The Prefident, with his suite, and several attending gentlemen, is now here, laying down and directing the spot for the public buildings in the new Fœderal town, which will be in the vicinity of Carollfburg, near the mouth of the eastern branch of Potowmack River, and in fight of Alexandria. Mr Ellicot, the geographer general of the United States, has fixed the fix main lines for the Fœderal district, and is now bounding and marking the lines, which will contain ten fquare miles of land and water. It begins within half a mile of Alexandria, and runs first in a north-weft line to include that town, then across the river to RockCreek, leaving out this place about half a mile, thence acrofs the eastern branch of Evam's near the Ferry, and thence to the beginning. It will contain about eight thousand acres of land, in the cheapest, moft fertile, and beautiful part of America; and although two hundred and fifty miles from the fea inland, the river is fo deep and temperate in tides, that fhips of any burthen may approach it without the aid of a pilot. Lands in the vicinity of this intended permanent feat of government (which promifes to be the emporium of commerce in America) are fought for and buying up with great avidity, and three very large purchaf es have lately been made by fome Dutch and French gentlemen. The influx of people is already fo great as to furprise the native inhabitants, and the wages of artists, workmen, and common labourers, have tak en a great rife; indeed the influences are likely to be very extenfive, and must have great effects on commerce as well as the landed property in this fertile part of the country. On the 8th of September, or by the last Jamaica Packet, I did myfelf the pleasure of writing and informing you of my intention of quitting this place in a frigate, or one of the flying fquadrons, that has come under a broad pendant, to countenance the diftreffed government of this melancholy colony. At this moment there are, within five miles of this town, no less than fifteen thousand of the negroes in arins. For upwards of five weeks they have allowed them to be collecting and gaining confidence, by getting command of different places of ftrength around, and without ever having made any attempt of confequence to difplace them. They carry fire and devaftation before them wherever they go, having deftroyed already 221 of the finest fugar eftates on the plain of the Cape, and about 600 of their coffee plantations. The regudar forces they have here do not exceed 800, the remainder are of the militia, but they are deftitute of the neceffary arms, having been obliged to fend to the different colonies for affiftance for arms, ammunition, &c. &c. But M. Blancheland, Lieutenant General and Governor of the colony, is believed to be fo divided in opinion by the variety of parties that prevail here, that he really does not know how to act. He, together with the other officers of power and authority bere, are fuppofed to be Ariftotrates; and the Democrates, who are the most formidable in power, are exceeding jealous of the other party. The negroes have made one attempt to get poffeffion of the town, and burn it; but they were happily repulfed with a confiderabfe lofs. The lofs of black people in the fundry fkirmishes they have had, puted to about 4000, but I am apt to think that the French gentlemen exaggerate matters a good deal. The white people on the properties that have been destroyed were murdered, which I believe to be the principal lofs of white people. Upon the whole, from their miferable and unhappy state, and without the fmalleft profpect or expectation of any affiftance from their mother country, the colony muft undoubtedly go from them. They intend making a formidable fortie upon all the blacks, as foon as the arms s fupplied from Jamaica, together with a quantity from Nicola Mole, shall arrive, fo that we fhall be better able to judge of matters after Wheat is now at 3s. 1od. to 4s. English that attempt is made. In short, they are Winchefter bufhel. Indian corn Is. 6d. at prefent in a very fad ftate, being fur 3 H 2 A third arrival of a cargo of India fugar, and the increafing produce from the maple or fugar tree, has reduced the price of that article far under the now first coft Jamaica prices, and we are now looking to an export of this article to Europe. The maple tree is a native of this ftate, and it is now cultivating by every one. They are about eighteen years coming to perfection, and are of long duration; forty trees are generally planted on an English acre, and their produce, by a very fimple operation of tapping and boiling, produces about fix pounds of fugar in the feafon. per V con rounded rounded by intrenchment and ftocade clofe round the town; and in the streets they are bufily employed in preparing Chevaux de Frize, and all other military obftructions. They have fix gallowfes erected in one of