The Sun.
London, England, 1825-01-08 00:00:00

INDEMNITY TO THE FRENCH EMIGRANTS.

On presenting the Project of Law for indem-
nifying the Emigrants, M. de MARTIGNAC,
the Director-General of the Royal Demesnes,
addressed the Chamber of Deputies to the fol-
lowing effect :
"Gentlemen—The King has commanded us to lay before you
the project of a law, having for its object the granting of an in-
demnity to the ancient possessors of property confiscated and
sold for the good of the state in the times of civil dissension.—
' There is no need of developing at length the motives which
have determined the King to propose to you this great act of
wisdom and of justice. When political tempests are laid, when,
the fury of passion and of party is terminated, reason and truth
make themselves understood ; that which is generous and good,
that which is useful and just, makes itself manifest to all minds,l
makes itself felt by all hearts, and requires no longer to be
justified, or even pointed out. You know, Gentlemen, at that
period of melancholy recollection which separated the family
of our Kings from k ranee, that the feelings of men of property
were uncertain and divided. Some supposed that prudence
and the interests of the throne and the country should at-
tach them to the ravaged but always beloved soil of their
country. Others saw honour in foreign lands, where royal ca-
lamity sought an asylum, and where, in their opinion, fidelity
should follow misfortune. Many of the French abandoned
their country, already threatened with all the evils which anar-i
city brings in its train. God forbid, Gentlemen, that we should
retrace the calamitous events which distinguished the periods of
trouble and disaster—events, the memory of which we should
make every effort to extinguish. We will only allude to such
evils as justice and prudence command us to repair ; for we wish
the past to be buried in oblivion. Severe and threatening de-
crees recalled to France those who had withdrawn themselves
from it; a refusal, with which all the world is now acquainted,
drew upon them laws of blood and terror, eternal exile, or
death. These laws were not found sufficient ; it was necessary
to find a method of striking at once at their properties and fami-
lies. The genius of revolutions is inventive; their properties
were successively sequestrated and put up to sale ; numerous
laws decreed again and again, and pressed, with all the
force of power and terror, a violent deprivation, and these
properties have been divided, subdivided, and finally sold.
Many years passed away when events changed the situa-
tion of the Emigrants, and enabled them to revisit France.
A considerable number returned, and some of them obtain-
ed the restoration of such of their domains as remained in the
hands of the State. Things were in this situation, Gentlemen,
when Louis XVI 11. ascended the throne of his forefathers.—
One of the first wishes of his heart was undoubtedly to assist
those whose honourable sufferings were linked with his own
misfortunes; but the first exertion of his wisdom was the as-
I surance of the public tranquillity of that kingdom which was
restored to bim. Twenty-five years had passed over France,
and traces of our calamities presented themselves at every step.
The Charter, that guarantee of peace, that monument of mode-
ration and wisdom, declared all property inviolable, and it ex-
pressly comprised in this inviolability, that called national; it
declared that the law made no distinction between these descrip-
tions of property. You have followed this declaration of the
i Monarch. The law of the State has been scrupulously ob-
I served. Nevertheless, families deprived of their properties
during an absence, clearly recognised as legitimate, stripped
upon their return of all hope of restitution, have,. in the be-
nevolence of the King, and in public justice, rights which
cannot be overlooked. Their properties, their mansions, the
inheritance of their families, have been confiscated and sold
for the benefit of the State. Gentlemen, with a nation ge-
nerous, just, and loyal, this should be a restitution which
should not be delayed. An indemnity ought to be the
consequence of the inviolability of contracts made under
the empire of confiscations. All hearts feel this, but the
honour of expressing these sentiments first belongs to
one of the most illustrious Chiefs of that army, which was
sometimes the consolation, and constituted at all times the
glory, of France. France will preserve the recollection of the
appeal made to its loyalty by a Noble Peer (the Duke of Ta-
rentum) during the first months which followed the restoration.
Other obligations, other wants, compelled the adjournment of
the execution of a measure the justice and necessity of which
was felt by every honest mind and generous heart. The
Charter had also declared—the public debt is guaranteed ;
every description of engagement entered into by the State
with its creditors is inviolable. This great and solemn pro.
mise must be fulfilled, and the first foundations of public
fortune must be laid by this testimony of respect for all
engagements in which the name of the State is to be found.
