tion whatever, who are in poffeffion of affignats, either belonging to them, or to any other perfon or perfons whatever, to bring them within the space of twenty-four hours to the verifiers to be verified, at the Maifon de France, in all the different towns now poffeffed by the French republic; otherwife they fhall be treated as fufpected perfons, and imprisoned, until a peace, in fome town in the department of Pas de Calais. 2. Any perfon or perfons knowing of a depot of falfe affignats, and not making an immediate declaration of the fame, to be ranked as an accomplice, and punified as *fuch." 3. All fhipping, merchants, and others, are required daily to bring the affignats they receive, within twenty-four hours after the receipt of them, to be verified, or, in default of fo doing, to be treated as fufpected. 4. Every perfon, or perfons, who fhall be found endeavouring to pafs falfe affignats, are immediately to be denounced by the party, or parties, to whom fuch affignats are offered, or, thofe neglecting fo to do, fhall be brought before the criminal tribunal of the department of Pas de Calais. Seen, and judged proper to be affixed in the ufual manner, in my prefence, LAURENT, general. meditated. Certain perverfe men would raise the tomb of liberty in the bofom of France. To be filent, we should betray ourselves, and the moft facred of duties is to enlighten you in the perils which furround you. Your most dangerous foes are not thofe fatellites of defpotifm, whom you are accuftomed to vanquish, but their perfidious emiflaries, who, mingling among you, combat your independence, by impofition and by caluinny. The heirs of the crimes of Robefpierre, and of all the confpirators whom you have overthrown, labour in every fenfe to mislead the republic; and, covered with various matks, they feek to lead you to a counter-revolution through the dif orders of anarchy. Such is the character of those whom ambition pushes on to tyranny. They proclaim their principles; they decorate themfelves with fentiments which they have not. They call themfelves the friends of the people, and they afpire only to authority. They talk only of the rights of the people they ftrive only to wreft them from their hands. Frenchmen, you will fuffer your felves no longer to be deluded by thefe fallacious infinuations; inftrueted by experience you will be deceived no more. The evil has pointed out the remedy. You were on the point of falling into the fnare of the wicked--the republic was about to perifh-you merely exclaimed "vive la convention!" the wicked were confounded, and the republic faved. Remember that fo long as the people and the convention are one, the attempts of the enemies of liberty will expire at your feet, as the foam foam of the ocean breaks upon the Reftored to your priftine energy, Rally at the voice of your representatives. You will never lofe fight of this truth, that the affurance of liberty is at once in the force of the people, and in its re-union to the government which has merited its confidence. On our fide, the convention, conftant in its courfe, fupported by the will of the people, will maintain, by reforming it, that government which has faved the republic. Yes, we fwear-we will remain at our poft until the confummation of the revolution; until that hour when the triumphant republic, giving the law to its enemies, fhall be able to enjoy, in the fecurity of victory, thofe fruits of a conftitution, as folid as the peace they shall have imposed. We shall know how to spare error and to strike only at crime: be inexorable only to immorality. The immoral man ought to be rejected by fociety as a dangerous element, corruptible by his nature, and therefore always ready to rally around confpiracy. Your reprefentatives will not fuffer the public functions to be exercifed by others than the true friends of the people-they will banish far from them the perfidious, who talk of the rights of the people only to engrols them. After having thus expreffed its and intentions, the national convenfolicitude, manifefted its thoughts tion ftates to the French people thofe facred principles and eternal truths the central force of their union. the flexible decifions of caprice, The laws are the fecurities for thofe rights is a crime against the Every thing which would violate focial organization. Individual liwhere it trenches upon the liberty berty must have no bounds, except of others. The law muft afcertain, and mark thofe boundaries. from us be thofe fyftems dictated by Property must be facred. Far immorality and idlenefs, that erect into fyftem the commiffion of theft, and diminish the falutary horror it therefore fecure our property, as it infpires, Let the power of the law fecures