republic, thefe notes were prefented to him for payment out of his private fortune. This he refufed, the conditions not having been fulfilled, on which they were given. The business was fuppofed to have been dropped, when, on the 3d of December 1797, he was fuddenly arrefted, and, by command of the directory, fent to the caftle of Milan; from whence, toward the end of March, he was ordered to prepare for a journey to Paris; but fortunately, on the 30th of that month, he contrived to escape, and thus evaded the unjuft demand. To avoid prolixity, I have only given a fuccinct account of this affair. Thofe, who wish to be more fully informed, may refer to the Raccolta cronologica dei documenti relativi alla caduta della repubblica (Veneta).

Having revolutionized most of the frontier towns, Buonaparté fent his favourite affaffin, General Augereau, to Verona for the fame pur pofe. Three of the moft refpectable inhabitants went forth to deprecate his vengeance, and to treat for the safety of their city; but, in violation of all the laws of nations and of civilized fociety, this ruffian arrested the deputies, and infifted that the place fhould furrender at difcretion. It was accordingly fo furrendered, after a folemn promife had been obtained for the fecurity of the lives and property of all the inhabitants. But what faith can be repofed in the promifes of rebels and regicides. The place was plundered, even the public repòfitory for the pledges of the poor was razed, and all their effects confifcated in fhort this military banditti acted, in all refpects, like themfelves.

"The heads of the guilty shall fall, had the ferocious Augereau declared in a public proclamation. This obfcure indication of half-uttered menaces had frozen the blood in every bofom. The thunderbolt was only to ftrike a few, but the terror that preceded it fell on all. Notwithstanding, after much prayer, entreaty, and exertion, many of the prifoners were restored to liberty, though they expected only to quit their prisons to be led to execution. This event had induced the Veronele to flatter themselves that no citizen would lote his life, although three yet remained in the hands of the enemy, and although their proofs of innocence were fuch as tafford every hope. Yet, knowing them to be in the power of a faithlefs foe, fome anxiety fill prevailed: in fact they were already deftined to a scene of horror, which it is painful to relate.

"Emili was detained in a cafile an illufirious hoftage, on the inviolable faith of a treaty, and therefore protected by the agis of the law of nations; Verità, by the facred character of ambailador; and the third, John Baptift Malenza, affured of his fecurity by the folemn promife of the conqueror. The council of war was already aflembled, they had already examined these intended victims, whofe innocence was undeniably evident to their inexorable judges.

"After nearing them, forgetting, that Verità had with pious hafie brought to Kilmaine his two nephews, by him defended amid the perilous conflicts at Verona; forgetting, that Emili had many times, and at great expente, collected and removed the wounded from the field of battle, where their inhuman brethren left them to languith on the naked earth in the laft agonies of death; forgetting, that all three had lavished on the French troops, and even upon these their very judges, acts of the most li

beral

beral munificence, abufing an incompetent article of the French constitution, trampling under foot all laws divine and human, violating all the rights of hofpitality, and rendering justice herself an accomplice of crimes, they pronounced against them fentence of death.

"In the dead of a stormy and tumultuous night, the rumour of this melancholy intelligence was fcarcely fpread, when the relations of the condemned, their friends, and all the other inhabitants, refolved by all poffible means to prevent their execution. To have beheld the ardent interest and attachment which every one demonftrated, it teemed as though it were not three citizens of a town, but three children of a fingle family, that excited this univerfal anxiety and ferment. I will not attempt to pourtray all the afflicting scenes of that awful night: I will not detail, with how much generofity the elder Emili lavished his wealth for the fafety of his brother: I will not describe, with how much anguish the afflicted confort of the unfortunate Verità, together with her defolate and weeping children, threw herfelf at the feet of the French commander; or with what effufion of grief, fupplicating in the name of God, the offered her fortunes and her blood to fave the life of her husband; but all in vain. The decree was confirmed against them all.

"On the morrow they defcended from the caftle for the last time, and for what crime? For defending their country. Their blood will be upon the heads of their allaffins. They were furrounded by arms; a muffled drum preceded them. Wholly ignorant of their doom, they marched with a firm ftep between the guards, little expecting the approaching event, when a fecretary at war flopped them, and read the fentence of death. Equally prepared to pass from chains to liberty, or from flavery to the tomb, they pursued their way with the fame boldnefs as before, and, in the midst of general confternation, approached with intrepidity the place of execution. Such is the power of a consciousness of right, and of an ardent love of our country.

