lately brought into one of our ports, by the Diamond Frigate. The originals were inclosed in a cover directed to "Dr. Priestley, in America." They have been exhibited, with the usual attestations, in the High Court of Admiralty, as part of the evidence in the proceedings against the abovementioned ship, and her cargo, and are now remaining on record, in the public registry of that court. Their authenticity is, therefore, placed beyond a dispute, and may be personally ascertained by any man who chuses to take that trouble.

These letters relate almost exclusively to public matters; and their contents must be deemed interesting to every man who has a stake in the welfare of his country, or of any other civilized nation. Of the situation of the writers, and of the means. of their information, little need be said; because the letters themselves speak sufficiently to those points. Mr. J. H. Stone is the brother of the person, acquitted about two years ago on a charge of carrying on a treasonable correspondence with France, in conjunction with one Jackson, who was convicted at Dublin, on a similar accusation. Mr. Stone has been settled at Paris ever since the revolution; he is the friend of Priestley and Talleyrand, and is intimately connected with Citizen Gallois*. Of the lady nothing need be said, be

This is the same Gallois who was lately sent over here by the Directory, on the pretence of negotiating the exchange of prisoners. It was soon found that he had nothing to propose on this subject; and his conduct, intercourse, and connections, proving that his business was of a very different nature, he was ordered to reside at some distance from London; upon which he immediately quitted the country, although his pretended business did not require his residence in town; but might as easily have been carried on in any other place, as indeed the fact had proved in the instance of Mr. Swinburn, who for many months was not suffered to come to Paris.

VOL. IX.

yond

yond what is publicly known, or what these letters will supply. Nor do the character and principles of Dr. Priestley require any illustration, any more than the nature of his prophecies, on the faith of which he is invited, by Mr. Stone, to return and fix his residence in England, "SUCH AS "ENGLAND WILL THEN BE. A recommendation with which the Doctor may possibly not yet think it prudent to comply.

The papers themselves abound with matter of the most serious reflection. Volumes of commentaries might be written on such a text. If the animosity of these apostate Englishmen against their own country, their conviction that NO SUBMISSIONS will avert our danger, and their description of the engines employed by the Directory for our destruction, were impressed, as they ought to be, upon the minds of all our countrymen, we should certainly never again be told of the innocent designs of these traitors, or their associates;-We should hear no more declaimers, or pamphleteers, calling out for peace, which even dishonour cannot purchase ;-We should no longer see men of any rank or description amongst us acting, in this hour of danger, as Mr. Stone describes the Directory to act, and flattering every passion and every prejudice, in order to disunite the people of England from their Government.

Nor is it to us alone, that these instructive lessons are addressed. The picture which these letters exhibit of what has already past in Europe, and the prophetic statement of what is yet to come, are calculated (if any thing can yet do it) to rouse the apathy of those surrounding governments, whose ruin is fast approaching. They will find here every feature and lineament of the true Jacobin character. They will see the philosophical indifference with Which Mr. Stone views the misfortunes of others,

provided.

provided they contribute to support his systems; -his tranquil and contented acquiescence in the punishment of his friends and accomplices, condemned to an exile much worse than death, for crimes, of which he says no man of common sense (even among their, judges or their accusers) thought them guilty-his insulting display of all the pillage, proscription, and massacre, which his principles have produced within so few years;-a pretty decent progress, as he calls it, within so short a

time!

"A world of woes dispatch'd in little space!".

his exultation in the overthrow of peaceful and unoffending governments;-his triumph over the devastation of free, and happy countries;-the delight with which he contemplates millions of his fellow creatures reduced to the most degrading slavery, and groaning under the yoke of the lowest and the worst of mankind;-and last, but most of all, the rapacious and sanguinary joy with which he enumerates the fresh kingdoms and empires devoted to the same destruction-closing the brilliant prospect with the view of his own great, glorious, and flourishing country, torn by intestine discord, desolated by the ravages of a relentless and savage enemy, and sinking under the utmost extremities of human misery!

We who are not yet enlightened by this philosophy, which tolerates every thing except Christianity, and feels for every thing but human happiness, believe and trust that there is yet a Providence who watches over the fate of empires-just and powerful to confound the devices of these PROFLIGATE TRAITORS, and to turn to their own destruction the blow which is aimed at our existence.

Paris, 12th Feb. 1798, (25 Pluvióse, 6 Year.)

DEAR SIR,

Although it is now a very considerable time that we have not had the pleasure of hearing immediately from you yourself; yet, either by way of England, or by citizens coming from America, we are seldom for a long time without tidings of a more or less particular nature concerning you. The last we received from a young Frenchman, who tells us, that he has been particularly acquainted with you, and rejoiced us with the agreeable information, that at the peace you would not fail to revisit Europe; and that he hoped you would fix yourself in this country. Whether you fix yourself here or in England (as England will then be), is probably a matter of little importance, except to your friends, who will naturally be anxious to have you each where themselves are fixed; but we all think that you are misplaced where you are, though, no doubt, in the way of usefulness, however the sphere may be diminished. As you have now a friend on the Continent who can discuss this point with you better than myself, I leave it to his and your meditation, and enter on other matters.

I presume that you are not so far removed from the centre of the political world, in your retreat at

* Dr. Priestley is in the way of usefulness in America, because he is labouring there, as his associates are in Europe, to disunite the people from their government, and to introduce the blessings of French anarchy. But the sphere is too confined for his exertions. To produce the misery of four or five millions of men who have afforded hin hospitality and protection, and to make the Western world the scene of desolation and confusion, is a result good as far as it goes, but hardly worth the labours of this great Prophet and Philosopher!Estuat infelix, angusto limite mundi.

Northum

Northumberland, * as not to be duly informed of the principal events that are passing in Europe, although you may not know much of the detail. You will of course have heard that our OLD COUNTRY is now the only one left to struggle against the French Republic, and left under every disadvantage, that every friend to her real welfare would wish; namely, in a very fair way of accomplishing your prophetic discourses, delivered at various times, and divers manners, of which happily they took no

account.

You will have heard of the vast armaments and preparations of every kind which have been making for some months past, and which are carrying forward with all that energy and activity which characterizes this nation, when they have a purpose in hand which they must go through, cost what it will. Of its cost they are well aware†, and I

* In America, the place of Doctor Priestley's residence.

This passage may serve to confute the foolish notion that France, if unable to subdue us, is able to wear us out by a content of expense. The expenditure of France, little if at all inferior to ours, is drawn from the bowels of a totally exhausted country, without any means of external aid. Our navy by the protection of a continually increasing commerce, and by the consequent extension of agriculture and manufactures, contains within itself the principle of its own supply. Nor is it probable that any member of the French government can even form an idea of the extent of our resources, when animated and called forth by the spirit which now prevails in England.

It may indeed be doubted, notwithstanding Mr. Stone's assertion, whether the Directory have yet learnt what the attempt will cost them, unless they have begun to calculate it on the scale of Marcou.

A famous Turkish general having after a siege of two months, and a loss of eight thousand men, taken the fort of St. Elmo, an inconsiderable fortress of Malta, exclaimed: "If this be "the price of the daughter, what will the mother cost us?"