We will then be content to extend to all the families of the
emigrants the restoration made to some of them of their unsold
properties, and to give up to them the portions of the purchase
money of those sold, which have not been paid into the trea-
sury of the Royal domains. Such, you are to recollect, are
the dispositions of the law of the 15th December 1814. Soon
new calamities pressed upon France; a long occupation was
added to charges already existing. The King and France
united in liquidating them. The time, reason, that spirit of
justice and of loyalty which animates Frenchmen, and the cre-
dit they create and sustain, gave a happy facility to the effort.
Louis XVIII. was on the point of proposing to the Chambers
the means of adopting a general reconciliation, when the dan-
gers which threatened the King of Spain and the safety of our
frontiers, imposed new sacrifices upon us. Finally, the war
waged against the Spanish Revolution delayed the accomplish.
ments of the project long conceived by the royal wisdom.
You must remember, Gentlemen, at the opening of the last
Session, that this just and benevolent Monarch, whose pater-
nal voice you will never hear again, expressed to you his wish
of closing the last wounds of the Revolution. Your feelings
easily comprehended his, and your wishes applied his consoling
words to fidelity, unfortunate and plundered. The moment is
at length arrived when this wish can be accomplished, when
this act of deep and sound policy can be carried into effect—
The liberation of King Ferdinand, the prosperous state of our i I
finances, the general peace, the sure and good understanding
that exists between the King and all other governments, permit
,us to heal the wound that the restoration left bleeding, and which
presses upon the entire body, though it appears to affect but some
of the members. The time is now arrived when it is possible to
say to those who have been stripped of their inheritance, and who
have supported their mis%rtunes with such resignatiod, " The
State has deprived you of your property, and has transferred it to
others in seasons of discord and trouble ; the State, restored to
peace and legitimacy, offers you now the only reparation in its
power ; receive it, and by means of this indemnity, may all I
hatred vanish and disappear." Such, Gentlemen, is the plan of
the project of the law which the King orders us to submit to you.
It is a measure which appears just : sanctioned by the general
interest, it has something about it true and satisfactory, which
seems, f m its nature, to concilitate all minds,, and which has
no need o •ustification. Of all those rights which society pro-
mises, and ught to maintain, that of property is undoubtedly
r 7
the most sacted, that to which is united most forcibly the gua-
rantee of all dthers. Of all those penalties which laws can pro-i
nounce, and 'which human justice can inflict, the most cruel
is the confiscation of property. It is a punishment which
strikes the condemned even in his posterity, and by which
the State enriches itself with the plunder of those whom it had
already deprived of their parent. In the year 1790, you will
remember that confiscation was abolished by a solemn decree in
the name of justice and humanity; and a few months after it
was restored in the name of violence. It was re-established by a

d
gwehhiecrhal
cmomeapsruethee,
npdreodn oaulni etehaeaffiat ailpiepslieodf bt
those
otshee
wl ahwo
ni t ef
whom danger had compelled to fly their country. The lay/
did not confine itself to the plunder of the children ; it ascend'
ed for the purpose of wounding; it seized upon the portion
promised by nature to emigrants, which was in the possession
itself,
duty anod
t
of their parents still living. These fatal laws have disappeared;
judicial confiscation is effaced from our codes, into which it
was introduced. The King abolished it upon his return, and
his wisdom, struggling against the possibility of future injus•
tice, has declared that it shall never be restored. These bene-
volent dispositions cannot act upon the past ; they cannot get
over the interval between May, 1814, and January, 1790. Mi
merous transactions have taken place under the dominions of
laws now abolished; these transactions have been preserved
unaltered. The Charter, which has given to them the support
of sovereign and legitimate authority, has declared them in•
violable—a respect entirely profound, without reserve or dise
pute, for acquired rights is due to this august sanction. But,
even though respect for the right of property, and the oblige•
dons of repairing wrongs, were not written in the laws of all
people and all times, there is something in our consciences
stronger than laws themselves, which reminds us, that when
sales have been made in the name of the State, and the State has