their fquares, together with a wheel, to put the poor devils to the torture, as they are brought in. "In fhort, it is a melancholy scene of devaftation and bloodfhed, without confidence or means in themfelves to act. "At Port-au-Prince, they are, if poffible, worfe; the black people and people of colour have united, and obliged the white people to come into every measure that they required; but here the people of colour are armed, and doing duty against the negroes. M. Blanchelande has taken the field with the small army that he can muf ter; they are formed on two diftinct fituations, to prevent a junction of two bodies of the negroes." FRANCE, Letters of October the 19th, bring the moft horrid details from Avignon. Nicholas Jourdan, ycleped coupe-tete, or cutter off of the heads, the felf-created Governor of Avignon, hearing of the murder of M. Lecuyer, mentioned in the advices of the 24th, ordered the alarm bell to be rung and the drum to beat to arms; he then put himfelf at the head of the banditti, who fuffer themselves to be commanded by him, marched to the Cordeliers Church, preceded by two field-pieces, and there he ordered a general difcharge on the people, who fell dead by fcores; at least two hundred lives were loft in lefs than five minutes. Jourdan, not fatisfied with the carnage, took his ruffans to the prifons, in which were confined all who were confpicuoufly inimical to a union with France, and ordered them to be eized and ftrangled. Proteft of the Princes of the House of Bourbon again the King's Acceptance of the Conftitution. "Ir is in vain that an unfortunate Monarch, actually captive, though free in appearance, has confented to the ruin of his faithful fubjects to the ruin of the Monarchy-by accepting a pretended Conftitution of the Empire; it is in vain that he has figned his own degradation; this fanction which the King has given in fact to a monftrous code, is really no fanction in right. And who can be perfuaded of the legality of fuch an affent, while every thing proclaims the contrary? "Can a Prince, left alone amidst ufurpfurrounded with the wrecks of his own throne, encompaffed by fears and menaces, ers, befet by intrigue, have freedom of choice? and without freedom of choice, is not every confent null? "Freedom confifts in being able to chufe without danger, and without fear; it cannot exist without this condition, and confent is null when refufal would hazard the fafety and property of him who gives it. If the King had refused to accept the Conftitution, he would have been deprived of the crown, fe had the ufurping Affembly decreed; and in rejecting with difdain a degraded crown, and prefented by a feditious Affembly, was the King mafter of the choice of his afylum; and would he not have expofed his perfon, and all that was ftill more dear to him, to outrage, and his faithful fubjects to profcription, to murder and to conflagration? "Without doubt, had Louis XVI. entertained the hope of dying at least with glory, if his blood could have faved France, the inheritor of the virtues of Henry IV. would have difplayed his courage. Forced to obtain his inheritance by conqueft, he would, like him, have been the victor and the father of his fubjects; and, like him, would have compelled them to become happy. But what can courage do without fupport? Henry had an army; and Louis aJone, betrayed, abandoned, captive in the hands of his enemies, without troops, without auxiliaries, forced to regret the happy obfcurity of the meaneft of his fubjects, in the midft of an importunate crowd, who ferved rather to beliege than defend him, found not even one friend to share his forrows and wipe away his tears. "The King, then, could form no other determination than that which he adopted, without hazarding the lofs of his crown, and perhaps his life. His degradation, and even his death would have been an useless facrifice to honour; it would have colt France long and fruitlefs remorfe, but could not have faved it. "The King then was not free, his fanc tion is therefore null; and in this cafe to disobey illufory orders is to give the strongeft and most courageous proof of obedience and fidelity; it is to ferve the real Monarch, it is to ferve God and our country. "Scarcely could this pretended affent be credited, if the King had proclaimed it amidft his family, furrounded with his ancient and faithful fervants, with all his military household, in fine, with all the fplendour of his former power. Then the Royal Affent, though the occafion of fo much ruin, would neverthelefs have been recognised as juft, at least reputed free; then we might. have, condemned the error of the Prince, but fhould not have wept over his chains; then the fact would have been inconteftible, we could only have difputed the right. "In fact, even if the King had enjoyed. fulf full poffeffion of his liberty, would he have had the right to fanction laws