our all; our just pride; our benefactor; the beautifier and the augmenter of our ame liorating situation, and flourishing .com merce; our increasing intelligence; our emulative arts and sciences; our improved system of infantine education; our well-regulated public seminaries; our religious be lief, and the freedom of the press; our wise laws, and their fatherly application. All these are thy works, dear father of the country! And for their preservation for our children, we shall again thank you, while intoxicated with delight, and with weeping eyes, thanking God also from the bottom of our hearts, with our uplifted arm, trembling with joy, we offer you the most free and unsullied homage ever yet offered by man; that of hearts deeply affected and scarcely able to contain their happiness. For it is our highest pride, our most anxious wish, that so long as we live, yes, and if possible, beyond the grave, in our children and their latest descendants, to pay no allegiance but to you and your princely posterity, and most sensibly to continue to subscribe ourselves, with the most unfeigned devotion, the most happy, grateful, and obedient children of our great and good father, (Signed) ALL THE BRUNSWICKERS, therefore, we shall prostrate ourselves, axiously crying, Preserve! Oh, preserve! what thou hast given us; the best, the most gracious, the wisest of all princes. To you we stretch our trembling arms and pray. Have mercy upon your children! Preserve yourself for them as long as Providence, moved by our prayers, shall prolong a life so vaJuable to the world and us. You can do it, great and good father! for where is the country where the fame and high reputation of your governing virtues has not extended? Who is insensible to the very superior qualifications of your person, united with all the rare properties of your heart and mind? Who does not love and admire them? Where is it that the mere expressions of your will would not be received with that esteem and obsequiousness due to the very oracle of wisdom itself? One word from you, and even that fate which now decides upon the lot of nations shall pay homage to your will! One word from you, and your children, your happy, grateful children, shall be saved! Oh, speak this word, and speak it so clearly and intelligibly, that even the threatening destiny itself shall hear, and the world and posterity pay you that deference already due to the many rare examples you have shewn, to which you will add the most precious of all others; that of a prince who has no wish to extend his territory or increase his external greatiess, but only desires to preserve the happiness of his legiti-faithful people. My resolutions have uni mate subjects. These traits of true princely greatness, history wil preserve for you, as the most beautiful and costly of all diadems. Adorned by your virtues, history will represent these to posterity as a source. of admiration, and an example, which wise legislators and tutors will anxiously recommend to their pupils, and by virtue of which, they may, like your highness, attain to the highest degree of magnanimity. You, they will be emulous to imitate. Humanity, which owes you so many thanks, will be laid under peculiar obligations, for an example so necessary to our times; and your reign will, by these means, become the fairest, the most efficacious, and enviable of all others; being the dominion of the mind, the heart, and the moral world: not merely immortal in itself: but it will disseminate, all over the habitable globe, the genuine, though unobtrusive, reputation of a prince, in opposition to the childish and contemptible sing-song of flattery; and shew how to distinguish true greatness from the vanity of mere ambition. To us, to whom Providence has been so gracious as to give such a prince, may our great and good father still remain VIENNA. Proclamation of the Emperor ted with their wishes. I renounced all hopes are great, and they were with difficulty wrung from my heart; but they could not stand in competition with the welfare, the domestic and civil welfare, of millions. For these I made the sacrifice; and I expect my indemnification in the blessings which are promised to my people by the return of peace. I know no other happiness than that of my people; and no glory superior to that of the father of those people, who in loyalty, unshaken fidelity, and disinterested love to their sovereign and their country, give place to no nation in Europe. The fair fame of their national character bas exacted an unwilling tribute of esteen, even from the enemy; but in my heart they have fixed a monument which time itself will not be able to destroy. Under these emotions, I returned to my residence, in the cirde of my loyal and estimable citizens and inhabitants, and to the resumption of the direction Army, as stated in the Bulletins, "was 66 105,000 men, viz. 80,000 Russians and "25,000 Austrians, and the French much "inferior."-But why were their numbers not given?-Besides the Reserve, which alone was said to be equal to an army, the enemy's force consisted of four large divisions of 20,000 infantry and 3000 cavalry each, commanded by a Marshal and two Generals of Division. The Combined Army, on the other hand, consisted of 52,000. Russians and 17,000 Austrians.