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ven to the planting of immenfe quantities of mulberry-tices, to promote the cultivation of filk. Trees grow to perfection in a few years here; in about four years thefe trees will be productive. It has been clearly exhibited, and the fact unquestionably proved, that a farmer's family can produce one pound of raw filk with the fame exertions that are requifite to produce the fame quantity of flax. The filk-worm requires about fix weeks attention each feafon; and the mulberry is fo favourable to all grain, that it rather ferves than obstructs the cultivation of other crops. The filk that has been hitherto produced in the eastern states, has been taken in by the frorekeepers at as high a rate as seven dollars a-pound, and is much in repute in England. 'The probable advantages of this cultivation are rated very high. It is even afferted, that it may, in 20 years, be capable of paying for the whole importation from Great Britain and Ireland. The luftrings and fewed tilk dyed and woven in Connecticut, have been imposed on English dry-good merchants as British, and allowed to be as good. The luftrings were wove in common linen looms. Manufactures of most of the useful articles are advancing very fait. I thought this would not have been the cafe whilft fo much land remained uncultivated, but the fact is fu."

Extract of a letter from Bladensburgh, Mary

land, dated the 20th June 1791.

"I cannot help flattering myself now, that the eastern branch of the Potowmack will be in fact, as well as local fituation, the centre of the United States. When the fixing of the permanent feat of govern ment was firft agitated, and even after the a of Congrefs for its being on the Potowhack was paffed, it feemed to me very doubtful whether it would be removed from Philadelphia; but the general opinion feems how to be strongly in favour of the caftern branch. You have, no doubt, heard that the flates of Virginia and Maryland have granted one hundred and eighty-two thoufund dollars towards ereching the public buildings; and the owners of the land where the city is to he, have given it up to the President, for the purpose of being laid out in lots, one half of which are to belong to the proprietors of the land, together with ail the timber new upon it, and the other half to be fold for the benefit of the public, towards defraying the expence of erecting the buildings.

"The city is to extend from the mouth of Rock-Creek, juft below Georgetown, down the river to the mouth of the branch, up the branch about three to four miles, then across the country to the road leading from this place to Georgetown, then by that road to the ford on Rock-Creek, then

with the creek to the river. Its figure wif be nearly a triangle, having the river, the eaftern branch, and the line acrofs to Rocks Creek for its fides, each of them being nearly four miles in extent; which many in Europe may think too much for any capital which America can ever produce, and accordingly be difpofed to laugh; but, ground not being of great value here at prefent, it is certainly right to begin by taking room enough. None of the areats are to be lefs than one hundred feet wide, and clumps of trees are to be left on fome of their fides, and in their public fquares, for ufe and or nament. A French and German engineer have been employed fome time in laying out the town, and the geographer of the United States is now running the lines of the Fœderal district of ten miles fquare, al of which are to be finished by the end of this month, when the Prefident is to be back from his prefent tour through the Carolinas and Georgia; and it is faid the first fale of the lots will take place in the Fall. Until he returns, it will not be publickly known in what part of the town the public buildings will be fixed; but it is generally fuppofed it will be pretty high up the branch, and near it, the ground there being level, and, at the fame time, elevat

ed.

"Ey an amendment to the law for eftablishing the feat of government, the ten miles fquare is now to begin at the mouth of Hunting Creek, a little below Alexandria, and to run N. W. ten miles; then N. E. ten miles into Maryland; then S. E. ten miles; then S. W. ten miles; which will include Alexandria and Georgetown, and leave out Bladensburgh, croffing the eastern branch about half a mile below us. It takes in Col. Beall's and Mrs Veitch's plantations, and about half of Mr Digges's large tract of land.

"In point of fituation we shall be as well off as if we were within the line, being fo very near it; and may be as eligible to be under the laws and police of our own immediate reprefentatives, as under thofe of the Congrefs, the majority of whose members can have no local attachment or connection with the district over which they are to have jurifdiction.-Speculation on the new city has already begun, and three tracts of land within its limits, containing not lefs than eleven hundred acres, have been fold at 20l. to 30l. per acre, which would not before have brought more than 51.

"Many people are now of opinion that the public buildings will be ready, and the Congrefs removed to them before the year 1800; and that there will foon be a confi derable town on the river and eastern branch. This confideration may perhaps have some

weight

weight with you in your future determinations. For my own part, I now think the feat of government will be here; and if the Prefident lives, he will bring it as foon as poflible."

GEORGE-TOWN, MARYLAND.

