(The President, in the name of the Council, invited the General to develope, fully, the plot with which the Republic was threatened.) Bonaparte. "I have already had the honour to state to the Council that the Constitution is incapable of preserving the country, and that such an order of things must be created as will enable us to raise her out of the abyss in which she is plunged. The former part of what I have just repeated, was stated to me by the two Directors whom I have named to you, and who, had they done nothing more than give utterance to a truth known to all the nation, would not be more guilty than many other Frenchmen. Since it is allowed that the Constitution is insufficient to preserve the Republic, hasten then to take the means of withdrawing it from danger, if you wish to escape the bitter and eternal reproaches of the French people, of your families, and of your own hearts." DECREE OF DEPORTATION of the 25th of Brumaire, year VIII. of the French Republic, one and indivisible. THE Consuls of the Republic, in execution of the third Article of the Law of the 19th of this month, by which they are especially charged to restore internal tranquillity, have decreed, this 25th of Brumaire, as follows: Article I.-The individuals hereinafter named, viz.: Destrem, ex-deputy; Arena, ex-deputy; Marquesi, ex-deputy; Truc, ex-deputy; Felix Lepelletier, Charles Hesse, Scipion-du-Roure, Gagny, Massard, Fournier, Giraud, Fiquet, Basch, Marchand, Gabriel, Mamin, J. Sabathier, Clemence, Marné, Jourdeuil, Metche, Mourgoing, Corchaut, Maignant (of Marseilles), Henriot, Lebois, Soulavie, Dubrueil, Didier, Lamberté, Daubigny, and Xavier Audouin, shall leave the continental territory of the French Republic. They shall for this purpose be obliged to proceed to Rochefort, to be afterwards conducted to and detained in the department of French Guiana. II. The individuals hereinafter named: Briot, Antonelle, Lacheyardiere, Poulain-Grandpré, Grandmaison, Talot, Quirot, Daubermisnil, Frison, Declercq, Jourdan (of Upper Vienne), Lesage-Senault, Prudhon, Groscassand-Dorimond, Guesdon, Julien (of Toulouse), Sonthonax, Tilly (ex-chargé d'affaires of Genoa), Stevenette, Castaing, Bouvier, and Delbrel, shall be obliged to proceed to the commune of Rochelle, in the department of Lower Charente, thence to be conducted to and detained in such place within that department as shall be appointed by the Minister of General Police. III.-Immediately after the publication of the present Decree, the individuals comprised in the two preceding Articles, shall be divested of the exercise of all rights of property; and shall not be restored to such rights, until authentic proof be made of their arrival at the place fixed by the present Decree. IV. Those who shall quit the place to which they shall have proceeded, or that to which they shall have been conducted by virtue of the preceding ordinances, shall, in like manner, be divested of such rights. V. The present Decree shall be inserted in the bulletin of the laws; the Ministers of General Police, of Marine, and Finance, are respectively charged, each so far as concerns his office, with the care and execution of this Decree. (By the Consuls of the Republic,) SIEYES, ROGER-DUCOS, BONAPARTE. DECREE OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTORY, THE Executive Directory, on the Report of the Minister of Foreign relations: considering, 1st, That the imprisonment of Nappertandy and Blackwell, naturalized French citizens in the service of the Republic, as likewise that of citizens Morris and Corbett, in the dungeous of Hamburg, and the giving up of the said citizens to the agents of England, is a violation of the law of nations, an outrage on humanity, and a serious offence to the French Republic; 2dly, That the laws of neutrality impose on those states which enjoy their advantages, duties involving all that is most sacred in social and public rights; 3dly, That the most imperious of these duties is that of keeping the neutral territory involate from all acts of hostility, and thereby affording to the persons of the subjects and citizens of all the belligerent powers a complete protection, and an asylum, without distinction of nations, against all the violences exercised under the rights of war; 4thly, Considering that since the pride and fanaticism of some particular governments have rekindled the flames of war, outrages against the law of nations have multiplied to an alarming extent; that in particular the head of an empire far distant in the north of Europe and Asia, without any provocation on the part of the French, has become the tool of the enmity of the English Government against the French Republic, and against the liberal and philanthropic principles on which that Republic is established; that this chief has lavished threats and insults on all those governments which do not take part in his blind and impassioned policy; 5thly, That unless a stop is put to this moral and political corruption, by an appeal to all governments which have not yet fallen into this state of degradation, and by the punishment of those which participate in its disgrace; unless, in short, these outrages are marked by public opinion with the abhorrence they deserve, there would be reason to apprehend that the laws of war would soon be restrained by no check, and the rights of peace would be left without security; that shortly no barrier would exist to oppose a general dissolution, and that Europe would rapidly relapse into a state of barbarity; Finally, Considering that the deference of any government to atrocious commands cannot be excused on account of its weakness; above all, when that government has rendered itself guilty of the dependence of the position in which it has voluntary placed itself; and that such is the case in which the magistrates of Hamburg have placed themselves, in ordering the imprisonment of citizens Nappertandy, Blackwell, Morris, and Corbett, and in refusing to liberate them on official proof that they were French citizens and officers of the Republic; Has decreed, on the 17th of Vendemiaire: Article I. The aggression committed by the government of Hamburg shall be denounced to all allied |