prevented from reaching the throne." Another mandaté was now iffued, ordering the parliament to revoke this resolution, on pain of the king's high displeasure; instead of which, a fecond refolution paffed, that they could not comply with this injunction without violating their duty and their oath. Upon which, lettres de cachet were immediately iffued, and the members of the parliament banished to distant parts of the kingdom: and a royal chamber was in ftituted for the intermediate administration of public justice. The letters patent for the establishment of this court were, however, according to the laws and customs of the kingdom, not valid till they were judicially enregistered; and the parliament of Paris being now no more, application was made to the inferior court of the Chatelet, which declared its abfolute incompetency for that purpose: and the lieutenant Civile appearing in the court in order to enforce the registery, all the counsellors rose up and retired, leaving on the table an arrêt, containing their protest against these proceedings: in confequence of which, feveral of the most respectable and fpirited members of this court were committed to the Baftile. The nation at large was now in the highest degree inflamed and exafperated at the defpotic conduct of the court. The provincial parliaments prefented bold remonftrances to the throne, justificatory of the parliament of Paris. The prosecutions of the contumacious priests were every-where continued, and things feemed evidently tending to open and general revolt, when the court thought proper to avert the storm by a recal of the parliament, who publicly re-entered Paris amidst the loudeft acclamations of the people. And the archbishop perfifting in his former exhortations and directions to the clergy, was fent as an exile to Conflans-fous-Charenton. But the wound occafioned by this diffenfion between the court and parliament was never radically healed; and the king, after the lapfe of about two years, not only recalled the archbishop, but received, with decided marks of royal approbation, a bull from the Roman

pontiff,

pontiff, in which those who rejected the bull Unigenitus were piously configned to everlasting damnation, and the reiterated refufal of the facraments confirmed by the authoritative fanction of the holy fee. The parliament of Paris, regarding this bull as a direct attack upon the rights of the Gallican church and nation, iffued an arrêt for its fuppreffion; upon which fresh contefts arofe, but the parliament remained firm, and the court was finally compelled to defift from those claims and pretenfions, which it had so unwifely and unfeasonably agitated. This memorable struggle made a mighty and lafting impreffion upon the minds of the people. The popularity of the monarch, formerly diftinguished by the flattering appellation of Le bien-aimé, was for ever departed. New and interefting ideas began to revolve in the public mind. The origin of the con troverfy was, in the progress of it, forgotten; and the recal of the parliament was not the triumph of Janfenifm, but of Liberty. The defpotic acts of the court were regarded by the nation with emotions of horror. Various publications, by writers of the highest talents, fucceffively appeared, in which the principles of just and equitable government were explained and illuftrated with irresistible force and energy; the boldeft fpeculations were indulged; prejudices, the most deeply rooted, were fuccefsfully affailed; an eager and ardent spirit of research was excited; touched by the wand of philofophy, the mighty talisman by which the nation had been fast bound in the sleep of a thousand years, was fuddenly diffolved; reason began to refume her empire, and an internal revolution now commenced-a revolution of the mind, which was pre-ordained, in the gradual and regular progreffion of events, to produce an external revolution unparalleled for the magnitude of its object, and the extent of its confequences, in the annals of mankind. But, alas! no unmixed good has ever yet been the lot of mortals; and experience too clearly evinces that truths of the highest moral and political im

portance,

portance, when firft fuggefted to men long bowed down by the iron hand of oppreffion, and newly awakened to a fense of their own rights, are as flashes of lightning which irradiate the gloom with a pale, terrific, and dangerous luftre.