July 4.

The Prefident, with his fuite, and feveral attending gentlemen, is now here, laying down and directing the spot for the public buildings in the new Federal town, which will be in the vicinity of Carollfburg, near the mouth of the eastern branch of PotowRack River, and in fight of Alexandria.

Mr Ellicot, the geographer general of the United States, has fixed the fix main lines for the Federal 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 acrofs the river to RockCreek, leaving out this place about half a mile, thence actofs the eaftern branch of Evam's near the Ferry, and thence to the beginning. It will contain about eight thousand acres of land, in the cheapest, most fertile, and beautiful part of America; and although two hundred and filty 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 per. wianent 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 artifs, workmen, and common labourers, have taken a great rife; indeed the induences 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.

A third arrival of a cargo of India fugar, and the increafing produce from the maple er fugar tree, has reduced the price of that article far under the now firit coft Jamaica prices, and we are now looking to an export of this article to Europe.

The maple tree is a native of this flate, 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 Englih acre, and their produce, by a very fimple operation of tapping and boiling, produces about fix pounds of fugar in the season.

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"On the 8th of September, or by the lat Jamaica Packet, I did myfelf the plafure of writing an 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 thoufand of the negrocs in arms. For upwards of five weeks they have allowed them to be collecting and gaining confidence, by getting conmand of different places of ftrength around, and without ever having made any attempt of confequence to dilplace them. They carry fire and devaitation before them wherever they go, having deftroyed already 221 of the finett fugar eftates on the plain of the Cape, and about 600 of their coffee plantations. The regu lar forces they have here do not exceed $50, the remainder are of the militia, but they are deftitute of the neceffaty arms, having been obliged to feud to the different colonics 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 here, are fuppofed to be Arifberates; and the Democrates, who are the moll formidable in power, are exceeding jealous of the other party. The negroes have made one attent to get poffeflion of the town, and burn it but they were happily repulfed with a confiderable lets. The lefs of black people in the fundry skirmishes they have had, is computed 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 de roved were murdered, which I believe to b. the princi pal lots of white people. Upon the whole, from their miferable and unhappy state, and without the fmalleft proipect or expectation of any fiance 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 fupplied from Jamaica, together with a quantity from Nicola Mole, thall arrive, fo that we fhail be better able to judge of matters after that attempt is made. In short, they are at prefcut in a very fad ftate, being fur

Wheat is now at 38. 1od. to 4s. English per Winchester bushel. Indian corn 15. 6d. 3 H 2

Lounded

rounded by intrenchment and ftocade close round the town; and in the streets they are bufily employed in preparing Chevaux de Frize, and all other military obstructions. 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 short, it is a melancholy fcene of devaftation and bloodshed, 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 fmall 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. Nicho las Jourdan, ycleped coupe-tete, or cutter off of the heads, the self-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 less than five minutes. Jourdan, not fatisfied with the carnage, took his ruffans to the prifons, in which were confined all who were confpicuously inimical to a union with France, and ordered them to be feized and firangled.

Proteft of the Princes of the House of Bourbon against the King's Acceptance of the Conftitution.

" IT 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 fanc tion which the King has given in fact to a monstrous 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 amidft ufurpers, furrounded with the wrecks of his own throne, encompaffed by fears and menaces,

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 refusal would hazard the safety and property of him who gives it. If the King had refused to accept the Conftitution, he would have been deprived of the crown, fo had the ufurping Affembly decreed; and in rejecting with difdain a degraded crown, and prefented by a feditious Affembly, was the King master 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. cotertained 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 alone, 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, whe ferved rather to befiege than defend him, found not even one friend to thare 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 coft France long and fruitless remorfe, but could not have faved it.

"The King then was not free, his fano-. tion is therefore null; and in this cafe to difobey illufory orders is to give the fengcft and most courageous proof of obedience and fidelity; it is to serve the real Monarch, it is to ferve God and our country.

"Scarcely could this pretended affent be credited, if the King had proclaimed it amidit his family, furrounded with his an cient and faithful fervants, with all his mi litary household, in fine, with all the fplendour of his former power. Then the Royal Affent, though the occafion of fo much ruin, would nevertheless have been recognised as juft, at least reputed free; then we might have condemned the error of the Frince, but fhould not have wept over his chains; then the fact would have been incontestible, we could only have difputed the right.

