moft tender friendship and affinity, which ought to have made the strongest and most falutary impreffion on the mind of the most faithful king.

But thefe powerful and juft confiderations were fo far from determining that prince to unite with his majesty and his Catholic majesty, that he abfolutely rejected their offers, and chofe to facrifice their alliance, his own glory, and the good of his people, to his unlimited and blind devotion to the will of England.

Such conduct leaving no doubt concerning the king of Portugal's true intentions, the king and the Catholic king could confider him, from that time, only as a direct and perfonal enemy, who under the artful pretext of a neutrality which would not be observed, would deliver up his ports to the difpofal of the English, to ferve for fheltering places for their fhips, and to enable them to hurt France and Spain with more fecurity, and with more effect.

Nevertheless, his majesty and his Catholic majefty thought it their duty to keep measures with the moft faithful king; and if the Spanish troops have entered Portugal, this invafion, which was become indifpenfibly neceffary, was not accompanied with any declaration of war; and the troops have behaved with all the circumfpection that could be required even in a friendly and neutral state.

All this moderation has been thrown away the king of Portugal hath just now declared war in form against France and Spain. This unexpected ftep forced the Catholic king to make the like declaration against Portugal; and the

king [of France] can no longer defer taking the fame refolution.

Independent of the motives which are common to the two monarchs, each hath feparate grievances to alledge against Portugal, which of themselves would be fufficient to justify the extremity to which their majeities see themselves with regret obliged to proceed.

Every one knows the utmost and violent attack made by the English, in 1759, on fome of the [French] king's fhips under the cannon of the Portuguese forts at Lagos. His majesty demanded of the most faithful king to procure him reftitution of thofe fhips: but that prince's minifters, in contempt of what was due to the rules of justice, the laws of the fea, the fovereignty and territory of their master (all which were indecently violated by the moft fcandalous infraction of the rights of fovereigns and of nations) in answer to the repeated requifi- tions of the king's ambaffador on this head, made only vague fpeeches with an air of indifference that bordered on derifion.

At the fame time, the court of Lifbon, pretending to be ignorant that fovereigns, who hold their rank of their birth only and the dignity of their crown, can never permit, under any pretext, any potentate to attempt to infringe prerogatives and rights belonging to the antiquity and majefty of their throne, hath pretended to eftablish, without diftinction, an alternative of precedence between all the ambaffadors and foreign minifters about the king of Portugal. The king, being informed by his ambaffador, of the notification that had been made to him of this extraordinary and un

ex

exampled regulation, fignified in writing to the most faithful king, his juft diffatisfaction; and his majesty declared, that he never would fuffer any attempt to be made to diminish the right effentially inherent in the reprefentative character, with which he is pleased to honour his ambaffadors and minifters.

However justly the king was authorised to exprefs, at that time, his displeasure on account of thefe grievances, and feveral other fubjects of complaint which he had received from the court of Portugal, his majefty contented himself with recalling his ambaffador, and continued to keep up a correfpondence with the most faithful king, which he very fincerely defired to render more intimate and more lasting.

That prince, therefore, can only blame himself for the calamities of a war, which he ought, on every account, to have avoided, and which he hath been the first to declare.

His offers to obferve an exact neutrality might have been liftened to by the king, and the Catholic king, if past experience had not taught them to guard against the illution and danger of fuch propofals.

In the beginning of the prefent century, the court of Lisbon was very forward to acknowledge king Philip V. of glorious memory, and contracted formal engagements with France and Spain. Peter II. who at that time filled the throne of Portugal, feemed to enter cordially into the alliance of the two crowns: but after diffembling his fecret intentions, for three years, he broke all his promifes, and the neutrality which he had afterwards follicited, and which, in a letter to the re

2

public of the United Provinces he had even advised her to embrace, and joined the enemies of France and Spain. The fame confidence, and the fame fecurity, on the part of the two crowns, in the prefent ftate of things, would undoubtedly have been followed by the like defection in the court of Lisbon.

