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ternity the peaceable and tranquil inhabitants; but they will prove as terrible as the fire of heaven to the rebels, and the villages which protect them.

ART. 1. In confequence, the commander in chief declares as rebels, all the villages which have not conformed to his order of the 6th prairial. The generals fhall march againft fuch villages the forces neceffary for fubduing them; fetting them on fire, and fhooting all thofe taken with arms in their hands. All the pricfts and nobles who remain in the rebel communes, fhall be arrested as hoftages, and fent into France.

2. Every village where the tocfin fhall be founded, fhall be inftantly destroyed. The generals are refponfible for the execution of this order.

3. Every village on the territory of which any Frenchman fhall be affaffinated, fhall be fined in a fum amounting to a third part of the contribution they pay annually to the archduke, unless they make known the affaffin, arreft him, and fend him to the French army.

4. Every man found with a mufquet, and ammunition of war, fhall be immediately fhot by the order of the general commandant on duty.

5. Every field wherein fhall be found concealed arms, fhall be condemned to pay one-third more than its actual revenue, by way of amends. Every houfe in which fhall be found a mufket, thall be burnt, unless the proprietor declares to whom fuch musket belongs.

All the nobles, or rich people, who fhall be convicted of having ftirred up the people to revolt,

whether by difmifling their domeftics, or by defigns against the French, fhall be arrested as hoftages, fent into France, and the half of their eftates confifcated. (Signed) BUONAPARTE.

10 Prairial, (29th May.)

Proclamation iffed by the Municipality of Milan, for abolishing the Nobility.

ART. 1. THE order of nobility is abolished for ever.

2. No one thall bear any title of nobility, but fhall be defigned by the appellation of citizen, adding thereto the name of his employment or profeflion.

3. All the nobles fhall, within the space of eight days, bring their patents of nobility to the commune, where they fhall be burnt.

4. Every feudal authority, and all game laws are henceforth abolifhed.

5. All armorial bearings, liveries, and every diftinction of nobility, fhall likewife be fuppreffed within eight days.

6. Every corporation which exacts a proof of nobility as a qualification is abolished.

7. Those who shall contravene the prefent proclamation, will be regarded as convicted of ariftocracy, and as enemies to the people. June-12.

Buonaparte, Commander in Chief of the Army of Italy, to the Inhabi tants of Tyrol.

Head-Quarters at Tortona, 26 Prai

rial, (June 14,) 4th year. BRAVE Tyrolians, I am about to pafs through your territory, to force the court of Vienna to a peace,

as neceffary to Europe, as it is to the fubjects of the emperor. The cause I am about to defend is your own. You have been long vexed and fatigued by the horrors of a war, undertaken not for the intereft of the people of Germany, but for that of a fingle family.

The French army refpects and loves all nations, more especially the fimple and virtuous inhabitants of the mountains. Your religion, your cuftoms will be every where refpected. Our troops will maintain a severe difcipline; and nothing will be taken in the country without being paid for in money.

You will receive us with hofpitality, and we will treat you with fraternity and friendship.

But fhould there be any fo little acquainted with their true interefts as to take up arms, and treat us as enemies, we will be as terrible as the fire from heaven: we will burn the houses, and lay wafte the territories of the villages which fhall take a part in a war which is foreign to them.

Do not fuffer yourfelves to be led into an error by the agents of Auftria. Secure your country, already haraffed by five years of war, from new miferies. In a little time the court of Vienna, forced to a peace, will reftore to the nations their privileges which it has ufurped, and to Europe the tranquillity it has difturbed.

The commander in chief,
BUONAPARTE.

(Signed) Buonaparte, Commander in chief of the Army of Italy, to the Grand Duke of Tuscany.

Head-quarters at Piftja, June 26. THE flag of the French republic is conftantly infulted in the port

of Leghorn. The property of the French merchants is violated there; every day is marked by fome attempt againft France, as contrary to the interefts of the republic as to the law of the nations. The executive directory have repeatedly preferred their complaints to the minifter of your royal highnefs at Paris, who has been obliged to avow that it is impoffible for your royal highness to reprefs the English, and to maintain a neutrality in the port of Leghorn.

This confeflion immediately convinced the executive directory, that it was their duty to repel force by force, to make their commerce refpected, and they ordered me to fend a divifion of the army under my command to take poffeffion of Leghorn.

I have the honour to inform your royal highness, that on the 7th inft. (25th June) a divifion of the army entered Leghorn: their conduct there will be conformable to thofe principles of neutrality which they have been fent to maintain.

The flag, the garrison, the property, and your royal highness and your people, fhall be fcrupulously refpected.