contrary to the fundamental laws of the kingdom?Could he, from a mistaken generofity, and in the expectation of a deceitful calm, have facrificed along with himself, his family, his fucceffors, the true happinefs of the people, generations prefent and to come? Could he give a valid approbation to the pretended Conftitution which has occafioned fo many misfortunes? Poffeffor for life of the throne which he received from his ancestors, could the King, in alienating his primordial rights, deftroy the conftitutive balis on, which it is founded? Born Defender of the Religion of the State, could he confent to what tends to itsruin,and abandon its Minifters to wretchednefs and difgrace? Bound to adminifter juftice to his fubjects, could he renounce the function, effentially royal, of caufing it to be adminiftered by Tribunals legally conftituted, and of fuperintending himfelf the Adminiftration? Protector of the Rights of all the Orders, and of the Poffeffions of Individuals, could he fanction the invafion of the one, and the violation of the other? Father of his People, could he abandon them to diforder and anarchy? In fine, could he highly approve, what reafon and juftice condemn, and eternize the misfortunes of France? "And what is this Conftitution, which they pretend to give us, except a monfter deftructive of laws human and divine; a work of offence and iniquity; null from the vice of the convocation of the members of the Affembly ftyling themfeives Conftituting; null from the combination of the Deliberating Body, a combination fuhverfive of the first bafis of the State, the diftinction of Orders; null from the principles which it establishes, fince they overturn the Throne and the Altar, and tend to replunge men in barbarifm by appearing to bring them back to nature; null from its confequences, dreadful confequences, of which experience already prefents a too faithful catalogue in the diforder of the finances, in the scarcity of money, in the ftagnation of commerce, in the want of difcipline among the troops, in the inactivity of the tribunals, the filence of the laws, the tyranny of the factious, and the oppreflion of the rich; in one word, in the triumph of licentioufnefs over true liberty? "It would be ufelefs to accumulare reafoning; truth is too ftriking; and facts already speak fo loudly, that the confequences cannot be denied, without a fpecies of felf-deception. The King then had no right to fanction fuch a conftitution, of which his fanction, already null by the defect of freedom, is null likewife by the defect of right. “Ah! when victorious over the Gauls, the first Franks affembled in the Champ-de Mars, raifed Pharamond on the fhield; when their warlike voices exclaimed-Reign over us, and let your defcendants reign over our children-they were far from foreseeing, that at the end of fourteen ages a generation would come, whofe madness would deftroy the work of wisdom, and of valour, When Philip the Fair, reviving the rights of the people that had been disregarded under indolent monarchs, fummoned to the States General the deputies of the Third Eftate, and placed them along with the Peers of his realm, he did not fufpect that, one day this ungrateful order would overturn the two others, would deck ambitious tribunes with the fpoils of the Supreme Fower, and leave only the phantom of a King on the throne of Charlemagne. No, it fhall not be fo;-No, the French monarchy fhall not perifh; and fince motives which it is impoflible for us to perceive, but which can originate only from the violence and constraint which by being difguifed, are only more cruel, force Louis the XVI. to fubfcribe an acceptance which his heart rejects-which his own intereft and that of his people condemn, and which his duty as King exprefsly prohibits, "We proteft in the face of the whole world, and in the moft folemn manner, against this illufive act, and all that may follow from it; we have fhewn that it is null of itself, null by defect of liberty, null by the radical vice of all the operations of the ufurping Affembly, which not being an Affembly of the States General, is nothing. We are fupported by the rights of the whole nation, in rejecting decreces diametrically oppofite to their wishes, expreffed by the unanimous tenor of inftructions to their reprefentatives; and we difavow, on behalf of the nation, thofe treacherous mandatories, who, in violating their orders, and departing from the million entrusted to them, ceafed to be its reprefentatives. We will maintain, what is evident, that having acted contrary to their title, they have acted without power, and what they could not legally do cannot be validly accepted. "We proteft for the King, and in his name, again what can only bear its falfe impreflion. His voice being ftifled by oppreflion, we will be its neceffary organs; and we exprefs his real fentiments as they exit in the oath of his acceflion to the throne, as they have appeared in the ac tions of his whole life, as they have been difplayed in the declaration which he made at the first moment that he believed himself free. He neither can nor ought to have any other, and his will exifts only in thofe acts where it breathes freely. "We proteft for the people, who, in their delirium, cannot perceive how destruc tive this phantom of a new conftitution, which is made to dazzle their eyes, and before which they are vainly made to fwear, must become to them.