tions, and the waters of the river Ourcq, and on which the street St. Antoine, and that of its suburb, are to terminate in a direct line. The bridge alone will constitute a source of expence, which the tolls proposed to be collected on it will rapidly cover. The square and all its appurtenances will cost the state only the ground and the ruins on which it is to be formed. The works of the canal of St. Quintin are carrying on in four different points at the same time. A subterraneous cut, a thousand meters in extent, has already been completed, two locks are finished, eight more are in a state of forwardness, some others are rising from their foundations, and this vast undertaking will in some years afford a complete navigation. The canals of Arles, Aigues-Mortes, the Soane, and the Yonne, the canal that is to connect the Rhone with the Rhine, and that which is to extend the navigation by the Blavet to the centre of ancient Britany, are all begun, and will all be com. pleted within a period proportioned to the labour they require. The canal which is to connect the Scheldt, the Meuse, and the Rhine, is yet only in contemplation of the government: compensation has been made for the scite: funds are already provided for the execution of an undertaking, which will open Germany to us, and restore to our commerce and industry such parts of our own territories as were by their situation consigned to the industry and commerce of foreigners. The junction of the Ranee with the Vilaine, will connect the channel with the ocean, will convey prosperity and civilization to districts, in which agriculture and the arts languish, in which their rustic man.

ners are still unacquainted with our refinements. From this year, considerable sums are appropriated to this operation. The draining of the marshes of Rochfort, often undertaken, and as often abandoned, goes on without interruption. A million will be applied this year to promote the salubrity of this port, which used to destroy our sailors and its own inhabitants. Culture and population will extend themselves over tracts devoted for ages to diseases and desolation. A project of draining, in the centre of the Cotentin, no less important, the plan of which is formed, and the expence of which, calculated on a great scale, will unavoidably be repaid by the result of the undertaking, will transform into rich pasture lands other marshes of vast extent, which are at present only an everlasting source of contagion. The funds requisite for this operation are comprehended in the budget for the year twelve. At the same time a bridge over the Vire will unite the departments of La Manche and Calvados, will put a stop to a passage always dangerous, and often fatal, and will shorten the route from Paris to Cherbourg by some myriameters. A canal is planned in another quarter of the department of La Manche (the Channel), which will convey the sea and land fertility to a barren district, and will yield to public buildings, and to the marine, timber, that now decays without being used a few myriameters from the coast. On all the canals, on every part of the coast of Belgium, the banks which had been undermined by time, or impaired by the sea, are in a state of repair, of being extended and strengthened. The bank and bason of Ostend are

secured

secured from waste: a bridge will open a communication of import ance to the city; and agriculture will draw riches from a valuable tract recovered from the sea. Antwerp has seen a military post, an arsenal, and ships of war upon the stocks, produced at once by a decree. Two millions, secured on the sale of national domains situated in the departments of the Scheldt and Deux-Nethes, are appropriated to the restoration and augmentation of its ancient port. On the credit of this security, commerce makes advances, the works are begun, and will be completed next year. At Boulogne, at Havre, in every point of this coast, which our enemies have heretofore called an iron coast, great works are in progress or completed. The Mole of Cherbourg, a long time given up, long the object of solicitude and doubt, rises at length from the bosom of the waters, and is already a source of destruction to our enemies and a protection to our own mariners. Under shelter of this Mole, at the extremity of an immense road, an haven is now digging, where, in a few years, the republic will have its arsenals and its fleets. At Rochelle, at Cette, at Marseilles, and at Nice, the ravages of carelessness and of time are repaired with well secured funds. It is in our maritime cities in particular, where the stagnation of commerce has multiplied misfortunes and wants, that the wisdom of government has employed itself in creating resources by useful and necessary works. The navigation in the interior was in a state of decay, from a forgetfulness of principles and regulations; it is henceforth subject to a tutelary and conservative re

gime. A duty is appropriated to its support, to the works it requires; to the improvements which the public interest demands: submitted to the superintendance of the prefects, it has also in the chamber of commerce useful guardians, witnesses, and estimators of the proper application of the funds it produces; in short, enlightened men, to appreciate the plans formed for its preservation or extension. The right of fishing in navigable rivers has again become, what it ought always to be, a public property. It is committed to the care of the administration of the forests; and the triennial adjudications give it, in the farmers, still more active guardians, because they are more interested.

