The Columbian informer, or, Cheshire journal — Keene, N.H., 1795-03-24 00:00:00, page 1

fi _
% Butin every other point the Genevefe
in imitating the French, have surpassed
them. Thus it has been for instance that
members of the Revolution,/, Tribunal
Imethemfelves executed and (hot the un
fartunLe mag&at#s, whom they hadjuft
condensed. Thus it was hat in the trial
©f Svnic Caviar they had the effrontery to
p'ace t ;h^ head of bis accufations,the cha
ritable distributions he made by the hands
es the clergy, during the rigorous winter
es 1783, wh ch amounted to 800 sterling,
with tne view as they imputed to him of
corruntirg the minds of the peer. It is
indeed bur ton true, that he had "ill appli
^-/"ed his immerse chanties, ar he had con
ferred them on the very set of people, who
demanded his death andobtained it. They
reproach themfclves at this day openly
wuhibhat feme extraordinary event alone
could have forced them to this speedy re
crimination.
for having forwarded te'erai letters to
.Xemrf^.nth Kmigr'ints. 'Siu n appear
that this fenthner,' the only one which' has
effected her fix. wal forced by the urgent
influence employed by the French refi
dent.
•^d^r Yd a violent note in vubich
& Fre^b tefdent acctifed th revolutionary
government ^ bring an enemy to France, made
mention of feme pretended grievances, and
4We&& fraim th neighbouring French
THE troubles in Geneva, Gem to
take a less violent turn. The peo
pie begin to feel the flings of remorse and
even to cunfefs it ; but they rever Can
recede from the revolutionary career upon
which they have entered; and although
they already lament the innocent blood
they have Ipilt, they are incapable of re
nouncing the pleasure of plundering, with
which th y hive been once gratified, and
the < d hUati Yr a till continue For the
fame teafon that # ur modem phiiofephers
have, until now found tinectffary to stu
dy the firings of iib^ ty operating on so
small a scale, as that of Geneva, our rea
ders will likewise be better able to judge
from it of the a&ion and efr&a of the new
revolutionary dextrine, and retrofpefbve
glance on its introduction and effect in
Geneva, will not perhaps be to them de
void as inteteft or utility.
In one point of view, but only in thi
one, the Genevefe revolutionist have re
trained behind hand with the French, as
of all th# number of viaims which include
the to th part ofwhat the' males amount
<O, only ohe wdman is to be sou- d, who
has been conde lined to perpetual feciufi in
It is to be remembered,that the subver
sion of th- government of the 19 h of June
ws, chiefly plotted and executed by the
club of Montagnards, half foreigners, half
Genevefe, to whom from terror, ferprife,
and cowardice, halfof the citizens joined
themselves the following day. As such
men as th fe Montagnards, could only be
the grenadiers and not the directors of fc
tompletea revolution, the infant the lea
ders of the preceding one were afociated
to them, they seized the reins from the re
fid-nt ofFrance, fy, in exciting the
Montagnards, h?d flattered himfelf with
the hopes of governing them, and of for
ling by their means the little republic to
demand its re-union with France. And
indeed as soon as this hope had failed him,
he begin an aperi rupture with the new
leaderi, h which they treated him with so
much thi left discretion,as the fall of Ro
Gerfpierfe^whofe c^atde he was,gave them
the prefyett of overturning him," of fav-
BRIEF ACCOUNT of the ORIGIN
and PROGRESS of the REVOLU
TION in GENEVA-^# m
Letters.
REVOLUTION in GENEVA.
[No. 52. ofVoL. ll.]
THE
Columbian Informer; /
Or, C HESHIREJOURNA^
■ ' —— — -
Concluded.
" Citizen rtfdent, replied they, the fyn
dies and council of the republic of Geneva,
haye neveraniflaken the nature oj your difpo-
Jettons in relation to the republic and its gov
ernment. al long time have the, jeen you
follow, without variation, a plan which
jpreßi, tends to implicate both, with the Re
public ^ France. From motives of peace,
from rtypea for the public charaa r with
which you are invefied, they have rep-efedrhe
pat r.fuljentiments which the, experienced, they
have kcptfilcnt. But now, that you yourfelj
no longer reJpeß this charaßer, at the fame
tittle that you throw aside every kind ofrefra
towards the magistrates of an independent
people, they can no longer dffmhle the fenti
merre with wbicbthe extraordinary coaduayou
held inspires them. They are bound to repel
the truly boftile proceedings of whichthey ha ve
been for jome time past the objiß. We Ihall
dijirias againf Geneva. The syndics answer
ed him by aver, Spirited letter, which will
form an epect, in the new diplomatic f,le of
resolutions.