received the value, and enjoyed it for 30 years, it owes reparation
to those who have been violently dispossessed. Some voices are
raised in opposition to the 'great redress which these great inte-
rests require. They ask why the losses, of which emigration is
the cause, should be those alone for which recompence should
be necessary—why-misfortunes of this description should be
looked upon as the only wound which justice and humanity re-
quire to have healed? " The reduction of the national debt," it is
said, "has deprived the creditorsof the State of two-thirds of th eir
securities. The maximunt—the assignats—the disasters of the
war, have injured many families. Why have not all those who
have been thus plundered a right to that redress, which it doss
not appear to be the wish to
.grant, except to certain mistbr-
tunes and to certain calamities ? It is an impossibility to
repair all losses. It would be an act of injustice to repair
only some." You have already, Gentlemen, replied to thesJ
objections. Without doubt the Revolution has produced evils
of all descriptions. We find everywhere the traces of its
fury. We must undoubtedly give up the idea of remedy-
ing all evils. The wealth of France restored to order and
legitimacy would not be sufficient to repair the losses
which France, impoverished by anarchy, has suffered ; but if,
amongst the evils caused by the Revolution, there are some
that justice points out as the most weighty, the most odious,
and the most fatal ; if there are those, the origin of which
was an attack upon the most sacred rights, and the trace of
which still existing, is a perpetual cause of division and of dis-
cord, we ask, ought the impossibility of healing all prevent us from
applying to some that remedy which is in our power ? The emi-
grants have lost every thing ; all the misfortunes which afflicted
France have fallen upon them ; they have suffered still more
heavy calamities, and which were reserved for them alone. The
creditors of the State, victims of the most reprehensible treachery,
have lost two-thirds of their securities, but they have still pre-
served one ; and the fatal measure hich has thus plundered
them has left them their other property. As to the maximum.
the assignats have caused the value which was in the hands of
the merchants and capitalists to disappear, to their injury and
detriment, but no attempt was made upon their fixed property.
Those who have suffered the calamities of war, hare, without
doubt, seen the devastation of their fields and their houses; but,
Gentlemen, the soil—the soil at least has been left them. The
laws respecting emigrants have stripped them of their securities,
their moveables, their revenues ; they have left them nothing ;
nay, more—these cruel laws have deprived them of time
fortunes of their father and mother; at least this has been
done by the laws relating to what is called the Division
of Presoccession. The emigrants have not been tried. The
future confiscation that the criminal laws pronounce against the
crime they denounce, and which is intended to be inflicted by
the tribunals, seems at least to offer some security in the inm•
partiality of the Judge who shall inflict it ; but the confis-
cation hurled upon the emigrants was not a punishment for
the future; it was a proscription en masse, resembling those
confiscations which attended the proscriptions introduced into
Rome by Sylla. ( Here there was a movement expressive
of approbation.) These laws of violence, which assail either
the existence or the properties of a mass of the citizens,
are great calamities, by which all the foundations of so-
ciety are shaken. Since the time when the nation passed, by
a single act of authority, from a state of weakness to that of
power, there has not been any security, and the bond of So-
ciety has been broken. Such are the consequences which
arise from the abuse of power, and which no injury can justi-
fy, and against which the boldest writers, and most celebrated
publicists, have at all times protested. It is important, Gentle-
men, that a memorable and useful example should be given,
in orderi that all men may know that acts of great injustice must
be followed by acts of adequate reparation. This example it
now belongs to France to give. It is under the empire of a
King, the protector of all constituted authorities, and under the
influence of a Charter, the eminent defender of all rights, that
this reparation should with candour and loyalty be offered, as a
most solemn pledge as well as a renewed guarantee.—seleepres-
siont of assent.)—As the reparation that can be given to all the
sufferers ought to follow the confiscation pronounced against the
emigrants, this reparation should be first made to them, because
their losses were entire, while those of others were only partial.