-But this inferiority in number was the least misfortune in the Russian army: the scarcity of provisions was so great, that for nearly two days preceding the battle, they had nothing to eat. The horses were famished to such a degree, that those belong of my affairs. The wounds inflicted by the war are deep: several years may be necessary to heal them, and to obliterate the impressions inflicted by the sufferings of this unfortunate period. The administration of the state has greater, and duties more difficult than ever to fulfil: and they will fulfil them: but they have at the same time stronger claims than ever upon the co-operation of all classes, for the laudable purpose of restoring the vigour of the interior, by disseminating the true culture of the mind, and animating the national industry in all its branches, through the restoration and increase of the national credit; and by these means to establish the monarchy upon that basis which the variable fate of the states of Europe has rendered necessary. Every moment of my life will be directed to this ob-ing to the artillery could no longer draw. ject, and devoted to the improvement of the welfare of the noble and good people who are dear to me as the children of my affection. United by the mutual obligations of reciprocal confidence, and the cordial love of my subjects, I shall only believe I have done enough for Austria, as a prince and a father, when its prosperity is again secured; when the sufferings of the citizens are forgotten, and nothing remains alive but the remem brance of my sacrifices, your fidelity, and your exalted and unshaken patriotism. FRANCIS. CONTINENTAL WAR.-Russian official Account of the Battle of Austerlitz, from the Petersburg Journal of Feb. 2, 1806. Troppau, Jan. 25.-The issue of the battle of Austerlitz has been so well confirmed by its consequences, that it is almost incredible how France could publish such extravagant and untrue relations of that affair. All Europe, and the Russian nation in particular, justly expect a relation on our part. The love of truth alone, and the wish to adduce none but well-authenticated facts, have hitherto prevented the appearance of this relation. In the mean while, it is necessary to correct some of the statements of the French bulletins, particularly the 30th, and to lay them before the public.-General Savary spoke with two persons only belonging to the Emperor's suite; and, excepting these, he only saw some Field Adjutants, who had brought dispatches from their chiefs, or were in waiting to transmit orders to them, The Chief of the French nation might not have derived any pleasure from the conversa ion of Prince Dolgorucky; but he at the same time forgot that the Russians did not belong to those nations who sought his protection. The number of the Allied Of course, in the battle, the artillery was of little use, excepting in those stations where it was at first planted. The total failure of provisions and forage was alone sufficient to prevent our maintaining our post any longer at Olmutz, or to take another station further in the rear. These circumstances urged the necessity of the battle, the happy result of which could only be expected from thevalour. of the troops.-The Imperial Guard, of which it is said in a Bulletin, that it lost all its colours, are still in possession of them, and have taken one pair from the enemy. The Combined Army, it is said, lost 15,000 killed and 20,000 prisoners. Do they include among these the 20,000 said to have been drowned?-After so many forced marches, and so much fatigue and hunger as had been sustained, with the sickness consequent thereunto; after the affairs upon the Danube and in Moravia; of the whole Russian army there is not a deficiency of more than seventeen thousand men. But, were the loss as considerable as the Bulletin has pretended, why was not the Russian army pursued, as that Bulletin falsely asserts ? On the contrary, the Russian army kept the field till the next morning. The armistice was not concluded, but with the Emperor of Germany, at whose particular desire the Russians first commenced their retreat, and which was also effected in good order and without loss, notwithstanding the French partly assert, that during the negociations with Austria, the French army prosecuted its victories. To enhance the glory of this day, the French Bulletin says, that the French Guard (the reserve corps) took no part in the battle. The same Bulletin however afterwards asserts, that when one. French battalion was broken by the Russian Guard, Buonaparte ordered Marshal Bes 'sieres to advance, and that the Imperial Guards on both sides immediately came to action. The French Bulletins abound with false statements, over which the pretended noise and distraction, occasioned by the discharge of 200 pieces of cannon, and a conflict between 200,000 men, throw but a flimsy covering. Can it possibly serve the interests of a great general to sauction such reports? Can he really stand in need of such means as these to increase that military glory, which is not denied him? Posterity will do justice to the truth. FRANCE. Speech of the Emperor Napoleon, on the opening of the Legislative Body. March 3, 1806. my heart with sweeter emotions.-Frenchmen! I have not been deceived in my hopes. Your love, more than the extent and the riches of your territory, constitute my glory. Magistrates, clergy, citizens, all have shewn themselves worthy of the high destinies of that admirable France, which, for two ages past, has been the object of the leagues and the jealousies of its neighbours. My minister of the interior will inform you of the events which have taken place in the course of the year. My council of state will lay before you plans of laws to ameliorate the different branches of the administration. My ministers of finance, and of the public treasury, will lay before you the accounts which they have presented to me. You will perceive by them the prosperous state of car finances. Since my return, I have been incessantly occupied in giving to the adminis Gentlemen, the deputies from the departments to the legislative body; gentlemeu, the tribunes, and the members of my council of state.