Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1799 edition. Excerpt:...are members of the Helvetic Directory by orJtr of the French Government. It must therefore be considered as an established fact, that the mass of the nation, the great majority of the towns and of the provinces, rejected the project of any Revolution whatsoever. That of France had been at no time more decried in Switzerland; the public opinion had never been less altered; the innovators had never been more unprovided with the means of breaking the relations of the Governments and of their subjects, and of inciting the latter to a voluntary insurrection. To employ open force prematurely, for the purpose of giving the impotence of an obscure and feeble minority the predominance over the general will, was too disadvantageous and hazardous: but although this consideration had at sirst dictated close measures to the Directory, the petulance of their despotism very soon got the better of their policy: they quickly ceased to qualify the insolence of their conduct: the Helvetic Governments, beset by imperious requisitions, had only to choose between obedience and war; their legislative independence tottered, and by bearing the sirst insults offered their sovereignty, they lost the sovereignty itself. Of these accumulated outrages the most decisive was the request for dismissing the Minister of his Britannic Majesty. Ever since civilized communities have acknowledged a law of nations, not one among them had ever yet attempted such an outrage. States have been known to fend away ambassadors who, having themselves violated the law of nations, had also forfeited its protection; but to require of an independent State such a contempt for public faith and for an inviolable character, was. to usurp for themselves /he sovereign authority. Every Power that submits...