the fplendid actions of Buonaparte, notwithstanding his victories in Piedmont, was, early in 1799, as we have seen, fuperceded, in the command of the army of Italy, by the minifter of war, the peculator Scheerer. The admiral Bruix, parading, with a large fleet, between Toulon and Breft, and Breft and Toulon, afforded to many reafons for fufpecting that its equipment was intended for no other purpose than that of a chain of peculation from the directory to the dock-yard. There was no meannefs or mildemeanor, or act of injuftice and oppreffion fo great, but that a numerous part of the nation thought their rulers capable of it. While the battalions were greatly deficient in their complements of men; enormous exactions of money were made, for the maintenance of numerous legions, on paper. The privations, miferies, and diftrefles of the armies abroad; multiplied inftances of corruption on the part of the government at home; arbitrary imprifonments and fequeftrations, and juftice and injuftice, bought or fold; all thefe circumftances produced a general odium against the directory, which foon proved an overmatch for all their means, great as they were, of maintaining their fway by influence and corruption.

It is not permitted, by the limits of our plan, to follow the directory through that variety of meafures they took, from day to day, for the internal government of France, and the fupport of their own authority. We hall only state a few facts, which, however, will be fufficient to give fome idea of the principles

and artifices that governed their general conduct.

By their influence in the affemblies, the most distinguished and zealous of their partizans were appointed fecretaries to the different committees or commiffions of the councils. Thefe, in general, found means of bringing over a majority to agree to whatever was propofed. But, whenever they experienced any difficulty, or serious oppofition, they applied for new mellages from the directory, of a more peremp tory and menacing nature, which never failed to reduce oppofition to filence.

In order to avoid the odium attending the impofition of fair and neceflary taxes, they had recourfe to rapine, whenever they had any kind of pretext for its commiffion; in which rapine they were cordially fupported, even by the council of five hundred, who bore fome analogy to the British house of commons, and were the more immediate reprefentatives of the people: * though their fchemes were fometimes vigorously oppofed in the council of elders. Thus, when they found that a

propofed tax on falt would not go down, and the deficit was but imperfectly fupplied by a tax on doors and windows, they fell upon the poffeffions, movcable and immoveable, of the proteftant clergy of Alface. It was remonftrated in vain that these were fecured to the clergy by treaties between the former lovereigns of Alface and France. The poffeflions of the proteliant clergy, it was faid, belonged origi nally to the catholics; that tran!actions between princes and people

did not alter the nature and origin of things; that liberty and equality fhould prevail throughout the whole French republic; that the Lutherans, who had their minifters, fuperiors, confiftories, and even canons, formed a ftate within a state, which was abfurd; that the interefts of individuals ought not to be put in competition with that of the public, &c. It was decreed as a law, that all donations and eftablishments, founded either by Lutherans or Calvinifts, whether for the fupport of divine worthip, religious orders, or even for hofpitals, or other charitable purposes, were national property.

The difcomfiture and defeats that every where attended the French armies, in the early part of 1799, united with a general contempt and deteftation of the executive government, awakened the courage with the hopes of the jacobins, and threatened the moderate and peaceable part of the nation with a revival of the fyftem of terror. While a general infurrenction prevailed in the western departments, a coalition of parties was formed at Paris against the directory, whole power was overthrown by the election of a new third of the legislature, and, on the eighteenth of June, by the appointment of their fucceffors. The rapacious Rewbel was ftript of his power by the lot of feceffion. Trailhard, Merlin, and Lareveillete Lepaux, were threatened into refignation. Barras remained, and received for his new colleagues, Gohier, prefident of the court of revifion, and, at a former period, minifter of juftice; Roger du Cos, an ex-legiflator, of whom little was faid or known; Moulins, a terrorift or jacobincial general; and the filent, fpeculative, and pertinacious abbé

Sieyes, at that time French ambaffador at the court of Berlin. It fcarcely falls within the province of general hiftory, on the most diffufive plan, and certainly not within our design, to be more particular in an account of the political confufions and changes of an unsettled and capricious government, agitated by fo many individual interefts, paffions, and vices. It is not worth while to mark the relative positions of particles of matter tost about in a whirlwind. Suffice it to fay here, what has already, been obferved, that the new rulers, on their entrance into office, had recourse to the ufe and renown of arms. Still, however, while the voice of the jacobins was for war, contribu tions, and confcriptions, the cry of the beft part of the nation was perfonal fafety, the prefervation of property, and peace. In this al ternative, menacing on the one hand, a return of the royalifts (which must take place, if the coalefced powers fhould not be refifted with vigour and effect) and the fyftem of terror, with all the burthens of war, on the other, the French nation, with admiration and regret, called to their remembrance, the hero, who, without confcriptions of men, or contributions of money from France, led on the French to victory, and glory. In thefe circumflances, early in October, Buonaparte landed fuddenly at Frejus, in Provence, like a fpirit from another world. He as fuddenly overthrew the revolutionary work of ten years, and affumed the fovereign power over a nation incapable of republican freedom, and the prey of contending factions, almoft equally corrupt, under the name of chief conful.

CHRONICLE.

JANUARY.