"In the moft barbarous regions, when victims are required by indifpenfible neceffity, those who are destined to immolate them offer every alleviation of their hard fate. The French denied these martyrs of virtue the religious confolations fo neceffary to all men in the laft moments of departing life. Even with this act of impious barbarity they were not dejected: their innocence was registered in heaven, and in heaven an eternal crown was prepared to reward it.

At length they arrived at the place of execution; the guards halted. The military pomp with which they were furrounded, the fight of the cart that was to receive their bodies, the pallid horror of the furrounding spectators, every thing informed them that their laft hour was come: when, feizing each other's hand, they communed in a few interefting words, but which with them were loft for ever.

"Almoft the fame inftant faw them bend their brows to receive the fatal fillet, kneel, and fall, pierced with innumerable balls. All Verona was filled with lamentations and with anguish, which overwhelmed it like a deep and perpetual darkness. O ye, whom the fithe of death, by robbing you of the objects dearest to your hearts, has condemned to uncealing grief, why can I not (pread over your afflictions that peace, which the hand of time can fearcely beftow? Oppreffed with the deepest forrow, I am compelled to bury my own grief in tilence."

1

When Buonaparté was at Gratz, the Venetian Senate refolved to make one more attempt to divert him from his manifest design of subverting the government, and deftroying the independence of their country, and for this purpose they fent deputies to him, whom he anfwered, in the following terms, uttered in an affected rage.

"Well, are the prifoners at Salò (rebels) liberated, and all those who have been confined for political principles fince I entered Italy? If they are not, I will take care to break in pieces the gates of the Piombi prison. I will have no more inquisitions; I will no longer fuffer that barbarous institution of ancient times. Opinions must be free, and I will have every man, that is detained for his opinions, liberated. I will no longer have a senate. The great men of the provinces, who are confidered as flaves, must have a fhare in the government. You, you Venetians, have caused my foldiers to be affaffinated in Venice, and in Terra ferma. Only because they are abhorred by the patricians, do the people hate, perfecute, and massacre them. I will revenge these injuries; I will be an Attila to the Venetian state. I might have made myself master of Vienna; I have renounced that object, and have made peace, to come and chastize you. If all those who have offended the French are not severely punished; if the English minifter is not fent away, and all the property belonging to that nation delivered to me; if the people are not disarmed, and all the prifoners liberated; if Venice do not decide between Buonaparté and Pitt, I will declare war against you. I am not ignorant that your imbecil government was compelled to abandon its states, because it could not prevent the entry of the belligerent troops; and I know, it has not even fufficient ftrength to reftrain the people. I will difarm them in spite of you. When the Archduke Charles ftood opposed to me in Goritz, I offered Pesaro the alliance of France, and her mediation for the restoration of the revolted ci

Because he relied on being able to keep the infurgent peasants in arms, and to cut off my retreat, in cafe I fhould be compelled to it, he refused both. If you would now ask either the one or the other, I refuse to grant them. I will have with you no alliance, no accommodations, no conventions. There is no longer a way to overreach me, as you are endeavouring by this miffion. The blood of Frenchmen cries for vengeance, and fhall have it. I will hear nothing, and have nothing to feek. I have eighty thousand combatants, twenty gun-boats, and it is I, that will give law. If you have only projets to offer me, you may depart."

And this is the man whom the people of France have received as their Emperor, and whom the princes of the Continent have received as their equal.

A French armed fhip having entered the Venetian port of Lido, contrary to the laws of the republic, and to the promises of the French commander, the Venetian commandant fired at her and killed her captain, one Laugier; upon which the fenate fent an explanation of the matter to Buonaparté, calling upon him to difavow the conduct of Laugier. Buonaparté returned the following answer:

"I have read, gentlemen, with indignation, the letter you have written me relative to the affaffination of Laugier. You have aggravated the atrocity of this event, unexampled in the annals of nations, by a tiffue of lies,

which your senate has fabricated to endeavour to juftify itself. I cannot receive you, gentlemen, you and your fenate being stained with the blood of Frenchmen. When you have delivered into my hands the (high) admiral who gave the order to fire, the commandant of the tower, and the inqui fitors of ftate, who direct the police of Venice, I will listen to your juftification. You may immediately evacuate the Continent.

Meanwhile, gentlemen, if the courier, that has arrived, concerns the fate of Laugier, you may present yourselves to me.

(Signed) BUONAPARTE."