-When these people, neither knowing their lawful chief, nor their dearest interests, suffer themselves to be mifguided to their destruction; when blinded by deceitful promises, they fee not those who excite them to destroy the pledges of their own fecurity, the supporters of their repofe, the principles of their fubfiftence, and all the ties of their civil affociation; it becomes neceffary to claim for them the reeftablishment of all thefe, it becomes neceffary to fave them from their own frenzy, "We proteft for the religion of our fathers, which is attacked in its dogmas and worship, as well as its minifters; and in order to fupply the Monarch's want of power at prefent to discharge in his own perfon, his duties as eldest fon of the Church, we affume in his name the defence of its rights; we oppofe thofe invafions of its property, which tend to degrade it; we rife in indignation against acts which menace the kingdom with the horrors of schifm; and we loudly profefs our unalterable attachment to the ecclefiaftical rules admitted in the State, the obfervance of which he has worn to maintain. "We proteft for the fundamental max ms of the Monarchy, from which the King is not permitted to depart; which the Nation itself has declared to be inviolable; and which would be totally reverfed by the decrees which abolish royalty itself, by fuppreffing all the intermediate ranks; by thofe which deprive Monarchy of the functions most effential to Monarchical Government "In fine, we protest in the presence of the Supreme Being, and in the name of Eternal Juftice, for all orders of the State, and for all Frenchmen. "This proteft, figned along with us by all the Princes of the Blood, who are connected with us, is common to all the Houfe of Bourbon, on whom their eventual rights to the Crown impose the duty of defending the auguft depofit. (Signed) furc at the motives which have induced great number of citizens to quit the kingdom. "After having adopted all the neceffary measures to maintain peace within the kingdom, and mutual good wishes between the nation and foreign powers, and also to fecure the frontiers from invafion, his Majesty is of opinion that mildness and perfuafion are the principal instruments to be employed to bring back into their own country those men whofe political diffentions and a difference of opinion have driven out of it. Although the majority of the emigrants feem not to have altered their refolution in confequence of the King's procla mation and the further steps which he has taken; fome good effects have, however, been produced. Emigrations are not so fre quent; and many have already returned into the kingdom. The King was daily in hopes of feeing a greater number follow their example. "The King ftill placing confidence in the adoption of the fame meafures, has refused his fanction to a decree of the National Afsembly, several rigorous articles of which appeared to him to defeat the end which the law ought to have in view, and which the intereft of the people requires, and which were incompatible with the manners of the nation and with the principles of free Constitution. a "But his Majesty owes it to himself and to thofe by whom his exertion of Royal prerogative might be misconstrued, to infift on the pofitive execution of its meaning, and to fulfil, as much as lies in his power, the intention of that law, though he has rejected the means which it prescribes. "The King declares therefore to all thofe whom a ipirit of oppofition may induce to quit, or to stay out of the kingdom, that he fees not only with grief, but with much displeasure, a conduct by which the public tranquillity is disturbed, and which it is his conftant endeavours to maintain, and by which thofe laws are opposed which he has anctioned by his folemn acceptance. LOUIS STANISLAS KA- ceived, who fhould imagine that the King is "Those people would be exceedingly de VIER, of a different opinion from that which he has declared publicly, and who should on that error form the foundation of their hopes and of their conduct, in whatever manner it may appear in their own eyes.No other opinion exifts at this day. The King, by exercifing his prerogative relative to the rigorous meafures adopted against them, gives a proof of the liberty which he enjoys, and which they can neither mistake nor contradict. To doubt of the fincerity of his refolutions, when they are