3d. THE rivers and fhores along

the Ellex coaft were this week fo covered with ice, that moft of the corn and other veffels were frozen up. The wild fowl collected upon it in great abundance. Several accidents happened to perfous fhooting with long guns. The landlord of the Feathers-inn, at Tillingham, hattered his arm fo that it was obliged to be immediately amputated; and lieutenant Seave, of the Acute, gun-boat, in Bradwell-river, had his face feverely wounded, Both were occafioned by the bursting of their fowlingpieces.

4th. His grace John Henry, duke of Rutland, having attained the twenty-first year of his age on this day, it was celebrated with the greateft feftivity, both at Belvoircastle and Grantham. In the morning the bells of Grantham-church ufhered in the day. Jofeph Law rence, efq. commander of the volunteer infantry, went, at ten o'clock, with his detachment, to Belvoir-castle, where they were reviewed by the duke of Rutland and the duke of Beaufort, and at one o'clock they fired a feu de joie. On this day every magnificence was exhibited at the castle, and every joy which mirth and enter-. VOL. XLI.

tainment could give the ruftic was found around its walls. The heir

apparent to the throne, the nobility

and gentry of the county, and the fons of the first and most diftinguithed families in the kingdom, to the number of about two hundred and eighty, honoured his grace with their prefence on this occafion.

6th. Turnbull, a foldier, who ftands charged with having ftolen, from the mint in the Tower, two bags of 1000 guineas each, was apprehended, at Dover, by the malter of a trading vellel, to whom he applied for the purpose of hiring his boat to carry him to Calais, and offered thirty guineas for his paffage. Some doubts of the propriety of his application arifing in the mind of the boatman, inducing him to fcrutinize the countenance of his employer, he was ftruck with his refemblance to the perfon adver tifed; in confequence of that idea, he had him fecured until he infpected the advertisement, which leaving no doubt as to his being the perfon, he was fearched in a publichoufe, and on his perfon were found 1010 guineas of the year 1798 ;in the afternoon of the fame day he was brought to town in the mailcoach, and lodged in fafe cuftody.

Same day, at half paft one o'clock, the manfion at Walworth, the property of the widow of the late fhe

B

riff

riff Fenn, and inhabited by her daughter and fon-in-law, fir John and lady Rofe, unfortunately caught fire, and in lefs than two hours was burnt to the ground.-On inveftigation it appeared, that the old lady (Mrs. Fenn) was fitting by the fire, in her bed-room, on the firft floor; a coal flew out of the fire and burnt the carpet; the old lady, as fhe thought, extinguifhed it, but in a few minutes after it blazed out; and in her attempt to put it out, her handkerchief caught fire, which fo alarmed her as to put her in a fenfelefs ftate. Sir John and lady Rose, who had been on a vifit to Dover, arrived juft in time to witness the deftruction of their premifes.

7th. An account was received in town, from Portsmouth, of the arrival there of the Wolverene gun-veffel, commanded by captain Mortlock. This veel failed from the Downs only on Thursday laft on a cruize off the French coaft, and on the following day fhe fell in with two large French luggers, one carrying 16 guns, and the other 14, and having on board 140 men each. A very warm action immediately commenced, which was fuftained for near two hours, during which, the Frenchmen attempted to board tle Wolverene. Captain Mortlock, with his own hands, lafhed one of the French veffels to an iron ftanchion of his own fhip, which, however, unfortunately gave way, and the enemy got off, and being clofe in with their own fhore, they both efcaped. Captain Mortlock was badly wounded, and the mafter was likewife wounded, and eight men, and a feaman and marine were killed. The Wolverene mounts only 12 guns, and carries but 70 men, and the united force

of the enemy was 30 guns, and 280 men. She is the gun-vessel fitted out by commiffioner Schank, with the inclosed plane in the gun-carriages.-Captain Mortlock is fince dead of his wounds.

8th. The leafe of Don Saltero's coffee-houfe, at Chelsea, was fold, with all the curiofities. This wellknown coffee-houfe was firft opened in the year 1695, by one Salter, a barber, who drew the attention of the public by the eccentricities of his conduct, and by furnishing his houfe with a large collection of natural and other curiofities, which till now remained in the coffeeroom, where printed catalogues were fold, with the names of the principal benefactors to the collection. Sir Hans Sloane contributed largely out of the fuperfluities of his own museum. Vice-admiral Munden, and other officers who had been much upon the coafts of Spain, enriched it with many curiofities, and gave the owner the name of Don Saltero; fee Tatler, No. 34, Nichols's edition, where Saltero is ridiculed for his credulity in appropriating his pincushion and hats to queen Elizabeth's chambermaids, &c. In the fame light is to be confidered a famous relic we have seen in the mufeum of the royal fociety at Crane-court, under the name of Pontius Pilate's wife's grandmother's hat, but better calculated to fit mother Shipton or her grandame. Such collections, however, aided by thofe of Tradefcant, Afhmole, and Thorefby, cherished the infancy of fcience, and fhould be appreciated as the playthings of a boy after he is arrived at man. hood.

9th. Paris. The whole range of edifices erected in the interior of the

gardens