Qur limits forbid us to extend our extracts, already too copious, from a book, which we earnestly recommend to the attentive perufal of the public at large; to whom it is particularly interefting, at a period when they are themselves threatened with the fame fate, which Venice was destined to experience. It is well known that the feeble government of Venice abdicated the fovereignty, fubfcribed their own degradation, and proclaimed the revolution of their country. But it is not fo well known, that the people at whofe requeft, and for whose intereft, this revolution was declared to have been atchieved, expreffed their indignation on the occafion, flew to arms, and, could they have. found a leader, would have restored their government or perifhed in the attempt. The defcription of this extraordinary infurrection, in the 25th and 26th chapters, is highly interefting.

Venice was, of courfe, completely ftripped by the French of every article of value, that was moveable; and what they could not carry away they maliciously spoiled, fo that "nothing but the walls re mained uninjured."

"Property being thus violated, perfons were not refpected. Abuses of force were every where exercised with the most cruel exceffes. By trea chery, violence, blows, murders, the inhabitants were daily haraffed, and daily treated with that mercilefs aufterity, with which the Spartans trampled upon the Helots. A most severe command tore from the arms of defolate mothers their unwilling children, to expose them to all the toils and dangers of foreign warfare. Another fevere command robbed every habitation of its arms, amid useless and frequently deftructive refiftances, thus leaving the citizens unable to defend their private rights, and compelled to bend to the will of a conqueror, who was announcing in clamorous notifications the moft ample liberty, though at the fame moment inflicting fervile obedience with drawn fwords.

"At length the directory, after having corrupted and facked the provinces of the republic, delivered them into a foreign hand, only leaving the Venetians the bitter remembrance of those who had betrayed them, and their native foil to inundate with their tears: yes, their foil! For even the documents of the crimes of the French, with which the former might at leaft have one day shamed them, were carried away."

The interefting nature of this publication, and its strong claims to particular attention at this time, have led us, in our account of it, to tranfgrefs our ufual bounds. But the motive must serve as our excufe with our readers. It only remains to add, that the tranflator has per

formed his task with confiderable ability, and that the work appears to great advantage in an English dress.

POLITICS.

A Defence of the Slave Trade. On the Grounds of Humanity, Policy, and Justice. 8vo. Pp.94. 2s. 6d. Highley. 1804.

THE "HE author enters into a very able and humorous difcuffion of this long agitated queftion, on each of the three grounds fpecified in the title page. He does ample justice to the motives of those who are friendly to the abolition, but he denies the facts on which they profefs to found their conduct, and, in a feries of well-connected and very forcible arguments, endeavours, and fuccesfully, we think, to confute their affertions, and to prove that humanity, justice, and policy, combine comparatively to profcribe a continuance of the trade. Our limits will not allow us to give even a sketch of this masterly defence, which is written with no lefs temper than ability; but we earnestly recommend an attentive perufal of it to every man who is called upon to give a vote upon a queftion of very ferious inport ance in whatever point of view it is confidered.

Letters on the Importance of the present War. By Allan Macleod. Letter I. Pr. 22. Letter II. PP. 32. 1s. each. Vernor and Hood.

1804.

MR. Macleod enters into a difcuffion of the motives and objects of the prefent war, in order to prove its juftice and neceffity. In the course of this difcuffion he dwells, with more energy than eloquence, indeed, on the atrocious defigns of the Corfican tyrant, and on the excellence of the British conftitution. On these fubjects his conceptions are juft, and his notions liberal; and his attempt is, in every refpect, praise-worthy.

POETRY.

The Thespiad; a Poem: dedicated to Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Esq. M. P. &l. In answer to the Author of Six Familiar Epistles, addressed to Frederick Jones, Esq. Patentee of the Theatre Royal, Dublin, &c. on the present State of the Irish Stage. 4to. Pr. 36. 2s. 6d. Hurft, London; Porter, Dublin. 1804.

this poem, as it is called, is prefixed an adulatory dedication to Mr.

men, and of drainatic poets. There is no foible, to which the human mind is fubject, which we can fo eafily forgive, as that of national prejudice, and therefore we fiould pafs over wholly without comment this flattery of one Irishman by another, if it were not for the deteftable moral of the School for Scandal, which the author totally overlooks. Of the juftice of his answer, we are utterly unable to give any opinion, as we are totally unacquainted with the Irih stage, and have never feen the Six Familiar Epistles, which gave rife to it.

With what propriety the author could invoke the fhade of Churchill, of whom he truly says

"Thy