The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1803-06-15 00:00:00

)ERNE, June 9.

" will now keep my promise, and send you a
faitlikil account of our present Government, of our
Parti-s, and of our sufferings, from the tyrannical
intertrence of the Corsican in our last struggle for
liberty and independence.
" fhe French innovators have mistaken and Mir:-
understood our national charafter, in judging of it
after the selfish and inconstant French, atter the
thoughtless and unthinking Italian, ot after the dull
and phlegmatic Bata.vian. We are the very oppo-
site; we are not only constant, firm, and intrepid,
but obstinate and stubborn; and when centuries
have not hecn able to eradicate from our minds the
attempts of Austria to tyrannize over our ancestors,
how can France expea its recent oppression and ty-
ranny, which we so cruelly feel and witness, can be
forgotten, forgiven, or submitted to ?
" Had the Government which the Corsican has
forced upon us, been our own and free ehoia, it
might have quieted if not satisfied our parties ; but
the very icka of
_forte being used, which, proved cur
freedom enikeved ;and cur indeper dance last, has such an
etre& upon all true Swiss, that we had preferred
anarchy or even the worst of governments of our
own choice, to the best regulated government in
the world, Unposed upon us by the cruel hand of
power, and by a foreign tyrant.
" Mr, D'Affrey, our present Landamman, in
wishing to gain over the different parties, has of-
fended and displeased them all. We do not see in
him our First Magistrate, but the First Slave of
Bonaparte in Switzerlaird, in a place as degrading
to himself, as insulting and humiliating to us.
When he speaks of his patriotism, we think of
nothing but his arobitien, and when he talks of
his love of his country, we remember his adulation
of, and obligation to, our Common Tyrant the Cor-
!..ican Tyrant of France, Italy, Germany,and Holland.
Lonaparte may succeed with French Royalists, and
Republicans, Aristocrats, and Jacobins; he may
succeed with the contemptible French Egotists.
Rebels, and Regicides, to blend such heterogeneous
beings in the same Cc.unciis and in the same Senate;
he may succeed in Italy and Holland; but in Swit-
zerland, where our first thoughts, our first lessons,
our first instructions, were Limiter and liberty, the lime
of our Country, and the hatred of tyranly; places
vice and power with guilt, equality with tlavu, and
fraternity with critni7:alr, excite no other sentiments
but those of disgust, horror, and revenge ; and how
is it possible for us—for true Swi_s Patriots, who have
bled in our country's cause, to sit by the side of the
Traitor who betrayed it—the villain who sold it-6e
coward who deserted it—and the Rebel who fought
against it. Our animosities are, therefore, great and
irreconciicable,and hardly a day passes without some
duels or other scenes of bloodshed, and the total

extermination of one party or other, can only termi-
rainate our differences, our reproaches, our hatred,
our complaints, and our sufferings.

si To this, too true relation, you may, perhaps.
object our addresses to the Corsican Usurper ; but
they were all extorted by force, didated by the
sword. and signed by fear. under the French bay-
onets ; you can form no idea of all the baseness,
bribes, intrigues. thrtats. and cruelties that were
by turn employed by the French emissaries and
Swiss traitors to obtain the signatures—they were, in
a few words, worthy .f the little Soul of the Great
lipase at St. Cloud ; and, as a proof of their
sincerity and unanimity, those very addresses
are now new_ causes of aversion, contests and com-
bats not only amongst the Swiss patriots, but even
amongst the Swiss Jacobins, who reproach each
other with those base and shameful naanteuvres.

" But another evidence of our general detestation
of France. One of the last alts of our late infamous
Government was to cede to France some brigades
of Swiss troops ; most of the officers of these bri-
gades resigned, and more than half of the soldiers
deserted ; to complete those and to levy fresh troops
for the Corsican, has been lately the constant endea-
vour of our present government ; but great as the
poverty of our people is, and liberal as the offers of
France has been, recruits enough have not been en-
gaged to complete one single demi-brigade, when at
the same time those of our countrymen formerly in
the British service, are teized and exposed by hun-
dreds every day, who offer themselves as soldiers ; I
can assure you it is not exaggeration when I affirm
that if our geographical position permitted it, in one
week 20,000 men might be raised for England in
Switzerland.

"Since our Corsican Constitution, emigrations for-
merly confined to the Canton of Bask, have extend-
ed to au alarming height in all the other cantons,
whole parishes and villages emigrate ea n:aue, to
avoid the sight of Bonaparte's soldiers, and to es-
cape their cruelties; the price of property has de-
creased nearly .r.,0 per cent. and should it continue
in the same manner, after some years more of
French fraternization, Swiss traitors and French
sLives will be the only inhabitants of degraded and
wretched Helvetia.
" Debanzhery, iearnorarty,lna irreligion, with all
their conscquent crimes, have accompanied 'the
French keit! :L4 well as everywhere else. Our wives,
onr daughters are dragged away from the proteEtion,
from the arms of a father and a husband, to satisfy
the lust, the vile passions of a vile soldiery ; the
moral principles of our youths arc corrupted, viti-
ated, and totally perverted. Thieves, plunderers,
-honse-breakers, highwaymen, assassins, and mur-
deress, cro,:d our prisons, proteCied by the
French, escape or mock our laws.
" No resped, no safety, no protection, either
of our persons or property, add to this an un-
common poverty from French plunder, from
want of work, from want of encouragement to in-
dustry or prove& of gain, and you can form but
.an incomplete notion of our distresses, of our suf-
ferings, and our complete misery. From being the
most virtuous, moral, happy, and tree nation, we
are become a vicious, beggared, enslaved, and ruined
people, and this cruel, abominable, and incompre-
hensible change, French tyranny, French seduc-
tion, French examples, and French principles have
effected in less than five years I I !
"England, and England alone is our hope of selief,
and our preventive from despair; and believe me
that the first cannon shot against France that re-
sounds in our mountains will be a signal for us to
exterminate our oppresiors or to perish in the at-
tempt."