills of the year 5, 6, and 7; in bonds of arrears, one-fourth in fpecie, of the years 4th, 5th, and 6th; and in bonds of requifition made out fince the twenty-first of March, anno 7. To each note of one thoufand livres there was annexed a partial intereft amounting to fixty livres, payable in the proportion of thirty fivres half yearly. During the years 8 and 9, there were to be diftributed by lottery, fifty thoufand prizes of fix per cent. annually, in the proportion of one for three notes, or of a third of the fum total of the one hundred and fifty thoufand notes. The bills to whofe lots the prizes fhould fall were to enjoy the benefit of them during the whole of the year in which the drawing took place. Independently of thefe prizes, there was attached to each drawing, for each twenty-fifth premium, the fum of five hundred livres; for each prize filling up the number of two hundred, the fum of five hundred livres; and for the first and last prize that should turn up at each drawing, the fum of five hundred thousand livres. The drawings to take place in the proportion twelve thouland five hundred every half year, until the whole of the one hundred and fifty thousand notes fhould be delivered out, the drawing of the prizes was to take place every fix months, in proportion to the number of notes delivered out in the courfe of the preceding half year. For the punctual payment of the intereft, and the prizes, the perfonal, moveable, and fumptuary.contributions were to be refponfible, to the amount of fifteen millions. In order to redeem the capital of the territorial inferiptions arifing from the prefent law, they were to be received as part payment for the national domains, to the amount of one hundred and fifty millions, and until the twenty-third of September of the ninth year. Every bearer of national infcriptions might at will infift, during that interval, on the fale of any particular national domain, on the condition of his acquiefcing in the estimate of the twentieth penny, in confequence of the revenue arifing out of the authentic leases that exifted in 1790, or in de fault of fuch leates, in confequence of a contradictory cftimate made by appraitement.Every bearer of national inferiptions, who fhould become a proprietor of national do mains, Thould cease to receive the intereft of fix per cent. beginning after the half year, after his purchafing the fame. But the nm ber of notes, the capital of which fhould be thus redeemed, to partake in the drawing of the prizes and other benefits; and the bearers of thofe notes to enjoy whatever fhould have fallen, or might fall, to their lot, during the two years fixed by the prefent law.-The national domains, fituated in what was lately called Belgium, to remain difpofed of for the payment of former loans, and for the payment of penfions granted to religious bodies and communities fuppreffed in thefe departments. The bearers of the territorial infcriptions, not redeemed on the twenty-third of September of the ninth year, by the pur chafe and payment of the hundred and fifty millions on the national domains to be allotted to them by the prefent law, to have the choice of a permanent intereft of five per cent. on the capital of their territorial infcriptions, or a right to the repayment of it by annuities within the term of twenty years. The means for raifing what farther fums were wanted, were chiefly additional taxes laid on expenditure, or the various fubjects of indirect contribution; a meafure which would not opprefs the poor, and could not justly be complained of by the rich. Duties were laid on cider, perry, and beer, and alo malt. Some lands, yet to be difpofed of, and fome woods, were to be fold in Belgium; as alfo fome falt-pits, and falt-works, formerly the property of the crown. It was alfo ordained that the receivers-general should fubfcribe obligations, from the twenty-first of March enfuing, enfuring the direct contributions of the year 8, at twelve different payments; that they thould make payment of thefe obligations in fpecie; that they fhould be payable at the houfe of the receiver on a day which was fixed, and by a twelfth part of the amount monthly. The receiversgeneral of the department were bound to furnish, in ipecie, a fecurity equal to the twentieth part of the land-tax of their respective departments. The funds rifing from the fecurities thus given by the receivers-general, were defined to make good the payment of protefled exchequer-bills, or treafurywarrants, and fucceffively applied as a finking fund for the extinction of the public debt. The arrears of life annuities and ecclefiaftical pen Fons, beginning with the laft fix months of the year 7, in proportion as they were extinguished, to be placed to the fame account, and employed to the fame purpose. From the date of the periods of payments of the fecurities, treafury-warrants, or bons de requifition, were to be granted by government to the receivers-general, and be payable every three weeks by the fund, for the management of which there was establithed a kind of bank, under the name of a Cuiffe d'Amortifement: a redemption cheft. The expenfes of the war department, for the year 8, had been eftimated by the late directory at four hundred and feventy-two millions; but reduced by the legislative body to three hundred and thirty-three millions: a fum which was deemed equal to the employment of five hundred and fixty thousand, four hundred and twenty men. But in the new eftimates for the year 8, by the directory and councils for the year 8, no account was made of the army of Egypt. This omiflion could not be overlooked by Buonaparte. An annual fund therefore of fifteen millions, in confequence of a propofition made by the general to the commiffioners of the councils on the third of December, was established, to be raised by contributions on Egypt. This arrangement was not an augmentation of expenfe, because the advances in France would be compenfated by the receipts in Egypt. It merely, as was flated by Buonaparte, opened a credit in favour of the army of the eaft. In the mean time, it was but an act of national juftice and gratitude to enable the minifter at war, to make good in France the fums which were juftly claimed by the foldiers and military agents who were returning from Egypt, as alfo by the women whofe hufbands were in Egypt, and who were ablolutely deftitute of the neceflaries of lite. The national treatury was on this account authorized to leave at the difpofal of the minifter at war, the fum of one million, by way of advance, and to be taken from the fund of fifteen millions to be drawn from an equilibrium, arising out of the contributions levied in Egypt. Inftead of a number of particular fums allotted to particular purposes, under certain limitations, the grofs fum of one hundred and thirty millions, and eight hundred thoufand francs, was committed to the dilpofal of the minifter at war, Berthier: a vaft truft, and which ftrongly marked the confidence of Buonaparte in Berthier, and