removed by their publication, in the first instance, by, the authority of Government.

Next, however, nothing daunted by its direct contradiction with their original supposition, they resort to the argument, that, if genuine, they ought not to have been published.*

*It is not at all wonderful, that Gentlemen of a Jacobin way of thinking should have such an unconquerable aversion to the publication of INTERCEPTED LETTERS. They must yet remember, with horror, the confusion which was occasioned by the publication of MR. STONE's Letter to DR. PRIESTLEY, ("patriot, and saint, and sage") which was intercepted by one of our Cruizers, in a vessel bound from France to America, and which developed, (as the friends of both Parties may recollect) some of the most confidential principles of that branch of the new school, so happily established in this Country. But even this act of unparallelled "breach of confidence" is little, to what they must be prepared to expect by and by. They will hear, with dismay, that at SERINGA PATAM, taken by storm, the Palace of Tippoo Sultaun was inhumanly violated, its most private recesses fraudulently explored, and his most intimate and confidential drawers and pigeon-holes disingenuously ransacked; and that the whole of the Secret Papers, found there and intended for his own most private and particular eye, containing his CORRESPONDENCE With FRANCE, and with the societies of Frenchmen, establified on the true Jacobin model, in India, and his PLANS and ENGAGEMENTS for the SUBVERSION OF THE BRITISH POWER in that Quarter of the World, is intended for immediate publication; an instance of perfidy and "breach of confidence" that throws the present quite into the shade.

The publication of them, say these clear-headed reasoners, is "a breach of confidence."-The idea is logically conceived; and the words are fancifully chosen.- Confidence" then, it seems, implies not something entrusted by a friend, but something wrested from an Enemy it relates, not to what has been communicated, voluntarily, under the express or implied promise of secrecy; but to what has been rightfully seized, by open force, in spite of resistance from the apprehension of disclosure.

Or perhaps in some chapter of those new Ethicks, which prescribe the duties that the rest of mankind owe to FRANCE, it may be laid down as a principle, that the interception of the correspondence of an enemy, (when that enemy happens to be FRANCE), instead of giving to the interceptors the right and advantage of using the information which they thus obtain, ought to excite in their minds the tenderest feelings of sympathy, and to impose on them the most delicate duties of friendship!

These doctrines the jurisprudents of Jacobinism may discuss and settle at their leisure.

In the mean time, perhaps, they may be forced to acknowledge that it is, after all, France her

self who will derive the chief benefit from this

publication.

If to the people of England it be indeed of no small importance to be informed of the real nature and extent of the machinations of their enemies; to see laid open before them the dangers which they have escaped, and the deceptions against which they have been guarded: Is it not of still greater moment to the people of France, that they should know the extent of the delusion which has been practised upon them, and the true character of the man by whom they have been so deceived? Have not the people of France a still deeper interest in the disclosure of the true state of that favourite Army; which they are even now taught to believe in so prosperous a condition, as to want no comfort of life, but an Opera,* and to need no re-inforcement, but of Prostitutes? †

*Sec Bonaparte's Letter in the following Collection, p. 14, + One of the first acts of BONAPARTE's provisional administration (as related in the Paris Papers) was a hot press at the Palais Royal, for a number of ladies of this description. Three hundred hands (able or ordinary) were thus procured; and put up, as was then understood, to be dispatched by the first convoy to Egypt. This account of their destination has indeed since been contradicted in some of the French Papers, but whether by these in the confidence of ABBY SYEYES, is still matter of mystery.

When, from the perusal of these letters, the people of that country shall be enabled to judge what has really been the fate, and what are now the hopes of so many thousands of their countrymen; and to compare with what they now learn, the representations with which they have hitherto been amused; it may perhaps occur to them to ask whether the hands from which they have received so faithful an account of their Army, be those into which they can most safely entrust the administration of their Empire.

When they see with what unfeigned reluctance the General tears himself from his faithful and affectionate followers; how considerately he spares them the pain of exchanging adieus; with how much caution and foresight he calculates the probable scale and progress of destruction to those whom he quits with fo much regret, and in the midst of whom he still remains in heart and spirit," (though forced for certain reasons to be corporeally absent for a moment;"*) how tenderly he recommends the negotiation for their safety to be begun without loss of time, so soon as “fifteen hundred shall have died fairly by the plague, "over

* See Bonaparte's Address to his Soldiers, p. 5.

↑ See Bonaparte's Letter, p. 12.

and above," says this sturdy arithmetician, “ those who perish daily in the field:")-feeing this, they may perhaps pause to consider, whether he who shews such anxious care for those whom he acknowledges as " his children,"* is likely to extend the same paternal solicitude towards those whom he claims for his subjects.

The people of France will not fail to recollect, that the Expedition to Egypt was exclusively the project of BONAPARTE.†

They may, perhaps, therefore reasonably infer from his conduct with regard to that Expedition, what is to be expected from his attachment to the Revolution, many parts of which are also peculiarly his own.

Of the Expedition he has assumed to himself all the merit of the plan, and monopolized all the glory of its execution; so far as the Plan

*See Bonaparte's Letter, p. 27.

+ So Reubell, so Lepaux, so the indubitable Talleyrand, has assured them: — Reubell, in his defence before the Council of Antients; Lepaux, in a book published at the same time; and Talleyrand, in the vindication of himself, which appeared in the French Papers. They all concur in attributing the Project of the Expedition to Bonaparte. On either of these testimonies, singly, it might perhaps not be fair to fasten such a charge upon him: but, if it be false, fortunately for his character, he has Talleyrand at hand, and can presently force him to retract it.