The last has been a year of prosperity for all our finances: the collection has happily disappointed the calculation that had been made before-hand of their produce. The direct contributions have been collected with more ease. The operations which were to establish the respective proportions of the tax on property of the different departments, proceed with rapidity. The subdivision will become. invariable. We shall never again witness that opposition of different interests which corrupted public justice, and that jealous rivalship which threatened the industry and prosperity of all the departments. The prefects, the general council, have requested that the same operation should extend to all the com➡ munes of their departments, for the purpose of ascertaining amongst them the grounds of a proportional subdivision. An arreté of government has authorised this general opě, ration, become more simple, more economical by the success of Rr3 partial

partial operation. Thus, in a few years, all the communes of the republic, which have each, in a particular table, the plan of its territory, the divisions are the proportions of the properties that compose it; and the general councils, and the councils of the arrondisements will find in the junctions of all those plans, the elements of a division just in its principles and constant in its proportions. The sinking fund fulfils with constancy and fidelity its destination. Already in possession of a portion of the public debt, it every day accumulates a treasure, which secures to the state a speedy liquidation: a rigid responsibility and inviolable fidelity have rendered the administrators worthy of the confidence of government, and insures to them the interest of the citizens. The melting down of the coin is carried on without bustle or shock; it was a scourge while the principles were misunderstood; it is become the most simple operation, since public faith and the rules of good sense have adjusted its conditions. At the treasury, the public credit has maintained itself in the midst of the shocks of war, and the rumours of interested individuals. The public treasury supplied the expences of the colonies, either by direct remittances, or by operations on the continent of America, The administrators were enabled, if the remittances proved insufficient, to obtain a supply by drafts on the public treasury; but conformable to prescribed forms, and to a limited extent. A mass of drafts (amounting to two millions) had been suddenly created at St. Domingo, without the consent of government, and out of all proportion to present er future wants.-Men without

character have hawked them at the Havannah, at Jamaica, in the United States; they have been every where exposed in the markets to shameful reduction, delivered up to men who had not deposited either money or merchandize, and who were not to furnish value till the payment should have been made at the public treasury. Hence a scandalous reduction in America, hence a jobbing still more scandalous in Europe. Here the government imposes on itself a rigorous duty, to put a stop to the course of this imprudent measure, to save the nation the losses with which it was menaced, and above all to redeem its credit by a just severity. An agent of the public treasury was dispatched to St. Domingo, charged to check the books, and the chest of the pay-master general; to ascertain how many drafts had been created, on what authority, and in what form; how many had been negociated, and on what conditions: whether they had been negotiated for real value, or without effective value; or whether to discharge real debts, or to fulfil feigned contracts.-Eleven millions in drafts which were not yet in circulation were cancelled; some information has been obtained as to the others. The drafts whose full value had been received, were paid off with interest from the day they became due to the day of payment. Those that were issued without effective value, have been proved false, in as much as the bills bear the words for money advanced, though the procès-verbal of payment proves that none had been advanced; these have been submitted to a severe examination. Thus the government will satisfy the justice which it owes

to the lawful creditors, and which it owes to the nation, whose rights it is bound to defend. Peace was in the wishes and in the intentions of the government. It had wished for it amidst the yet uncertain chances of war; it had wished for it in the midst of victories. It was to the prosperity of the republic that it henceforth attached all its glory. At home it awakened industry, it encouraged the arts, it undertook either useful works, or monuments of national grandeur. Our vessels were scattered over every sea, and reposed on the faith of treaties. They were employed only. in restoring our colonies to France and to happiness; there was no armament in our ports, nothing menacing on our frontiers. And this was the moment which the British government chose to alarm its nation, to cover the channel with ships, to insult our commerce by injurious inspections, and our coasts and ports, as well as those of our allies, by the presence of its menacing forces.-If on the 17th Ventôse of the 11th year (March 8, 1803), there existed an extraordinary armament in the ports of France and Holland; if a single preparation was made in them to which the most remote suspicion could give a sinister interpretation, then we are the aggressors; the message of the king of England, and his hostile attitude, have been rendered necessary, by a legitimate precaution; and the English people had a right to believe that we threatened their independence, their religion, their constitution: but if the assertions of the message were false, if they were contradicted by the opinion of Europe, as well as by the conscience of the British