--Since your last session, thetration that spring and activity which give greatest part of Europe has entered into a coalition with England. My armies have never ceased to conquer, excepting when I ordered them to combat no longer. I have avenged the rights of the feeble states, oppressed by the strong. My allies have increased in power, and in consequence. My enemies have been humbled and confounded; the House of Naples has irrecoverably lost its crown; the whole of the Peninsula of Italy forms a part of the Great Empire. I, as supreme head, have guaranteed the sovereign, and the constitutions that govern the different departments.--Russia only owes the return of the wreck of her army to the advantages of the capitulation which I granted it. Able to have overturned the Imperial Throne of Austria, I have confirming, for its bases, the stipulations of the Trea the ed it. The conduct of the Cabinet of Vienna will be such as will prevent posterity from reproaching me for any want of foresight. I have yielded an entire confidence to the protestations which have been made to me by its Sovereign. Besides, the high destinies of my crown do not depend upon sentiments and dispositions of foreign courts. My people will always support my throne ag inst all the efforts of hatred or jealousy; n sacrifice will be painful to them to secure that first interest of the country.-Bred in camps, and in camps that have always been triumphant, I ought to acknowledge that, in the late events, my soldiers have exceeded my expectations. It is pleasing also to me to declare, that my people have also fulfilled the extent of their duties. In the heart of Moravia, I never ceased for an instant to experience the effect of their love and enthusiasm Never have they given me any marks of their attachment, which have penetrated life to the extremities of this vast empire. My people will have no new burdens to bear, but new plans will be proposed to you, respecting the system of the finances, the bases of which were established last year. I intend to diminish the immediate impositions which bear upon the land alone, and to replace a part of these charges by indirect duties.Through the elements we have lost some ships, after an engagement imprudently com menced. I cannot too much praise the greatness of soul, and the attachment which the King of Spain has shewn in these cicumstances for the common cause. I am desirous of peace with England. On my part, I shall never retard that moment. I shall be always ready to conclude it in adopt ty of Amiens.-Gentlemen, deputies to the legislative body, the attachment you have shewn to me, the manner in which you have seconded me in the late sitting, leave me no doubt of your assistance. Nothing shall be proposed to you, but that which is necessary to guarantee the glory and safety of my people. FRENCH ANNUAL EXrost, at the Opening of ths Session of the Legislative Body ct Paris, March 3, 1806. Messieurs the Deputies of the Legislative Body, I am charged by his Majesty the Em peror to give you an account of the state of the empire during the past year.-Its destinies had just been fixed on an immoveable basis; a ceremony, the recollection of which will form an epoch in its annals, had raised the Chier of the State, and his august family, to the dig nity which the wishes and the wants of France required, when you last year met in the place, which was consecrated by his presence. In the midst of you shone the first rays of that immortal lustre, with which the homage of the people, and the benediction of Heaven, have invested him, a happy omen for the labours you were about to undertake. Accordingly, your operations have answered his expectation, for they have all been useful. Love for the public weal, and the inspiration of genius, have guided your steps, and the unity established in the empire, and so solemnly proclaimed, has appeared to infuse still more harmony into your sentiments and your deliberations.-The Emperor, in his turn, had announced to you, that he looked upon his new honours as a great debt. To acquit himself of this debt, every moment of his life has been devoted. You know whether he has fulfilled his promises, and how far he has surpassed your expectations; you know with what events, perhaps you will say with what prodigies, a year, scarcely elapses, has teemed. These I will recapitulate, without pretending to give a complete account of them, or to describe their immense results. Europe, still motionless with astonishment and terror, and France, transported with admiration and love, render it unnecessary for me to say what I should in vain attempt to express.-Scarcely were your labours conchided, when the Emperor resolved to visit a part of France. If he were every where greeted with the most lively and the most unanimous testimonies of public affection, if the inhabitants of the city and of the country, ran to meet him, offering the homage of their gratitude and of their love, he has not expe-progress of a prosperity continually increasrienced a pleasure less grateful to his heart, in beholding, with his own eyes, the results of an Administration, incessantly animated, for the last six years, by the most generous solicitude for the welfare of the people, and the restoration of public order. He has seen the traces of our misery effaced, and their memory of them almost extinguished; the laws respected, the Magistrates zealously devoted to their duty, morals improved, religious ideas honoured, French urbanity restored to its former delicacy. If some ameliorations still remain to be effected, they were not such reparations as succeed great disasters, but improvements which belong to a period of tranquillity and of prosperity; yet the Emperor wished to be made acquainted with them, and to accomplish them. He sent for all those who, by their functions, or their intelligence, were capable of seconding his views; admitted all those who had favours to solicit; gave a favourable reception to their demands; provcked and listened to their observations; rewarded ser vices; inspected, in person, the minutest details; and, wherever he went, he left, in the measures of his sublime wisdom, durable monuments of his passage.