United to the Catholic king by indiffoluble fentiments of tender friendship and common interests, the king hopes that their united efforts will be favoured by the God of hosts, and will in the end compel the king of Portugal to conduct himself on principles more conformable to found policy, the good of his people, and the ties of blood which unite him to his majesty and his Catholic majesty.

The king commands and enjoins all his fubjects, vaffals, and fervants, to fall upon the fubjects of the king of Portugal; and exprefly prohibits them from having any communication, commerce, or intelliger ce with them, on pain of death; and accordingly his majefty hath from this date revoked, and hereby revokes, all licences, paffports, fafe-guards. and fafe-conducts contrary to these prefents, that may have been granted by him or his lieutenant generals, and other officers; declaring them null and void, and of no effect; and forbidding all perfons to pay any regard thereto, And whereas, in contempt of the XVth article of the treaty of peace between France and Portugal, figned at Utrecht, April 11, 1713 (and by which it is exprefly ftipulated, "That in cafe of a rupture between the two crowns, the space of fix months after the faid rupture fhall be grant ed their fubjects refpectively, to fell or remove their effects, and withdraw

their perfons if they think fit") the king of Portugal hath just now ordered that all the French who are in his kingdom fhould leave it in the space of fifteen days, and that their effects fhould be confifcated and fequeftered; his majesty, by way of just reprifals, commands, that all the Portuguese in his dominions fhall, in like manner, leave them within the space of fifteen days from the date hereof, and that all their effects fhall be confifcated.

Versailles, June 20, 1762.

Papers relative to the late revolu

tion in Ruffia. Manifefto of the present empress of Ruffia, on her acceffion to the throne as independent fovereign. CATHERINE II. by the grace of God, emprefs and autocratrix of all the Ruffias, &c. &c. All the true fons of Ruffia have clearly feen the great danger to which the whole Ruffian empire hath in fact been exposed. First, the foundations of our orthodox Greek religion have been fhaken, and its traditions expofed to total ruin; fo that there was abfolutely ground to fear, that the faith, which hath been established in Ruffia from

the

the earliest times, would be entirely changed, and a foreign religion introduced. In the fecond place, the glory which Ruffia has acquired at of fo much blood, and expence which was carried to the greatest height by her victorious arms, has been trampled under foot by the peace lately concluded with its greatest enemy, And lastly, the domeftic regulations, which are the

bafis of the country's welfare, have been totally overturned.

our faithful fubjects were threatened, and feeing how fincere and exprefs their defires were on this head, we, putting our trust in the Almighty and his divine justice, have ascended the fovereign imperial throne of all the Ruffias, and have received a folemn oath of fidelity from all our faithful fubjects.'

This publication being made, the emprefs caufed the following note to be delivered to the foreign minifters, for their information.

Her majefty, the emprefs, having this day afcended the imperial throne of all the Ruffias, at the unanimous defire and preffing inftances of all her faithful fubjects and true patriots of this empire,

hath commanded notice thereof to be given to all the foreign minifters refiding at her court, with an affurance of her imperial majesty's invariable refolution to live in good friendship with the fovereigns their

masters.

the imminent dangers with which

throne of all the Rulias is a

manifeft

manifeft proof of this truth, that when fincere hearts endeavour for good, the hand of God direcs them. We never had either defign or defire to arrive at empire, thro' the means by which it hath pleased the Almighty, according to the infcrutable views of Providence, to place us upon the throne of Ruffia, our dear country.

On the death of our moft auguft and dear aunt, the empress Elizabeth Petrowna, of glorious memory, all true patriots (now our most faithful fubjects) groaning for the lofs of fo tender a mother, placed their only confolation in obeying her nephew, whom she had named for her fucceffor, that they might fhew thereby, in fome degree, their acknowledgments to their deceased fovereign. And, although they foon found out the weakness of his mind, unfit to rule fo vaft an empire, they imagined he would have known his own infufficiency. Whereupon they fought our maternal affiftance in the affairs of go

vernment.

But when abfolute power falls to the lot of a monarch, who has not fufficient virtue and humanity to place juft bounds to it, it degenerates into a fruitful fource of the most pernicious evils. This is the fum, in fhort, of what our native country has fuffered. She ftruggled to be delivered from a fovereign, who, being blindly given up to the most dangerous paffions, thought of nothing but indulging them, without employing himfelf in the welfare of the empire committed to his care.

