To all his Countrymen in North

America.

You were born French; you never could cease to be French. The late war, which was not declared but by the captivity of nearly all our feamen, and the principal advantages of which our common enemies entirely owed to the courage, the talents, and the numbers of the brave Americans, who are now fighting against them, has wrefted from you that which is most dear to all men, even the name of your country. To compel you to bear the arms of parricides against it, must be the completion of misfortunes: with this you are now threatened a new war may justly make you dread being obliged to fubmit to this moft intolerable law of flavery. It has commenced like the laft, by depredations upon the most valuable part of our trade. Too long already have a great number of unfortunate Frenchmen been confined in American prifons. You hear their groans. The prefent war was declared by a meffage in March laft, from the King of Great Britain to both Houtes of Parliament; a molt authentic act of the British fovereignty, announcing to all orders of the State, that to trade, (with America) though without excluding others from the fame right, was to offend; that frankly to avow fuch intention, was to defy this fovereignty; that the should revenge it, and deferred this only to a more advantageous opportunity, when the might do it with more appearance of legality than in the laft war; for the declared that the had the right, the will, and the ability to revenge, and accordingly

fhe demanded of Parliament the fupplies.

The calamities of a war thus proclaimed, have been restrained and retarded as much as was poffible, by a monarch whose pacific and difinterested views now reclaim the marks of your former attach ment, only for your own happinefs. Conftrained to repel force by force, and multiplied hoftilities by reprifals which he has at laft authorifed, if neceffity fhould carry his arms, or thofe of his allies, into a country always dear to him, you have not to fear either burnings or devaftations: and if gratitude, if the view of a flag always revered by thofe who have followed it, fhould recall to the banners of France, or of the United States, the Indians who loved us, and have been loaded with prefents by him, whom they also call their father; never, no never shall they employ againft you their too crue! methods of war. Those they muft renounce, or they will cease to be our friends.

It is not by menaces that we fhall endeavour to avoid combating with our countrymen; nor fhall we weaken this declaration by invectives against a great and brave nation, which we know how to refpect, and hope to vanquith.

As a French gentleman, I need not mention to thofe among you who were born fuch as well as myself, that there is but one auguft House in the universe, under which the French can be happy. and ferve with pleafure; fince its head, and those who are nearly allied to him by blood, have been at all times, through a long line of monarchs, and are at this day

more

more than ever delighted with bearing that very title which Henry IV. regarded as the firft of his own. I shall not excite your regrets for thofe qualifications, thofe marks of diftinction, those decorations, which, in our manner of thinking, are precious treasures, but from which, by our common misfortunes, the American French, who have known fo well how to deserve them, are now precluded. Thefe, I am bold to hope, and to promise, their zeal will very foon procure to be diffused among them. They will merit them, when they dare to become the friends of our allies.

I fhall not ask the military companions of the Marquis of Levi, those who shared his glory, who admired his talents and genius for war, who loved his cordiality and frankness, the principal characteriftics of our nobility, whether there be other names in other nations, among which they would be better pleased to place their own.

Can the Canadians, who faw the brave Montcalm fall in their de fence, can they become the enemies of his nephews? Can they fight against their former leaders, and arm themselves against their kinfmen? At the bare mention of their names, the weapons would fall out of their hands.

I fhall not obferve to the minifters of the altars, that their evangelic efforts will require the fpecial protection of Providence, to prevent faith being diminished by example, by worldly interest, and by fovereigns whom force has impofed upon them, and whofe political indulgence will be leffened proportionably as thofe fovereigns

fhall have lefs to fear. I fhall not obferve, that it is neceffary for religion, that thofe who preach it fhould form a body in the State; and that in Canada no other body would be more confidered, or have more power to do good than that of the priests, taking a part to the government, fince their respectable conduct has merited the confidence. of the people.,

I shall not reprefent to that people, nor to all my countrymen in general, that a vast monarchy, having the fame religion, the fame manners, the fame language, where they find kinfmen, old friends and brethren, muit be an inexhaustible fource of commerce and wealth, more eafily acquired and better fecured, by their union with powerful neighbours, than with strangers of another hemifphere, among whom every thing is different, and who, jealous and defpotic governments, would fooner or later treat them as a conquered people, and doubtlefs much worfe than their late countrymen the Americans, who made them victorious. I fhall not urge to a whole people, that to join with the United States, is to fecure their own happiness; fince a whole people, when they acquire the right of thinking, and acting for themselves, muft know their own intereft; but I will declare, and I now formally declare in the name of his Majesty, who has authorifed and commanded me to do it, that all his former fubjects in North America, who fhall no more acknowledge the fupremacy of Great Britain, may depend upon his protection and fupport.