observations on your note of the nth
Fhermidor, and on the spirit which pre
vails throughout it. This note avill Juffire
to prong bow little you are Jcrupulous on the
choice of means, «wben you have it tn view to
render the Genevefe odious to the French. —
Ton mutilate falls, you oifrfrefent circum
fantes. What you fam to keep from the pub
lic appears to he vuorfe than cushat you publics,
^c. And it is the very tine when the
true friends of liberty and equality rife to
destroy arittocracy, that you attribute hoC
tile views to the Genevefe towards the
French Republic ! Where is a citizen of
Geneva to be found, if he be not a traitor
to his country,who can conceive any advan
tage to be derived from fatiguing as you
fav, the neighboring people,to animate and
arathem against us. We tell you without
feint, citizen resident, that these are in
tiTous conffroaions, whiA you drive to
give to events, and which are evidently
made to animate the neighboring people
against us. The French nation have made
justice and probity the order of the day,
and you, who are its Representative, you
falfify fadh in order to impute wrong to
us! The French wilh to fraternize
with every free people, and you, you
make an abuse of the influence attached
to your Situation to implicate with such a
nation the only people who have adopted
its principles ! We know that the com
mittee of public Safety will never refufe
to listen toys, that it will never judge a
whele nation without hearing it ; and that
we (hall have great truths to announce.—
Believe, not therefore, citizen resident,
that your menaces avail. You have only
opened to us a profpe& of an arrival of
,the moment for which we so much long,
that of these little intrigues of which we
were to be victims. Citizen resident, we
have held to you the language of free
men ; we have spoken plain truths ; if
our language offends you ; yeur reiterat
ed provocations will juftify us before those,
who have an esteem for franknefs and
firmnefs. We advise you citizen resident,
that we forward your note and our answer
to the committee of public fafety at Par
is, &c.
Geneva, the jthof August, 3d year
of Genevefe, equality, for syndics
and council. DIDIER.
act undertake the enumeration of all the
grievancies, which we have to urge against
you ; &, time will come when we <hall
fpecify them before those who are just and
powerful enough to have jutlice rendered
b- &..'.: .spLic utigncs'to a fe^
Scarce had the daily pay of the revo
lucionifts, cea fed, which had been decreed
Ohly for three weeks, and which cofl near
3001. fUrling a day to the Bate, than the
ing thereby the political independence of
Geneva, ana for preserving to them
ielves the fruits of the revolution and its
plunder.
PRINTED and PUBLISHED in KEENE, New-Hampshire.
TUESD^ r, Marc H rfrizgf. ; [Whole No. 104. J
allies of the resident, deprived of this re
ioor<e, and forced to return to their work,
began to demand a new pay and eopfQ
quently a new revolution to supply it-—4
they loudly declaimed that the ariftofrats
& had been spared fhoeld have their
turn. They demanded, in short, that the
revolutionary tribunal ihoald resume its
1 7<tion, and proceed to &er use justice on
; or 600 other fuTpeded citizens, amongst
whom they began to mark out a few revi
dutionifis who appeared the most attached'
3 the independence of the republic. At!
this last threat the latter were roofed from!
their lethargy : The, convoked all the
revolutionary elvbs on whom they made a
keep impression by a speech, which con
tains such unguarded confeffions, and such
remarkable insinuations against the French|
refirent, as deserve to have feme extraas
defeated here.
'" I insist, said the speaker, that the
proposal of eroding a new revolutionary
tribunal cannot be suggested but by the
perfidy of an enemy to our independence,
aid supported only ty milled persona or
idle people, who, got having the refolu
tton of returning to their occupations,pre-1
fame with reason, the obligation under
which we Should be plated of continuing
the national pay, the inft'ant every bufi-'
nefs fheuld be flopped anew. For who(
can still allege, without blushing at his 1
ignorance or his intentions, any fears from<
Gfnevefe aristocracy. An ephemeric be-<
ig crushed under the lap of his fortune, I
^d under the immense rubbilh of the 1
Funeh monarchy wi hout means of force I
Inchin, and wiincroi resource TrGm abroad, i
&c.(
This speech, which was warmly applau
ded both by those who had commenced the
revolution, and by those who had affo
ciated themselves to it, though at the fame
time they detested it, was published by
order of the rovolutionifts, and restored
courage and speech, to those whom terror
had petrified, and, until then had carried
along in the torrent of Montagnards.—
They resolved, Ift, to arm, but net to
receive any national pay. zdly, Toye
vive the revolutionary tribunal, to pr^e
cute no longer the pretended aristocrats,
but[ 4 e real agitators, and amongst other
,'b^ to m^e * deep search into their
' afpiracy, against the independence of
the state.
