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and rank, he has no lefs manifefted a heart zealous for your glory. In fact, Sire, foreigners cannot conceive, pofterity will not believe, that we could be exposed to any danger in telling your majefty that truth, which you have demanded in perfon. Your prefence has ever been accompanied with favour; muft it henceforth produce fear and affliction? A bed of juftice would be lefs terrible than a fitting of parliament; and our loyalty to your majefty would fupprefs our voices, were our confidence, encouraged by yourself, no other than the fignal of our exile or imprisonment. And what imprisonment, Sir? Honour and humanity, as well as juftice, tremble at it; the baseft men have laid hands on the perfon of one of your magiftrates; his houfe has been befieged; inftruments of the police have driven away his family. It was by prayers and entreaties to thofe ungracious men, that he was permitted to fee his wife, his children, and his fifters, on his departure. They have forced him away without a fervant; and that magiftrate, who, on Monday, thought himfelf under the perfonal protection of your majefty, is gone to a diftant prifon, unattended but by three men, the devotees of arbitrary power. The fecond of thefe magiftrates feized by your orders, though treated in his own house less cruelly than the other, has nevertheless been conftrained to depart with a fever, and threatened with an inflammatory diforder, to a place where life is a continual punishment. His dwelling is a rock; his prifon beat by the waves of the fea; the air he breathes unwholfome; all affiftance is remote, and your majefty, without wifhing it, without knowing it,

in figning the order of imprisonment, has pèrhaps figned that of his death. If exile is the recompence of the fidelity of the princes of your blood; if outrages and captivity threaten the uprightnefs of the firft magistrates of the kingdom; we may ask ourselves with terror and grief, what will become of the laws, the public liberty, the national honour, and the manners of your majesty's subjects; those manners fo mild, fo neceffary to be preserved for the common intereft of the throne, and of the people. Such defigns, Sire, are not in your heart; fuch examples are not the principles of your majefty. They arife from another fource. Your parliament, Sire, most humbly befeeches your majefty, as you value your glory, your high renown, to remove thofe afficting counfels, to confult and liften only to your own heart; and then, juftice with humanity, encouraged by the return of the first prince of your blood, and by the release of your two magiftrates, will begin to efface an example, which would end by the destruction of the laws, the degradation of the magiftracy, univerfal difcouragement, and the triumph of the enemies to the honour of the French.

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This might be a fufficient answer to your fecond petition; but I will condescend to add, that if I do not blame the intereft you exprefs for the detention of your two magiftrates, I difapprove, however, your exaggerating the circumftances and confequences of it. You feem to attribute the whole of this tranfaction to motives, which the free liberty I permitted you to exprefs your opinions does not warrant.

I am accountable to no perfon for the motives of my resolutions.

It is time you should feparate the particular cafe of those I have punished from the intereft of my other fubjects, and that of the laws.

All my fubjects are fenfible that the goodness of my heart is ever watchful for their happiness, and muft acknowledge the effects of it, even in my acts of justice.

Every individual is interested in the prefervation of public order, and that order effentially depends on the fupport of my authority.

If thofe I have charged to execute my orders have behaved in a manner contrary to my intentions, I will punish them; and if the place of confinement can any ways be detrimental to the health of the two magiftrates, I will order them to be removed to more falutary spots; for the feelings of humanity are infeparable from my heart, even in the execution of my juftice.

In regard to the duke of Orleans' abfence from the capital, and from my court, I have nothing to add to what I have already said to my parliament.

The Third Remonftrance of the Par-
liament of Paris to his Moft Chrif-
tian Majefty, on the fame Subject,
prefented Dec. 10, 1787.

Sire,

YOUR parliament, the princes

You

and peers of your realms, being feated, have charged us with the commiffion of laying at the foot of your throne their moft refpectful reprefentations on your majesty's answer to their fupplication.

The magiftracy of your kingdom, as well as every true citizen, are equally aftonished at the reproaches it contains, and the principles which are manifested in it.

We are, however, far from attributing thefe reproaches to the perfonal fentiments which infpire your majefty.

Public decency received a fevere wound in the choice of the executors of your orders. If their crime was not carried to the perfonal arrest of one of your magiftrates, the expofition of other facts, far from being exaggerated, is yet incomplete; and your parliament may add, that this magiftrate, whofe houfe was invefted by armed men, himself delivered up to the agents of the police, like a malefactor, faw himfelf reduced to the humilia tion of being liable to the fummons of an officer, from a fubmiffion to your majesty's order.

