The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1803-06-22 00:00:00

P :1174TE CORRESPOYDEAPCE.

-.r.w.r.-, ..

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ZIFRACT OF A LETTER, FitoM LA VLtiDAts DATED
jumE 10, 1803.
" Since England began to arm against Bonaparte,
the reign of terror is the order of the day in our
wretched country. Spies, intrigues, bribes, threats,
and fetters, accompany our suspicious tyrants .very
where in our ruined cities, and in our depopulated
villages. Religion itself is employed to betray the
sacred secrets of the virtuous, the unwary, and the
timorous, and to discover if true loyalty is yet ex-
isting in a country where so many royalists have
bled for the cause of their lawful King, and sealed
with their blood their faith in the religion of their
ancestors. Arrests, imprisonments, and transporta-
tion, immediately follow a thoughtless aftion, an
indiscreet word, or a suspeifted look ; we are not per-
mitted to go two leagues from our houses, without
a pass ; and after dark, even in crossing our streets,
or visiting our neighbours, we dare not be svithout
our 'civic. cards, or our alts of amnesty; bemuse
,gene d err me:, on foot and on horseback, stop every
one.; insult, arrest, and often plunder those who
have been imprudent, or negleCtful enoti:ll, not to
carry with them those undeniable proofs, we, the
inhabitants of France, enjoy. Where no protcCtion
is afforded, no obedience can be expected ; and the
inhabitants of the \Western Departments arc as ripe
for insurration now, as in 17;13 ; and should an in-
surrection take place here, we are certain it will be
a signal for a rising en mut, not only to all loyal
Frenchmen, but to the oppressed per,ple of Italy,
Switzerland, and Holland ; and if four yzars have
been necessary to organize Bonaparte's military dLs-
potism, four weeks, four hours, or four minutes,
may be sufficient to shake an usurped throne, and
to dethrone an usurper, who, by attempting to unite
all parties, to degrade the royalists by associating
them with the jacobins, and to elevate the demago-
gues in mixing them with the aristocrats, has dis-
pleased or offended them all ; and if ever any union
amongst them takes place, it will no doubt be to
chastise their common tyrant.
1 he Corsican knows that ..re have many deposits
of arms, yet undiscovered, and yet concealed ; he
knows what use. we intend to make of them, and he
know; we abhor as much his tyranny, as that of his
,;:tortay predecessor Robespierre, who satisfied him-
self with the murder of the royalists, but never tried
to introduce a revolutionary clergy, and a revolu-
tionary religion, to betray, totorment, and to trouble
the consciences of the Christians. •
" Two months ago, every person here, except the
public funetionaries, were ordered to deliver up
their arms, and domiciliary visits have taken place
in every house where arms were supposed to be hid-
den. All returned emigrants, and pacified royalists
or Chouans, are obliged to present themselves
twice in the decades before the prefects, sub-prefeas,
or their deputies, under pain of transportation ; and
those purchasers of national property, who have
given up or sold again to the former and legal own-
ers, their confiscated estates, are subjected to the
sa:nc revolutionary vexations as the royalists, of
hom all the former chiefs, who have not by treason
made themselves worthy to be the slaves of Bona-
parte, have been carried away from their homes,
and nobody knows to a certainty what has become
of them.

" By the pacification in 1800, all young men in
this and other royalist departments, were to be
excepted several years from conscription. By fraud,
force, and treachery, they have not only been put
into requisition, but dispersed and incorporated in
different corps, in different countries ; this has, how-
ever, partly turned against our tyrants ; because
they have not only themselves m•)stly deserted, but
decoyed away with them number-, of other young
conscripts ; and we know where to find them, should
occasion present itself to make use of them.
"Ily the same aft of pacification, 't e were excepted
from paying certain contribution, which, during
our civil wars, the fire and the sword of the Re-
publicans rendered us unable to pay ; but such is
the modern republican faith, that I pay more taxes
to Bonaparte for two farms (remaining of 25 I
formerly posse: ;NI) than I paid in proportion fin
fourteen farms to Louis XVI. We arc taxed as emi-
grants, as royalists, as Chouans, as Christians, and
as French citizen ; we arc taxed as suspeßei ; we
are taxed as disaffeaert ; we are tax,d for having
emigrated, we are taxed for Living returned from
emigration; we :ire taxed far permission to reside in
our province; and we arc taxed for permission to
leave our province; not to mention our voluntary
donations to the spies of the police, to the favourites
of our magistrate:., and to the darlings of our go-
vernors, to avoid false denunciations, arbitrary im-
prisonments, and unjust condemnations.
" I was disturbed last Sunday morning, at one
o'clock, by a visit from the police in search after a
pamphlet circulated in France lately, entitled "An
Appeal from the Shades of Louis XVI. to all faith-
ful Subjeas of Louis XVIII" After a vain search
for two hours, the police agents demanded some
wine, which they continued to drink for two hours
more, and, during the whole time, my wife, my