I am, moreover, instructed to affure your royal highness of the defire of the French government, to witnefs a continuation of the friendfhip which unites the two states, and of their conviction that your royal highness, confcious of the exceffes daily committed by the Englifh fhips, which you cannot prevent, will applaud the juft, ufeful, and neceflary measures adopted by the executive directory. I am,

With efteem and confideration,
Your Royal Highness's, &c.
BUONAPARTE.
Answer

Anfwer to the above Letter. HIS royal highness is confcious of having nothing to reproach himfelf with relative to his frank, candid, and friendly conduct towards the French republic and its fubjects. A fovereign in friendship with the republic cannot but regard, with the most extraordinary furprife, the orders given to your excellency from the directory. His royal highnefs will not refift the execution of them by force, but will preferve the good underftand ing with the republic, ftill flattering himself with the hope that your excellency will, on better information, revoke your prefent refolves.

Should it not be in your excellency's power to delay the entrance of your troops into Leghorn till further orders, the governor of that place has full powers to agree with you upon terms. This I am ordered, by my fovereign's exprefs command, to communicate to you, with that refpect in which I have the honour to remain, &c. (Signed) Florence, June 26, 1796.

VITTORIO FOSSOM

BRONI.

Head-quarters at Leghorn, June 29. General Buonaparte to the Grand Duke of Tufcany.

ROYAL HIGHNESS, AN hour before we entered Leghorn, an English frigate carried off two French hips, worth 500,000 livres. The governor suffered them to be taken under the fire of his batteries, which was contrary to the intention of your royal highness, and the neutrality of the port of Leghorn.

I prefer a complaint to your roy

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He yesterday endeavoured, at the moment of our arrival, to make is no kind of ill treatment that he the people rife up against us; there did not make our advanced guard experience. I fhould, doubtless, have been juftified in bringing him to trial before a military commiffion; but from refpect for your royal highness, intimately convinc ed of the spirit of juftice which difending him to Florence, where I rects all your actions, I preferred am perfuaded, you will give orders to have him punished feverely.

I muft, at the fame time, return my thanks to his royal highness, for his goodnefs in appointing general Straraldo to fupply the army with every thing that was neceffary. He has acquitted himself with equal zeal and fuccefs.

BUONAPARTE.

Anfwer of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. GENERAL,

GENERAL Spannochi arrefted by your order has been brought hither. It is a point of delicacy to tives of this ftep, which I presume keep him in arreft, until the moto be just, are known to me, in order to give you, as well as the French republic and all Europe, the greatest proof of equity, conformably to the laws of my country, to which I have always made it my duty to submit myself.

I fend this letter by the marquis Manfredini, my major domo, whom I requeft you to inform in what Spannochi has been culpable. You may besides repose full confidence in him relative to all the objects interesting

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

THE 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 display infpire, and which give you a jutt claim to national gratitude, fee with indignation the efforts which libellers, under different matks, 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 fervices; and they owe to themfelves the formal denial which they give to the abfurd caJumnies which the neceflity of foftering malignity has made them hazard, by accounts which tended to prove a ftimulus to the directory to read their productions.

Some avowed roy lifts, flatly circulate a falfehood; others, calling themfelves prime patriots, but purfuing the fame end, comment upon it, and eke it out in their own way, under the pretence of combating their pretended antagonift. both parties are thus at work to flop the pregrefs of order, which is eftablithing; both fecond the enemies of the revolution; both with to fow difcord, and to diforganize the arwith the good faith of their readers, mies; both with thus to fport of thofe who afford them fubfiftence, and indecently prefent to them, as facts, accounts which are nothing but the fruit of a disordered imagination.

No, citizen general, never have the friends of Auftria been able to prepoffefs the directory against you, becaufe the friends of Austria have neither accefs 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 withed 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 some 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, withes to give himself an air of importance, pretending to know

all

all the fecrets of ftate; if this man knows of an intrigue of fuch a nature as he states; 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 himself from denouncing it to those 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 refpecting 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, proves that you at once occupy yourself with the glory and the intereft 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 fpirit that dictates them.

(Signed) REVEILLIERE LEPEAUX, prefident. LAGARDE, fecretary general. The Ambassador of Sweden to the Citizen Minifter of Foreign Affairs. Paris, August 2, 1796.

CITIZEN MINISTER, IT is by the exprefs order of my court that I have the honour to renew, before the Directory, the fteps I had already taken for the admiffion of M. de Rehaufen, in the quality of chargé d'affairs of his majefty with the French republic.

Inviting you, citizen minifter,

to take again into confideration a ftep fo conformable to the good intelligence which fubfifts between the two countries, I beg you will permit me to make fome obfervations, which I fubmit to the Directory.

The confidence which friendly and allied powers reciprocally owe each other, the refpect which is its refult, has always been indifcriminately granted to the perfon chofen by his fovereign to reprefent him; it is even infeparable from it. Both have, however, been neglected in the perfon of M. de Rehaufen. His private fentiments can the lefs give umbrage to the government, as he would certainly facrifice them in the exercife of his functions, if they could be contrary to the inftructions he has received; and if in his conduct, or in his language, he could be wanting to the treaty which fubfifts between Sweden and France. it is in this cafe only, if a mifunderstanding should take place between the two governments, that his recal would become neceffary. But fince this is not the cafe, his fentiments cannot be confidered as a valid motive of exclufion, and the refufal becomes confequently lefs an injury done to M. de Rehaufen than a want of respect to his fovereign.

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