May we be allowed, Sire, to reprefent to you, that, in devoting ourselves to the public fervice, in promifing to releafe your majesty of the first duty you owe your nation, namely, that of juftice; in bringing up our children to be fubject to the fame facrifices, we never could have fuppofed we were destining ourselves and our children to the misfortunes, ftill lefs to outrages of fo heinous a nature.

But we do not come fo much to claim your benignity, as the proIt is not to tection of the laws. your humanity alone that we addrefs [U] 3

drefs ourselves; it is not a favour which your parliament folicits; it comes, Sire, to demand justice.

This juftice is fubject to regulations independent of the will of man -even kings themselves are fubfervient to them; that glorious prince, Henry the Fourth, acknowledged he had two fovereigns, God and the laws.

One of these regulations is, to condemn no one without a hearing; it is a duty in all times, and in all places; it is the duty of all men ; and your majesty will allow us to represent to you, that it is as obligatory on you as on your fubjects.

But your majefty has not to execute this function; and your parliament with pleasure brings to your recollection your glorious privileges, that of fhewing mercy to condemn ed criminals. To condemn them yourself, is not a function belonging to majefty. This painful and dangerous talk the king cannot exercise but through his judges. Thofe who find a pleasure in hearing your majefty pronounce the dreadful word of punishment, who advise you to punish without a trial, to punish of your own accord, to order exiles, arrefts, and imprifonments; who fuppofe that acts of rigour are compatible with a benign difpofition, equally force a wound to external juftice the laws of the realm, and the most confolating prerogative belonging to your majefty.

It does not allow, that opinions delivered in parliaments fhould be confidered as motives for your rigour, and in fome measure a confolation for us. But if strong reafons fhould actuate you to the exile of the duke of Orleans-if it can be called a kindness that you no longer leave two magiftrates expofed to pe

rifh in diftant prifons, or unwholefome places-if it is confidered as an act of humanity, which tempers juftice, in releafing them from fuch a fituation-they muft indeed be guilty! But it is the duty of your parliament to judge them-and we demand only, that their crimes should be published.

The meaneft of your fubjects is not lefs interefted in the fuccefs of our reclamations, than the first prince of your blood.-Yes, Sire, not only a prince of your blood, but every Frenchman punished by your majefty, and efpecially who is punished without a hearing, becomes neceffarily the fubject of public alarm. The union of these ideas is not the work of your parliament: it is that of nature, it is the voice of reafon, it is the principle of the most wholefome laws, of thofe laws which are engraved in every man's heart, which is the principle of yours, and which affures us of your personal approbation. The caufe of his royal highness the duke of Orleans, and of the two magiftrates, is then without our confent, and, by forcing thofe principles, the act of the throne, whofe only foundation is juftice, and without which no nation can be happy.

It is, therefore, in the name of thofe laws which preferve empires, in the name of that liberty for which we are the respectful interpreters and the lawful mediators, in the name of your authority, of which we are the firft and moft confidential ministers, that we dare demand the trial or the liberty of the duke of Orleans and the two exiled magiftrates, who are imprisoned by a fudden order, as contrary to the fentiments as the interefts of your majefty.

Manifefta

Manifefto of the Sublime Porte against Ruffia, dated the 11th of Zileade, the Year 1201 (the 24th of Auguft, 1787).

T

peace

HE concluded between the Sublime Porte and the court of Ruffia in 1187 (1774), was chiefly made for the repofe and tranquillity of their refpective fubjects, yet the court of Ruffia has not ceafed to raise and maintain pretenfions capable of disturbing the good harmony which that peace ought to procure: it has even proceeded fo far as to feize on the Crimea, a proceeding directly oppofite to the conditions agreed on to ferve as the foundation of the treaty of Dainardgik. It was ftipulated in the inftrument then given on both fides, that there fhould be no farther difcuffion between the two empires, and that they should enjoy a perfect peace. It was fpecified in the capitulations that they should avoid for the future all intrigue whatever, and all plots fecret or public; yet the court of Ruffia has raifed up prince Heraclius, who was furnished with a diploma of inveftiture as vaffal of the Sublime Porte. Ruffian troops have been placed in Tifflis: they have declared themfelves fupreme over the faid prince, and from that moment the diforder in Georgia and our adjoining frontiers has been general. When we alledged that this proceeding was a formal infraction of the treaties, it was maintained to the contrary. It was exprefsly agreed on, that the Oczakowians fhould have the free and unlimited extraction of the falt pans, which always belonged to the inhabitants of that frontier; yet they have always met with a number of impediments, and experienced every fort

