The National Register.
London, England, 1815-04-02 00:00:00

NA'T'IONAL REGISTER.

~~~ii

thorise their consent to that change, and the two-fifths of whom bad
rot even the character of representatives.
" All these acts are therefore illegal. Done in the presence of
criemie.2 armies, and under foreign domination, they are merely the
work of violence, they are essentially null and injurious to the na.
tional hotiour, the liberty, and to the rights of the people.
" The acts of adherence by individuals and unauthorised public
functional ies can have neither abrogated nor supplied the consent of
the people, expressed by vows solemnly required and legally emitted.
" If these acts of adherence, as well as the oaths could ever have
been obligatory on those who made them, they cease to be so when
the Government which received them has ceased to exist.
" The conduct of the citizens, who, under this Government, have
served the State, cannot be blamed. They are even worthy of
praise, who have profited by their position in order to defend the
national interests and to oppose the spirit of re-action and counter-
revolntion whirls desolated France.
" The Bourbons themselves constantly violated their promises:
they favoured the pretensions of the faithful nobility ; they shook
the sales of national property in every origin ; they prepared the
re-establishment of feudal rights and tithes ; they threatened all new
esittences: they declared war,against all iberal opinions; they at-
tacked every institution which France had acquired at the price of
her blood, preferring to humiliate the nation rather than to noise
themselves to her glory ; they strlpt the Legion of Honour of its en-
dowments and political rights; they loaded it with decorations for
the purpose of degrading it ; they deprived the army and the brave
soldiers of their pay, their rank, and their honour, in order to be-
stow them .on emigrants and revolutionary chiefs ; they wished
finally to reign and oppress the people by the emigrants.
" Profoundly affiTted by her humiliation and misfortunes, France.
summoned by every prayer her national Governuteut, the Dynasty I
united to her new institutions.
" When the gmperor approached the capital, the Bourbons in
vain wished to repair, by sudden lame and tardy oaths to their con-
stitutionarcharter, the outrages committed against the nation and the
army. 'The period of delusion was at an aid, confidence was for
ever alienated. No arni was stretched forth in their defence, the
nation and the army flew to meet their deliverer.
" The Emperor, on reaching the Throne to which the people bad
raised him, restored to the nation its most sacred rights. He only
pets in force the Decrees of the Representative Assemblies, sancti-
oned by the:nation ; retnrns to reign by the only principle of legiti-
macy which France has acknowledged and consecrated for 25 years.
anti to 'which all the authorities were bound by oaths from which
the will of the people alone could free them.
" The Emperor is again called upon if) guarantee institutions,
(and be has engaged to do so iu his proclamations to the Nation and ,
the Army), al) liberal principles, individual liberty and equality of ,
rights, the liberty of the press and tire abolition of censorship, the
liberty of religions opinion, the voting of taxers, and, lastly by the I,
representatives of the people, legally chosen, national property of °I
all description, the independeree, and immutability of the tribunals,
the responsibility of the Ministers and of all agents in power.
" The better to consecrate the right and the obligations of the
people and of the Monareli, the National constitutions are to be
revised in a great assembly of representatives, already announced
by the Emperor.
" Until the meeting of that Great Representative Assembly, the
Einpetor is to exeteise, and cause to he exercised, conformably to
the constitittions-and the existing laws, the authority which was
elelegated to him, of which lie could nut be deprived, which he could
not abdicate withent the consent of the nation, and which the will
and general battiest of the Frttnch Nation make it is duty to resume,
(Signed) Count DEFERMAN,
• ' REQNIAU D, de St. Jean d'Angely,
(A ad the othgr Members of the Council of State.)
J-lIS MAJESTY'S REPLY.
" Princes are the first citizens of the State. Their authority is
more or lesa extended according to the interests of the nations whom
they govern. The Sovereignty itself is only hereditary, because the
interest of the people require it, Departing from these principles, I
)snow nn legitimacy.
" I have renounced the idea of. the Grand Empire, of which,
einrieg *5 years, I had bet founded the bases, henceforth the hap-
piness the 509404099 Pf Fre4ch EINAR *V be 01 ow
1.,•••7"

2.

TUESDAY'S LONDON GAZEI 74E.
•
ADMIRAITY (.111ICF, MARCH QB. 1813•
Captain Lennock, of his Majesty's ship Esk, has, in a letter to John
Wilson Cruker, dated ott Madeira, the tOth of last n.o!•th, reported
that on the same day, he copiored the American scloouer• privateer
Sine qua lion, of seven guns and eighty-one wen. •