The political contentions, however, which at this period arose between the kingdoms of Great Britain and France, and which terminated in a long and bloody war, feemed for some years, to absorb all internal and domestic commotion; and the resources of both nations were exhausted in a contest which a very small portion of wifdom, had they been really and mutually disposed to conciliation, might have fufficed to accommodate.-After the cession of Nova Scotia by the treaty of Utrecht, the British colonies in North America. extended along the western shore of the Atlantic for near a thousand miles, and, according to the tenor of the charters granted to the original fettlers, the dominion of the foil was bounded only by the Pacific ocean on the oppofite fide of the continent. Spain, in whom were vested the rights attached to the first discovery, advanced claims no lefs extravagant, and regarded as unwarrantable ufurpations the fucceflive settlements of the English nation. France, which held in contempt the pretenfions both of England and Spain, established, at a more recent period, colonies on the river St. Laurence to the north, and on the Missisippi to the fouth, of the English settlements: and a fyftematic and artfully-concerted plan was formed to connect these widely-diftant establishments by the gradual erection of a chain of fortreffes from the lakes Erie and Ontario, along and beyond the Ohio to the embouchure of the Miflifippi. To the rich and immenfe plains extending on both fides of that vaft river they gave the appellation of Louisiana; and they contended, that the English colonies were of right bounded by the range of high lands which ran parallel to the coaft, at the diftance of one hundred and fifty, or two hundred miles, under the different names of the Apalachian, Alleghaheny, or Blue Mountains. The

province

province of Nova Scotia being ceded to England, according to the ancient limits of that territory, fruitless and endless altercations arose, as to the import of this expreffion, between the commiffaries of the two nations, to whom the right of fixing the boundaries of the rival empires was affigned; the English claiming the whole territory as far as the fouthern bank of the river St. Laurence, and the French admitting their right only to the peninsula of Acadie. Another very serious caufe of difpute originated in a royal charter inconfiderately and injuriously granted to certain merchants and adventurers of the city of London, who affumed the title of the Ohio company, of a large tract of ground fituated on the banks of the Ohio, with an exclusive privilege of commerce with the Indian tribes inhabiting those regions. This extraordinary grant excited extreme disgust in the minds of the Virginian and Pennsylvanian traders, who faw themselves deprived of a lucrative branch of traffic, and the highest alarm amongst the Indian nations, who perceived with astonishment their lands measured and parcelled out by English furveyors, as if they, who were the actual occupants, had neither intereft nor property in them. And M. du Quefne, governor of Canada, declared that he would fuffer no encroachments or depredations to be made on the Indian tribes under the protection of the crown of France. Towards the latter end of the year 1753, major Washington, fince fo famous under the name of general Washington, was deputed by the government of Virginia to the French commandant on the Ohio, to demand by what authority fortreffes were erected, and fettlements made, on the territories of the king of Great Britain; and to require him immediately to defift from the profecution of defigns carried on in open violation of the treaties fubfifting between the two crowns, and totally fubverfive of the harmony and good understanding which his Britannic majesty was defirous to maintain and cultivate with the most chriftian king. To this peremptory requifition, which almost affumed the air and tone of a menace,

the

the French officer replied with equal fpirit, that it was not his province to fpecify the evidence, and demonstrate the right of the king his fovereign to the lands fituated on the river Ohio; but that he would transmit his message to the marquis du Quefne, his immediate fuperior. In the mean time, he declared his total difregard of the fummons of the English governor, and holding his command by virtue of a commiffion from his general, he was prepared and determined to maintain the rights, and to fulfil the duties, of his ftation. A far more ferious remonftrance was, about the fame time, prefented by the earl of Albemarle, the English ambaffador at Paris, to the court of Verfailles, in which the various caufes of complaint on the part of England were ftated in very strong language. It was declared that, while the commiffaries of the two nations were engaged in adjusting the limits of the two empires, the French had taken ctual poffeffion of the territories in difpute; that they had incited the Indians of Nova Scotia and the French inhabitants of Acadie to rife in arms against the English government, and had assisted them with vessels and military stores; that acts of violence had been repeatedly exercifed by the authority or countenance of the French governors against the fubjects of Great Britain; and numerous fortreffes erected with a view to defend their continual and manifest encroachments on the territories of his Britannic majesty: and his excellency concluded with demanding the erasure of the forts, the reftitution of the perfons and properties of all those who had been captured, and an unequivocal affurance that effectual care should be taken, by the most positive instructions to the French commandants in America, to prevent any fimilar caufes of complaint in future. The French court not being yet prepared, or not having yet resolved to risk an open rupture with Great Britain, replied to this memorial in terms civilly evasive, and engaged that inquiries fhould be made, and instructions transmitted to America to obviate all misunderstanding;