of ill treatment from the Ruffians; and when they reclaimed the execution of the conventions, the court of Ruffia has conftantly refused it. The conful of that court has feduced the waywode of Moldavia, who has the rank of a prince; he favoured his flight, and when the Sublime Porte reclaimed him, the Ruffian envoy replied, his court would not deliver him up; a refufal directly oppofite to the treaties. The Ruffian court has fhewn as bad defigns by giving what turn it pleafed to many fimilar things. It has corrupted the fubjects of the Sublime Porte, by establishing confuls in Wallachia, Moldavia, in ifles and places where the prefence of those officers were useless, and even prejudicial to the true believers. It has invited to its eftates the fubjects of the Sublime Porte, and employed them in its marine and other fervices. It has especially entered into the interior difpofition of our adminiftration, by foliciting either the recall or punishment of governors, judges, vaffals, and of all the officers not in their intereft, and even of the pacha of Georgia and the princes of Wallachia and Moldavia. Every one knows how generously the Porte behaved to the Ruffian merchants :-They carried on their trade in the Ottoman ftates with fafety and liberty, and might go where they chofe; for which reafon we expected the fame indulgences for the fubjects of the Sublime Porte. Such were our conventions when the Ruffian court wanted to monopolize all the commerce, and exacted a duty far greater from the fubjects of the Sublime Porte than from other powers. When the fubjects of the Sublime Porte wanted to recover their debts in the Ruffian

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ftates,

ftates, they met a thousand obftacles; not being able to go where they wanted, they were obliged to return without their due; many even have disappeared without our knowing what became of them.-When the merchant veffels of the Sublime Porte wanted, either, through ftrefs of weather or want of water, or any other urgent neceffity, to go on board a Ruffian fhip, the Ruffians kept them off with their guns. They have likewife fometimes fired on our veffels from Soghoudgiak, The court of Ruffia wanted to underftand the article relating to prince Heraclius, ámongst other articles of a great deal lefs importance, and gave notice in a minifterial manner, by its envoy to the Sublime Porte, to furnish a common inftrument for all these objects; if not, it had ordered general Potemkin to march to our frontiers with 60 or 70,000 men, to exact the execution of all the articles, and that the emprefs was to come there herfelf. This notice was an open and formal declaration of war. The order given to general Potemkin to repair to our frontiers, at the head of fo many troops, is analogous to the proceedings of the court of Ruffia, with regard to the ufurpation of the Crimea. If the Ruffians remain masters of it, the Porte cannot hope to remain in fecurity for the future, and they will always have fome bad defigns to fear. Thefe confiderations engaged the Porte to fhew to the Ruffian envoy the defire they had for the Crimea to be established on its ancient footing, and to make a new treaty to cement friendship between the two empires. The envoy anfwered, he could not make thefe propofitions to his court, and that if he was to do it,

he forefaw no good could refult from it. He rejected or eluded the articles which contained our complaints, and formally anfwered, that his court would not renounce the Crimea. That for all these reasons, and others, either fecret or public, which it is impoffible to enumerate, the Sublime Porte is obliged to declare war, in confequence of which the has published this manifefto to the refpectable court of France, to inform it of the refolution fhe has taken to go to war with Ruffia. The Sublime Porte fubmits the motives herein contained to the equity of her friends.

Manifefto of the Court of Ruffia against the Sublime Porte, dated Petertburg, Sept. 13th, 1787.

T

HE court having received the

news of the imprisonment of M. de Bulgakow, minifter at Conftantinople, and the declaration of war made by the Porte, can no longer avoid a rupture, and in confequence has published a manifesto, the tenor of which is as follows:

"The troubles which have inceffantly agitated the public repofe and tranquillity established between the Ruffian empire and the Porte, by the peace of Kainardgi, are too recent to require recapitulation. Suffice it to fay, that fince the conclufion of that peace, unto the present moment, the Porte has fhewn, in all her conduct, the moft manifest want of faith, and a difpofition to render the effential stipulations then made illufive.

"Though the court of Ruffia is furnished with a multitude of proofs of this truth, which the referves for

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