Done on board his Majesty's fhip the Languedoc, in the har[Z] 3

bour

Admiralty, and to all who are under your orders. Such being the purposes of these presents, I pray God, my Coufin, that he will grant you his holy protection.

Given at Versailles, the 5th day of June, in the year 1779. Signed Counterfigned

LOUIS.

Copy of a Paper delivered to Lord Viscount Weymouth, by the Marquis d'Almadovar, the 16th June, 1779.

A

LL the world has been wit nefs to the noble impartiality of the King, in the midst of the difputes of the Court of London with its American colònies and with France. Befides which, his Majefty having learned that his powerful mediation was defired, generously made an offer of it, which was accepted by the beligerent powers, and for this motive only a fhip of war was fent on the part of his Britannic Majefty to one of the ports of Spain. The King has taken the moft energetic fteps, and fuch as ought to have produced the most happy effect, to bring thote powers to an accommodation equally honourable to both parties; propofing for this end wife expedients for Imoothing difficulties, and preventing the calamities of war. But although his Majelty's propofitions, and particularly thofe of his Ultimatum, have been conformable to thofe which at other times the Court of London itself had appeared to judge proper for an accommodation, and which were alfo quite as moderate, they have been rejected

could not be more inconclusive, whilft in this interval the infults

on the Spanish flag, and the violation of the King's territories were carried on to an incredible excess; prizes have been made, fhips have been fearched and plundered, and a great number of them have been fired upon, which have been obliged to defend themselves; the regifters have been opened and torn in pieces, and even the packets of the Court found on board the King's packet-boat.

The dominions of the Crown in America have been threatened, and they have gone to the dreadful extremity of railing the Indian nations, called the Chatcas, Cheroquies, and Chicachas, against the innocent inhabitants of Louifiana, who would have been the victims of the rage of these barbarians, if the Chatcas themfelves had not repented, and revealed all the feduction the English had planned. The fovereignty of his Majefty in the province of Darien, and on the coaft of St. B as, has been ufurped, the Governor of Jamaica having granted to a rebel indian the commiffion of Captain-general of thofe provinces.

In fhort, the territory of the Bay of Honduras has been recently violated by exercising acts of hoftility, and other exceffes, against

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the

the Spaniards, who have been imprifoned, and whofe houfes have been invaded; befides which, the Court of London has hitherto neglected to accomplish what the 16th article of the last treaty of Paris ftipulated relative to that coaft.

Grievances fo numerous, fo weighty, and recent, have been at different times the object of complaints made in the King's name, and flated in memorials which were delivered either to the British Minifters at London, or tranfmitted to them through the channel of the English Ambaffador at Madrid; but although the answers which were received have been friendly, his Majefty has hitherto obtained no other fatisfaction than to see the infults repeated, which lately have amounted to the number of one hundred.

The King, proceeding with that fincerity and candour which characterize him, has formally declared to the court of London, from the commencement of its difputes with France, that the conduct of England fhould be the rule of that which Spain would hold.

His Majefty likewife declared to that Court, that at the time their differences with that of Paris might be accommodated, it would be abfolutely neceffary to regulate those which had arifen, or might ftill arife, with Spain, and in the plan of mediation which was fent to the under-written Ambaffador the 28th of laft September, and which was by him delivered to the British Ministry in the beginning of October, a plan with which Lord Grantham was apprized, and of which he received a copy, his Majefty declared in pofitive terms to the belligerent powers, that in

confideration of the infults which his fubjects and dominions had fuffered, and likewife of the attempts levelled against his rights, he should be under the neceffity of taking his part, in cafe the negociation, inftead of being continued with. fincerity, fhould be broken off, or should produce no effect.

The caufes of complaint given by the Court of London not having ceased, and that Court fhewing no difpontions to give reparation for them, the King has refolved, and orders his Ambassador to declare, that the honour of his crown, the protection which he owes to his fubjects, and his own perfonal dignity, do not permit him to fuffer their infults to continue, and to neglect any longer the reparation of thofe already received, and that in this view, notwithstanding the pacific difpofitions of his Majesty, and even the particular inclination he had always had and expreffed for cultivating the friendship of his Britannic Majefty, he finds himself under the difagreeable neceffity of making ufe of all the means which the Almighty has intrusted him with, to obtain that justice which he has folicited by fo many ways, without being able to acquire it in confiding on the juftice of his caufe, his Majefty hopes that the confequences of this refolution will not be imputed to him before God or man, and that other nations will form a fuitable idea of this refolution, by comparing it to the conduct which they themselves have experienced on the part of the Britifh Ministry.

:

(Signed) LE MARQUIS D'ALMADOVAR. London, 16 June, 1779.

Orders