that of the councils and nation in Buonaparte. In the whole of the financial plans, or, as we would lay, the budget of Buonaparte, there is an air of justice, equity, and len ty to the great mass, that is the poor of the people, and at the fame time an addrefs to the fanguine temper of the French nation, ever prone to facrifice a great deal to hope. His lottery allurements were not without their effect in France; but neither thefe, nor others held out by general Marmont, one of the confular agents, had any effect on the Dutch; very few of whom could be induced to fubfcribe to the loan, or to advance money to the French government on any account or confideration. They profelled good will, but pleaded inability. But, after all, the main ftrength of the plan for railing the fupplies, adopted by the confuls, refied, like thote of their predeceffors both during the monarchy monarchy and fince the first revolution, on anticipations, paying in bills, and contracts with the great officers of the revenue. It does not appear for certain what was the real motive that in duced the conful, in the midft of a career of conciliation, moderation, and juftice, to condemn fifty-nine jacobins, excluded deputies and others to banishment, thirty-feven to Cayenne, and the reft to the neighbourhood of the Ifle of Oleron. By an article in the law enacted at St. Cloud on the tenth of November, the confuls were charged with the re-establishment of the public tranquillity. But this, in the prefent tone of the nation, could not be in danger from any machinations against the army and government. Perhaps the fentence of banishment against the leaders of the jacobins was intended to imprefs a conviction that a plan of affaffination had been really formed, and to magnify the clemency of the conful in fparing his greatest enemies. Certain it is, that the decree of banishment was quickly changed into an order for placing the fame individuals under the infpection of the minifter of police, and it was foon thereafter totally repealed, without the exception even of Arena, who had attempted to affaffinate Buonaparte. The decrees against priests of the nineteenth of Fructidor (5th September), of the fifth year, were repealed, in as far as they related to priests of either of the two following claffes: 1ft, Thofe who had taken all the oaths prefcribed by the laws for minifters of worship, and at the periods of time which the laws require.-2. Those who had married. Religious liberty was reftored in its fullest extent, on condition of the minifters fwearing fidelity to the new conftitution. The decrees forbidding the places of public worship to be used, except on decadi, were repealed. The churches which had not been fold, were opened for public worfhip. The body of the late pope, which had lain unburied at Valence, was ordered to be interred with the ufual funeral honours due to his rank. By a law of the twenty-fourth of December, a power was vefted in the confuls of admitting the return of perfons condemned to exportation by an act of the legifla ture to deportation, in confequence of the violence of the fourth of September, 1799, without a previous trial. It left to the wildom and prudence of government the right of re-admitting, at the most convenient periods, thofe whom it might deem incapable of disturbing the public tranquillity, and to fubject the interior of the country to whatever fuperintendency it might think proper. Thoufands were ftruck off from the lift of emigrants and haftened to return to their native country. All the vexatious laws which excluded the nobles, and relations of emigrants, from public employments were abrogated, and feveral perfons of this clafs were nominated to various functions. Moft of the members of the new government were of late, of the council of five hundred, or of elders. But there were likewife fome who had been members of the conftituent affembly and the convention. In the latter end of the year 1795, a number of emigrants, flying from their country by fea, were fhipwrecked on the coaft of Picardy, near Calais. By the orders of Merlin, minifter of the internal extraordinary police, under the name of commiffary obfervator, they had been dragged from one dungeon to another, from tribunals to military commiflions, and from thefe back again to their dungeons. He infifted that they fell under the law against emigrants who had returned, after emigration and banishment, without permiffion. He fufpended over their heads the fword of death, but was unable to bend either the civil or military courts to a compliance with his inhuman defign. At the epoch of the revolution of St. Cloud, they had been transferred from the citadel of Lifle to the caftle of Ham, in Piccardy. The minifter of police was ordered to make a report of the cafe of thofe hipwrecked emigrants. His report was this: "The emigrants fhipwrecked at Calais have often faffered the punishment inflicted on emigration. For death is, not the blow that ftrikes and deprives us of life, it confifts in the agonies and tortures that precede it. For four years paft, thefe individuals, thrown by a tempeft on the foil of their country, have breathed there only the air of the tombs. Whatever then may have been there offence, it is expeated by the fhipwreck.",neral tranquillity; and alfo thofe If Fouché was, as reprefented, a willing and active inftrument in the hands of terror, it appears that he was not a lefs proper agent in those of mercy. In confequence of his report, prompted no doubt by Buonaparte, the confuls decreed that the emigrants fhipwrecked at Calais, and detained in the caftle of Ham, were in no cafe within the contemplation of the laws againft emigrants, but that they fhould be carried out of the territories of the republic. The confular governs VOL. XLII. ment carried its humanity towards thofe unfortunate people fo far, as to grant many of them individual paflports, that they might not experience the difagreeable state of a public and military efcort. In the number of the emigrants, and of thole thus favoured, were the dukes of Montmorency and Choiseul, and Vibraye. The other emigrants, befides thefe, amounted to the number of twenty-feven. The prefident of the central bureau of Paris received orders, from the minifter of the general police, immediately to repair to all the prifons in Paris, and to afiemble all the perfons in cuftody, by a warrant of the police, or under pretext of the general fafety, to procure and tranfmit to him full information refpecting their arrefts, together with his opinion on the cafe of each of those prifoners. He was directed to particularize every circumstance that might operate in their favour, and all the confiderations arifing from age, infirmity, or misfortune. He was farther instructed to indicate to Fouché thofe who ought to be fet at liberty, in the inflant; thofe who ought to be placed merely under the fuperintending eye of their refpective magiftrates, without alarm to the ge whofe confiant hatred to the repub- |