During the time of his being grand-duke, and heir to the throne of Ruffia, he often caufed the most

bitter griefs to his moft auguft aunt and fovereign, (the truth of which all our court knows) however he might behave himself outwardly; being kept under her eye by her tenderness, he looked upon this affection towards him as an infupportable yoke. He could not, however, disguise himself fo well, but it was perceived by all our faithful fubjects, that he was poffeffed of the moft audacious ingratitude, which he fometimes fhewed by perfonal contempt, fometimes by an avowed hatred to the nation. At length, throwing afide his cloak of hypocrify, he thought it more fit to let loose the bridle of his paffions, than conduct himself as the heir of so great an empire. In a word, the leaft traces of honour were not to be perceived in him. What were the confequences of all this?

He was scarcely affured that the death of his aunt and benefactress approached, but he banished her memory entirely from his mind;; nay, even before she had fent forth her laft groan. He only caft an eye of contempt on the corpfe exposed on the bier; and, as the ceremony at that time required obliged him to approach it, he did it with his eyes manifeftly replete with joy; even intimating his ingratitude by his words. I might add, that the obfequies would have been nothing. equal to the dignity of fo great and magnanimous a fovereign, if our tender refpect to her, cemented by the ties of blood, and the extreme affection between us, had not made the care of it a duty to us.

He imagined that it was not to the Supreme Being, bat only to chance, that he was indebted for abfolute power, and that he had

it

it in his hands, not for the good of his fubjects, but folely for his fatisfaction. Adding therefore licence to abfolute power, he made all the changes in the ftate, which the weakness of his mind could fuggeft, to the oppreffion of the people.

Having effaced from his heart, even the leaft traces to the holy orthodox religion (although he had been fufficiently taught the principles thereof) he began firft by rooting out this true religion, established fo long in Ruffia, by abfenting himself from the houfe of God, and of prayers, in fo open a manner, that fome of his fubjects, excited by confcience and honefty, feeing his irreverence and contempt of the rites of the church, or rather the railleries be made of them, and fcandalizing them by his behaviour, dared to make remonftrances to him concerning it; who, for fo doing, fcarcely escaped the refentment which they might have expected from fo capricious a fovereign, whofe power was not limited by any human laws. He even intended to destroy the churches, and ordered fome to be pulled down. He permitted those to have chapels in their own houses, whofe infirmities hindered them from vifiting the house of God. Thus he would have domineered over the faithful, in endeavouring to ftifle in them the fear of God, which the holy fcripture teaches us to be the beginning of wisdom.

From this want of zeal towards God, and contempt of his laws, refulted that fcorn to the civil and na tural laws of his kingdom; for, having but an only fon, which God had given us, the grand-duke Paul Petrowitz, he would not, when he

afcended the throne of Ruffia, declare him for his fucceffor; that being referved for his caprice, which tended to the detriment of us and of our fon, having an inclination to overthrow the right that his aunt had vefted in him, and to make the government of our native country pafs into the hands of ftrangers; contradicting this maxim of natural right, according to which nobody can tranfmit to another more than he has received himself.

Although with great grief we faw this intention, we did not believe that we ourselves, and our moft dear fon, fhould have been expofed to a perfecution fo fevere: but all perfons of probity, having obferved that the measures that he purfued, by their effects, manifefted that they had a natural tendency to our ruin, and that of our dear fucceffor, their generous and pious hearts were juttly alarmed: Animated with zeal for the interest of their native country, and astonished at our patience under these heavy perfecutions, they fecretly informed us, that our life was in danger, in order to engage us to undertake the burthen of governing fo large an empire.

While the whole nation were on the point of teftifying their difapprobation of his measures, he nevertheless continued to chagrine them the more, by fubverting all thofe excellent arrangements established by Peter the Great, our most dear predeceffor, of glorious memory, which that true father of his country accomplished by indefatigable pains and labour through the whole courfe of a reign of thirty years. The late Peter the Third defpifed the laws of the empire, and her moft refpectable tribunals,

to