convinced that he enjoys liberty, would be an affront. The King would be unable to diffem ble Bfe the grief which he felt on seeing the diforders which prevailed in the kingdom, and he has long flattered himself with the belief, that to thofe it was owing that fo many families had quitted their habitations; but thefe can no longer be pleaded as motives by those who fufpiciously affemble together, and labour to fow the feeds of difcord within the kingdom. Thofe cannot complain of the inexecution of the laws, and of the weakness of government, who are themselves examples to others of difobedience, and who refufe to recognize as obligatory the united wills of the Nation and of the King. "No government can exist where private will does not yield to the public will. This conditional maxim is the basis of all focial order, and the security of all public rights. It is therefore the intereft and duty of all thofe who have families and property in their own country, to labour for the prefervation of peace, to take a fhare in its fortunes, and to fupport the laws under which they are protected. "Although the conftitution has abolished titles and diftinctions, it does not exclude those who enjoyed them from poffeffing the means of influence, and the new honours which it has decreed; and if, instead of difquieting the people by their absence and by their proceedings, they would endeavour to co-operate for the public good, either by fpending their fortunes in their own country, or by giving up their time, which is happily their own, through independence, to the fecuring of the public intereft, would they not enjoy all the advantages which are founded on public esteem and on the confidence of their fellow citizens? "Let them therefore give up thofe projects which reafon and their duty, as well as the public good and their own perfonal advantage, difapprove and reprobate. "Frenchmen! ye who have conftantly manifefted your attachment to your King, remember that it is your King who recalls you back into your own country. He promifes you tranquillity and security under the protection of the laws, the fupreme execution of which is in his hands. Thefe he guarantees you in the name of the nation to which he is infeparably united, and from which he has received the moft tender proofs of attachment and love. "The wishes of your fellow-citizens, and the will of your King, exhort you to return. "But remember that the King, who fpeaks to you as a father, and who will confider your return as a proof of attachment and loyalty, at the fame time declares to you that he is refolved to defend, by all the means in his power, the kingdom which is confided to his care, and the laws to which he is unalterably attached. "He has made known his intentions to the Princes his brothers. Of thefe he has alfo given notice to the Princes in whose territories the emigrants are affembled. He hopes that his entreaties will have that weight with you which he has a right to expect. "But, if it were poffible that they should be made in vain, know ye that he is ready to make every kind of requifition from foreign powers; that he will adopt all juft and vigorous measures to prevent your facrificing to your criminal obstinacy the hap pinefs of your fellow-citizens, as well as your own, and the tranquillity of your country. (Signed) LOUIS, (and lower) DELESSART LETTER FROM THE KING TO THE PRINCES HIS BROTHERS. PARIS, Oct. 16. 1791. " I should have imagined that my con duct towards you, and the acceptance which I have made of the constitution, would have been fufficient, without any further meafures en my part, to prevail on you to return into the kingdom; or, at least, to give up the projects which you seem to have formed. "Your conduct, fince that period, in duces me to believe that you are ftill ignorant of my real intentions. I therefore think it expedient to affure you what they are, under my own hand. "When I accepted, without the least mo dification, the new conftitution of the king. dom, I was principally determined by the with of the people, and the defire of peace; I thought that it was time that the disturb ances of France fhould have a period, and feeing that it was in my power to concur in this object by my acceptance, I did not. hesitate to give it freely and voluntarily my refolution is invariable. If the new laws demand fome change, I expect that time and reflection will fhew its neceffity= I am determined myself not to provoke it, nor to allow any other, by means contrary to the public tranquillity, and to the law which I have accepted. "I am of opinion that the motives which determined me, ought to have equal influence with you. I invite you, then, to follow my example. If, as I have no doubt, the happiness and tranquillity of France are dear to you, you will not hesitate to concur, by your conduct, to re-establish them; by ter minating those inquietudes which agitate |