"In fact, even if the King had enjoyed

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 happiness 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 bafis on which it is founded? Born Defender of the Religion of the State, could he confent to what tends to itsruin,and abandon its Ministers to wretchednefs and difgrace? Bound to adminifter juftice to his fubjects, could he renounce the function, effentially royal, of caufing it to be administered 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 invasion 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 justice 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 themfelves Conftituting; null from the combination of the Deliberating Body, a combination fubverfive of the first bafis of the State, the diftinction of Orders; null from the principles which it eftablishes, fince they overturn the Throne and the Altar, and tend to replunge men in barbarism by appearing to bring them back to nature; nuli from its confequences, dreadful confequences, of which experience already prefents a too faithful catalogue in the diforder of the finances, in the fcarcity 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 facticus, and the oppreffion of the rich; in one word, in the triumph of licentioufnefs over true liberty?

"It would be ufelefs to accumulate 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 nul! by the defect of freedom, is null likewife by the defect of right.

* Ah! when victorious over the Gauls,

the firft Franks affembled in the Champ-de Mars, raifed Pharamond on the fhields when their warlike voices exclaimed-Reign over us, and let your defcendants reign over our children-they were far from forefceing, that at the end of fourteen ages a ge neration would come, whofe madness would deftroy the work of wifdom, and of valour. When Philip the Fair, reviving the rights of the people that had been difregarded 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 Power, 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 perish; and fince mo-. tives which it is impoible for us to perceive, but which can originate only from the violence and contraint which by being difguifed, are only more cruel, force Louis the XVI. to fubfcribe an acceptance which his heart rejects-which his own interest and that of his people condemn, and which his duty as King exprefsly prohibits,

"We proteft in the face of the wholes world, and in the most folemn manner, a gainft 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 no thing. We are fupported by the rights of the whole nation, in rejecting decrees diametrically oppofite to their wishes, expreffed by the unanimous tenor of inftructions to their reprefentatives; and we dif.vow, on behalf of the nation, thofe treacherous mandatories, who, in violating their orders, and departing from the miffion entrusted to them, ceafed to be its reprefentatives. We will maintain, what is evident, that having acted contrary to their title, they have acled 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 faife impreffon. His voice being filed by opprefiion, we will be its neceflary organs; and we exprefs his real fentiments as they exift in the oath of his acceflion to the throne, as they have appeared in the actions of his whole life, as they have been difplayed in the declaration which he made at the first menient that he believed himself free. He neither can ner ought to have any other, and his will exifts only in thele acts where it breathes freely.

"We proteft for the people, who, in their delirium, cannot perceive how dru

tive this phantom of a new conftitution, which is made to dazzle their eyes, and be fore which they are vainly made to fwear, muft become to them.-When thefe people, neither knowing their lawful chief, nor their dearest interests, fuffer themfelves to be mifguided to their deftruction; when blinded by deceitful promifes, they fee not thofe who excite them to deftroy the pledges of their own fecurity, the fupporters 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 difcharge in his own perfon, his duties as eldeft fon of the Church, we affume in his name the defence of its rights; we oppofe thofe invasions of its property, which tend to degrade it; we rife in indignation against acts which menace the kingdom with the horrors of fchifm; and we loudly profefs our unalterable attachment to the ecclefiaftical rules admitted in the State, the obfervance of which he has fworn to maintain,

"We proteft for the fundamental maxims of the Monarchy, from which the King is not permitted to depart; which the Nation itfelf 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 moft effential to Monarchical Government

"In fine, we proteft in the prefence of the Supreme Being, and in the name of Eternal Justice, for all orders of the State,

and for all Frenchnien.

"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 impofe the duty of defending the auguft depofit.

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fure at the motives which have induced a 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 secure the frontiers from invafion, his Majetty is of opinion that mildneís and perfuafion are the principal inftruments to be employed to bring back into their own country thofe men whofe political diffentions and a differ ence of opinion have driven out of it.

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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 fo 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 Af fembly, feveral 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 a free Conftitution.

"But his Majefty owes it to himself and to thofe by whom his exertion of Royal prerogative might be mifconftrued, 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 prefcribes.

"The King declares therefore to all thofe whom a fpirit of oppofition may induce to quit, or to stay out of the kingdom, that he fees not only with grief, but with much difpleafure, a conduct by which the public tranquillity is difturbed, and which it is his conftant endeavours to maintain, and by which thofe laws are oppofed which he has fanctioned by his folemn acceptance.

"Thofe people would be exceedingly de ceived, who fhould imagine that the King is of a different opinion from that which he has declared publicly, and who fhould 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 again 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 difica

ble

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