the other rights of the citizen. The people alone, by the organ of But who fhould eftablish the law? thofe reprefentatives to whom it has delegated this power. No partipeople-nor can it act, nor even cular authority-no re-union is the peak in its name. tempt to feize the rights of the pet- power power to the ufurper, as they owe an account to the people of the attacks made upon its fovereignty. In their firmnefs the national convention will not depart from wifdom-they will attend to all remonftrance, but they will not fuffer the right to enlighten and admonifh, to become a means of oppreffion voice and debasement-nor that any fhall be louder than that of the national representation. Against the intriguers, and thofe who yet may regret royalty, they will preferve the most vigorous pofture. They will maintain the meafures of fecurity, which the public fafety demands; but they will never confent to their arbitrary extenfion, and that fufpicion fhould be a fource of calamity. Frenchmen, confider as your enemies all those who attack, obliquely or directly, the liberty, the equality, the unity, and the indivifibility, of the republic. Fly thofe who fpeak to you of blood and fcaffolds inceffantly, thofe exclufive patriots, enriched by the revolution, who dread the operation of justice, and who reckon upon finding their fafety in confufion and anarchy. Eftcem and fearch out thofe laborious and modeft men, thofe good and pure beings, who fly from public employments, and who practife inceflantly, without oftentation, the republican virtues. Never lofe fight of this axiom, that if a rapid and violent movement is neceflary to make a revolution, calmnefs and prudence muft terminate it. Unite yourselves about one common centre, the love and refpect for the laws. Behold your brave brethren in arms, they let you the example of that fublime obedience in their fubmission and devotion. Their glory is to attend to the voice of their leaders; they blefs inceffantly the decrees of the convention; they fuffer, and caft the misfortune upon circumftances; if they perifh, their laft exclamation is for the republic. And you, in the bofom of towns and villages, will you fuffer yourfelves to be agitated by vain debates? Will you throw into your affemblies obftacles which may retard the triumphant march of the revolution? O Frenchmen! what grief will it be for you, what fatisfaction for your enemies, to fee France victorious without, and torn to pieces within! No, they fhall not have that cruel pleasure.-What the convention has done in the armies, they will do in the bofom of the repub lic. The warlike virtues produce the hero; the domeftic virtues form the citizen; and they are thefe virtues, fuftained and fortified by an invincible attachment to republican principles, which perpetuate in a generous nation that facred fire, that grand character, which has made the French people the first in the univerfe. Citizens, all the virtuous muft concur in the cstablishment of a You have exerted, by republic. turns, force, for the demolition of the baftile and the throne-the patience to fupport the evils infeparable from a great revolution-the courage to repulfe your barbarous invaders. The time is arrived to conquer your enemies again by firmnefs and wifdom. Calm muli fucceed to fo many forms. The veffel of the republic, beaten fo oft by the tempeft, touches at length upon the fhore. Beware how you repulfe it once more among the breakers. Permit it to approach the port, preffing with a tranquil courfe an obedient ocean, in the midst of the tranfports of a people free, happy, and triumphant. Proclamation and decree of the national convention to all those who have taken part in the revolt, in the departments of the west, the confis of Bref, and the coajis of Cher bourg. FOR OR two years your country has been a prey to the horrors of civil war. Thofe fertile plains, which appeared defigned by nature to be the abode of happinefs, are become the refidence of profcription and carnage. The courage of our countrymen is turned against themfelves. The flames devour their habitations, and the earth, covered with ruins and with emblems of mourning, refuses even a fubfiftence to the furvivors. Such are, Frenchmen, the wounds which have been inflicted on our country by pride and impofture. Wicked men have abufed your inexperience: it was in the name of a righteous God that they furnished you with parricidal arms; it was in the name of humanity that they devoted to death thoufands of victims; it was in the name of virtue that they drew together a band of wretches from every corner of France--that they made it the receptacle of monsters vomited out of every country. What blood has been facrificed to the