government, then that government have deceived their nation; they have deceived it by precipitating it, without reflection, into a war, the terrible effects of which now begin to be felt in England, and the results of which may be decisive of its future destiny. The aggressor, however, ought alone to answer for the calamities which afflict humanity. Malta, the cause of this war, was in the power of the English; it remained with France to arm to effect its independence'; France waited in silence for the justice of England; and it was England who began the war, even without a declaration.-By the dispersion of our ships, and the security of our commerce, our losses might have been immense: we foresaw these circumstances, and we would have sup-` ported them without discouragement or weakness, but happily they have been less than we apprehended: our ships of war have returned to European ports, one only excepted, which had long been employed merely as a transport, has fallen into the hands of the enemy. Of two hundred millions, which the English cruizers might have ravished from our commerce, more than twothirds have been preserved. Our privateers have avenged these losses by important captures, and they will complete their revenge by others more important. Tobago and St. Lucia were defenceless, and were obliged to surrender to the first force which appeared; but our great colonies are yet preserved, and the attacks made against them by the enemy have proved fruitless. Hanover is in our power; 25,000 of the best troops of the enemy have laid down their arms and become prisoners of war. Our caRr 4

valry

valry has been remounted at the expence of that of the enemy; and a possession which was dear to the king of England, is in our hands, a pledge of that justice which he will be compelled to render to us. On the seas, British despotism daily adds to its usurpation; in the last war it struck terror into the neutral nations, by arrogating to itself an inimical and revolting pretension of declaring whole coasts in a state of siege in the present war, it has augmented its monstrous code by the pretended right of blockading rivers and canals.-If the king of England has sworn to continue the war till be shall have reduced France to sign such dishonourable treaties as ill fortune and weakness formerly signed, then the war will be long. France consented in the treaty of Amiens to moderate conditions; she will never acknowledge any less favourable-nay more, she will never acknowledge in the British government the right of fulfilling its engagements only as may suit the progressive calculations of its ambition, nor the right of requiring further guarantees after the guarantee of faith plighted. But if the treaty of Amiens has not been executed, how can we expect, in regard to a new one, a faith more holy, or oaths more sacred? Louisiana is henceforth united to the American states; we shall preserve friends there whose remembrance of a common origin will always attach them to our interest, while favourable commercial relations will unite their prosperity with ours. The United States are indebted to France for their independence; they will henceforth owe to us their strength and grandeur. Spain remains neutral. Helvetia is re-established in

her constitution, which has suffered no change, but what has been rendered necessary by lapse of time, and change of opinions. The retreat of our troops from that country is a proof of its internal security, and of the end of its dissentions. The ancient treaties have been renewed, and France has regained her oldest and most faithful ally. Peace reigns in Italy; a division of the army of the Italian republic is at this time crossing France to encamp with our own on the sea coast. These battalions will there meet with innumerable vestiges of that patience, bravery, and heroism which distinguished their ancestors. The Ottoman empire, fatigued by undermining intrigues, will gain by the interests of France the support which ancient alliances, a recent treaty, and its geographical position give it a right to demand. The tranquillity given to the Conti nent by the treaty of Luneville is secured by the last acts of the diet of Ratisbon. The enlightened interest of the great powers, the fidelity of the French government, in cultivating with them relations of good will and friendship; the justice, the energy of the nation, and the forces of the republic, will guarantee it.

(Signed) Buonaparté, By order of the First Consul,

II. B. Maret.

Report of the Grand Judge, Minister of Justice, to the Government, 17th February, 1804.

Citizen First Consul,

New plots have been hatched by England; this was the case even amidst the peace which she swore

to