However,the former tribunal,at the head
of which is Boufquet, seemed, in resum
ing its formidable functions, to wilh to
spare the Montagnards, who had served
him as janissaries ; he ftrived to divert the
public vengeance from their heads by solic
iting further denunciations again ft the rich,
^ho had escaped from the effeds of the
preceding revolution, and to whom he Hill
gave the appellation of incorrigible ene
''„France has placed justice as the or
der of the day, and can Geneva, which
ought to ofter to the world the fight of a
city of brothers only,contain men who are
not yet satiated with victims, and who de.
mand a second erection of a revolutionary
tribunal, which might judge arbitrarily,
and wave its sword over every head ? Are
you not feasible, citizens, of the dangers to
which we (hall be liable,lhould the respec
table powers who border upon us, and on
whom we depend for cur subsistence and
trade, highly displeased with the repeti
tion of feenes, which they have already
marked with the testimony of their repro
bation, fheuld at left anthematize our
country. Then, Geneva, the birth-place
of Rousseau, Geneva which had merited
the eftcera and consideration of all Eu
rope, by the moderation which its citi
zens had ever displayed, until now in
their intestine, disputes by their morals,
their religion, their abilities, Geneva will
disappear forever from the catalogue of
free and independent cities. Let us has
ten to flop the consequences of such a rev
lotion."
Upon this news, the tribunal of Gene
va, no longer hesitated to execute justice
on the Montagnards, and fevera) of them
were conduced to condign puniffiment,a
midft the acclamations of that fame popu
lace, who five weeks before had beem the
increments of their deftrhaive projects.
Thus this little drama,prefents even in its
second feene, a further proof of that great
truth, advanced by the French orator,
namely, that every revolution of this kind
resembles ^Saturn, and devours its own
offspring.
The oppressed Genevefe, are in hopes,
from this second feene,of some amelioration
of what they had been led to apprehend
from the firft ; and particularly of enjoying
feme greater facility to quit this theatre of
crimes ; as some among thorn have already
obtained by dint of money, the permission
of commuting their year of domestic im
prisonment, into perpetual banishment
without confiscation. And indeed who
can be furprized at any one's purcksfing
as a favor, a perpetual banishment, from
a country polluted with the stain of inno
cent blood, from a city which is diftrafted
with difeord, famine, and repentance, and
Where even those who lament the most the
career of crimes, on which they are enter
ed, have not the possible meads at com
mand of quitting it. This frightful per
fpeaive is nevertheless so true, that in or
der to proceed against the Montagnards,
who projected further excesses, the best
disposed of the revolutionise have been
in some measure forced to allow frefh e
normiiies to be committed ; as the reviv-
On feiting the registers of the Montego
nards,they had indeed discovered the pro
ject of an address, which tended no less
than to plunge anew the little republic,
into the most dreadful anarch), in order
to force it to throw itfelf into the arms of
the great republic in France. Iris assert
ed, that although the signatures had been
effaced, they have been recovered by the
means of a chemical process, and that a
mengft ethers, that of the French resident
has appeared, who hefides finds himfelf
nameu and strongly implicated in all the
confeflidns of those Montagnards, who
have yet been tried.
During these trafifaaions, the Minifler
of the republic of Geneva,at Paris, a very
able man, having had the address to avail
himfelf of these difeoveries, and of the fall
of Roberfpierr<,to interest the opposite fac
tion in favor of Geneva,focceeded not on
ly in obtaining from the French committee
the disavowal of the refident,Soulavie, but
likewise in having him recalled with pub
lic marks of disapprobation ; and even
procured a hew recognition of the indepen
dence of Geneva, by the French Conven
tion, who granted that miaifter the fame
honors, as they had just conferred on the
minister of the United States of America.
miei. Bet ths time the revolutionise
were no longer its dupes, and the very
day after, (the Aug. 25,) irritated by its
equivocal proceedings, and its hefitatione
they presented it the following address.
Citizens, two thousand, one..hundred and
thirty-nine infurßents gave you orders yes
terday, to tafforfetyes into a revolu
tionary tribunal,-and to judge the crimi
nals arrested in the morning. What have
you done ? Nothing. We are tried with
so much doth, and we are now come to de
clare to you, that if at neon you do not
begin to try the arrested persons, you arc
reiper,fi ble to us for the evils which may
be the consequence. Let the firft es your
members, who would ciiconcert your pro
ceedings, be instantly put in arrest. Let
the Montagnards be disarmed. Let the
address found amongst their papers, be
communicated to all your fellow citizens,
and let every one of the agitators be pun
iffied ere might.
(Signed)
GERARD, Secretary.