-Troyes was first honoured with his presence, and obtained his first bounty; this bounty promises an existence worthy of its ancient celebrity. The project of a navigation of the Seine, by the saine vessels, from Paris to Chatillon, not far from its source, is conceived; the details of it are completed. The improvement of that of the Saone is projected; the towns which it bathes are receiving embellishments; the quays of Chalons, Tournus, and Macon, are to be improved and enlarged. Macon will have a cathedral erected within. its walls, more beautiful than that whose destruction it regrets; the Emperor contributes · to this edifice a considerable sum from his private revemes. The Seine, rendered navigable, will be a new benefit for the Department of the Saone and Loire; the Department of L'Ain awakes at the sight of its Sovereign, who vivifies every thing, and whomanifests an ardent desire to increase its inpustry, and to correct the insalubrity of a | portion of its territory.-Lyons, already loaded with the bounties of him who rebuilt its edifices, and re-peopled its manufactories, has no farther wishes to form, and is anxious only to pour forth its just transports to the deliverer whom it loves. But the solicitude of the Emperor, for this capital of French industry, is not exhausted; and when his subjects are filled only with gratitude, his eye discovers farther means of accelerating the ing since the commencement of his reign. The southern provinces of the city will be rendered salubrious; the Rhone will be restrained within its banks, and brought nearer to the city, which it seems inclined to abandon; wise regulations secure fidelity in the manufactories, and the confidence of the foreign consumer, without injuring the liberty of industry; rewards, decreed by the Emperor himself, redouble the emulation of the workman; a drawing-school will insure the improvement of the art. Lyons, communicating with the sea towards the South, very soon with the Rhine by the Canal Napoleon; with the Ocean and the Channel by the Saone, the Loire, and the Seine; with Switzerland and with Piedmont, will become a mart, the happy situation of which cannot fail to render it the centre of a widely-extended commerce.--The ancient Savoy, long oppressed by the politics of its sovereigns, happy in being united by its laws to a country to which it always belonged by its manners, presents to the Emperor, hearts, whose fide lity has already been tried. Every thing is in motion in its vallies, formerly almost inaccessible, and which will speedily be opened to the most productive communications; but the great operations, of which it is the theatre, do not cause its minutest interests to be neglected. The palace of Chambery is rising again from its ashes; deserted edifices are restored to public utility; asylums are opened for indigence; resting-places are afforded to the traveller; the seeds of industry are scattered over a soil to which they appeared to be strangers.-The Emperor crossed the Alps, by the route which his genius had planned, and which his power has executed. Here a new scene presented itself to his view; Piedmont still exhibits some vestiges of a revolution, less terrible, but more recent than ours. It appears not to be entirely French, either by the sentiments which prevail in it, or by the advantages it enjoys. The Emperor, who had twice appeared under the walls of Turin, at the head of a victorious army, but did not enter that city, from respect for misfortune, or weakness, entered it for the first time; he there appeared as the father of his new children, without soldiers, without guards; attended only by the benefits he brought with him, greater and more powerful for this noble security. The affection to which he confided was displayed on every side. The Piedmontese shewed themselves worthy of the confidence with which he honours them. The public homage supplied him with a retinue; the wealthy individuals, in a separate body, pressed around him; unsteady administrations, borrowing light from his genius, pro..ceeded with a more firm and more regular step; abuses are reformed, languishing commerce is revived, new markets are promised it; uncertainty is fixed; opinions are reconciled; those who, in difficult times, devoted themselves to the interests of France, are assured that faithful France will not forget their services; those who, impressed with the bounty of their former masters, thought that misfortune added to the duties of gratitude, learn that their new sovereign is too generous, to remember any thing, but that zeal, of which they have shewn themselves capable; services are rewarded; be their date what it may, and the new country to which it is annexed, acquits debts of the old. The principal families admitted to the Imperial Throne, diffuse around them the lustre of the honours they have received; the great land-owners, without hoping for the restoration of any privilege, have no exclusion to fear; every thing assumes the place assigned to it by wisdom and justice; Piedmont, formerly conquered by arms, is 1 |