best of dominions! and you, whom they deluded, why did you reject the lights that were held out to you, to embrace a mif chievous phantom? Why would you prefer mafters to brothers, and the torches of fanaticifm to the flambeau of reafon? May your eyes at length be opened, and an end put to fo many calamities! Weakened by repeated loffes, difunited and fcattered, without any other refource than despair, you ftill may have an afylum in the generofity of the nation. Yes, your brothers, the French people, are ftill inclined to think you more mifled than culpable; their arms are stretched out to you, and the national convention pardons you in their name, if you lay down your arms, and if repentance and a fincere attachment urge you to fraternize with them. Their word is facred; and, if unfaithful delegates have abufed their confi dence and your's, juftice shall be executed on them. Thus the republic, equally terrible towards its enemies within, as without, is highly gratified by recalling its mifguided children! take advantage of its clemency, and haften to return into the bofom of your country. The authors of all your misfortunes are those who have feduced you. It is time that the enemies of France fhould ceafe to be gratified by the fpectacle of our internal diffentions; they alone fmile at your misfortunes; they alone profit of them; it is neceflary to defeat their impious plans. Turn against them thofe arms they have fupplied you with for cur deftruction. Are the ties of nature diffolved; and has the blood of the English paffed into your veins? Would you maflacre the families of your brother-conquerors of Europe, rather than unite your felves to them, and partake of their glory? glory?-No: you are now enlightened by the voice of truth, and already many of you are returned, and find fecurity the price of your confidence. Return all of you, and let the fire-fide of each become fe cultivated, and let plenty refume its reign! Let us join in avenging ourfelves of the common enemy of that implacable and jealous na tion, which has thrown the brand of difcord amongft us! Let all our republican energy be directed against those who have violated the rights of the people! Let the utmoft vigour animate all throughout our ports; let the occan be covered with our privateers; and let the war of extermination, with all its attendant horrors, be carried from the banks of the Loire to the banks of the Thames!- Decreed, 1. That all perfons in the departments of the eaft, the coafts of Breft and of Cherbourg, known under the name of the robbers of La Vendée and of Chouans, who fall lay down their arms in the courfe of a month after the publication of the prefent decree, fhall not be molefted or tried for the acts which they may have com mitted. 2. The arms fhall be depofited in the municipalities and communes that fhall be pointed out by the reprefentatives of the people. 3. To fuperintend the execution of the prefent decree, the convention appointed the reprefentatives of the people, Menou, Boudin, the official for the departments of the eaft, and two others for the coafts of Cherbourg, with the fame powers as the reprefentatives of the people in miflion. Proclamation to the French people, to accompany the decree of the repeal of the law of the Maximum. Frenchmen, EASON, equity, the intereft reprovint ago the law of the maximum; the national convention revokes it, and the more the falutary motives which dictated this decree shall be known, the more it will have a right to your confidence. In taking this meafure, it does not miftake the circumstances which furround it; it forefees that bad faith will endeavour to perfuade, that all the evils which were occafioned by the maximum itself are the effects of its fuppreffion. But your faithful reprefentatives have forgot their dangers, and only look for public utility. The leaft enlightened minds know now, that the law of the maximum annihilated from day to day commerce and agriculture: the more that law was enforced, the more it became impracticable. Oppreffion in vain affumed a thousand forms; it met with a thousand obftacles: it was conftantly eluded, or it only took away, by odious and violent means, fome precarious refources, which it was fcon to exhauft, It is then that law which became fo difaftrous, that conducted us to an exhausted state. Confiderations which exift no more, juftified it perhaps at firft; had not the convention, in repealing it, broken the chains of indufiry. It belongs to induftry freed from her fhackles; it belongs to regenerated commerce to multiply our wealth and our means of exchange. The fupplies of the republic are entrusted to unanimity and to liberty, the only bafes of commerce and agriculture, But |