Besides, there had been something in the violence by. which
their property had been despoiled, so odious in its principle, '
and so dangerous in its consequences, that it demanded, and
was entitled to an instant reparation. But that is not
all ; reasons of another kind sufficiently indicate, that the evile
for which a remedy is preparing, should not be confounded
with those of others, and that where the greatest interests are
attacked, the interests of all are so, too, in the end. Who does
not perceive, Gentlemen, as well as ourselves, the necessity
of effacing from the numerous portions of our tertitory those
traces of the confiscations which are yet visible ? Who does not
still perceive the necessity of preventing the return of divisions
and of animosities among the people ? 'Who can doubt that a
great measure which would have this double effect, would be a
real benefit to France ? Well, that measure is the one which we
now propose to you. In spite of the profound security, where
are, where ought to be, the new proprietors ; in spite of the ir
revocable sanction granted to their titles, public opinion, it 0
necessary to say it boldly, persisted to acknowledge again that
line which the law has been anxious to do away. It was dif-
ficelt to find purchasers for the confiscated property of the emis
grants; their value in commerce was not in proportion to their
real value. The indemnity paid to their old possessors can
alone make the meaning and the language of the law conform-
able with each other. It was that only by which the distinction
which at present existed between the two classes could be done
away. Not only would the indemnity be profitable to the State,
by making the funds, which are now worth nothing, resume A
healthy and fruitful circulation ; but it would be profitable to
even the best interests, by confirming union and peace, which
is the principal source of all property. However admirably may
be the resignation with which the old proprietors have support-
ed their losses, there is in the continual attempts at reconcilia-
tion between them and the actual possessors a constant move-
ment, and a coldness which keeps and cherishes an
betweeen them. Other lands are still, after the lapse of ages,
torn and furrowed by a volcano; the King demands of you as-
sistance, in order to destroy it.—(Marks of approbation.)
The King's Commissioner is gone to examine the means adopt•
ed for valuing the property. The project of law has rejected a
mode of estimation founded upon that of the present value, the
least inconvenience to arise from which would be, the bringing
in opposition the old and new possessors. The measures which,
are the object of the articles hereafter to become the project of
law, have appeared to be the only ones capable of being admit'
ted. The suns to which the indemnity will amount, has been
fixed at 987,819,96'5 francs.—(Movement and agitation in vari-
ous ways. The sitting was here interrupted for some time,
by time King's Commissioner feeling it necessary to take some
repose.)
M. de MARTIGNAC continued his speech by an exposition
of the reasons to be urged in favour of the present measure.'
He said, that the liquidation of the indemnities would be con-
fided to a Commission, to be formed of Ministers and Council-
lors of State, of' Masters of the Court of Accounts, and, lastly,
of Masters of Requests performing the duties of Reporters
(liapporteurs.) You will easily judge, said he, the degree of
confidence which such a Commission will be entitled to. The
emigrants will be indemnified by Rentes at three per cent. et
par. (Agitation from various feelings.) As to the effecttwhich
have been given to the hospitals, and which the establishments
of benevolence ought to keep till the endowment is replaced'
the old possessors are authorised to take them back again, by
transfering their inscriptions of Rentes. (New movement.)-:-.
The announcemdnt made by the King's Commissioner of the
dispositions relative to those who, having redeemed their own
effects, or those of their family, will only be indemnified ill
proportion to their real loss, has also excited some very Bye's'
sensations. Other parts of the project of law are intended to
fix the rights of the public creditors anterior to the confiscation ;
in short, the indemnity will be common to the heirs of the con'
demned and to the departed. Such is, Gentlemen, both in its
whole and in its details, the project of law which we come to
submit to your examination, and the adoption of which we re'
quest of you. Simple in its principle, like justice and truth,
the great act which you are called to concur in offers in its
execution some real difficulties which we have not endeavoured
to disguise from you. The King reckons solely on the con-
currence of your wisdom, your patriotism, and your justice...-.
To accomplish this work of peace and reunion, necessary to
efface the traces of our divisions, was the last wish of a mo-
narch, and a legislator, whose memory is cherished and vene-
rated by all France. It is, you say, to yourselves, a pious
legacy, with which he has charged his heir, and which the King
now proposes to you to acknowledge and acquit, (Loud dwell
from the benches on the eight.)

ENGLISH and BRISTOL CHANNELS
SHIP CANAL, Ist January, 1825.—. At a MEET-
ING of the COMMITTEE, held This Day,
DAVID POLLOCK, Esq., in the Chair;
It was Resolved—That as the Reports and Plans respecting
this Concern are now before the Public, the several Parties who
have made application for Shares be intbrmed, that answers
will be returned to those Applications on the 10th instant ; and
that further Applications for Shares may in the mean time be
made to the Committee by letter (post paid), at Messrs. King
and Lukin's, 5, Gray's Inn-square.

TO CORRE
THEATRICAL FORESIGHT-
Stage—on Mond

Y AT ONE o'cr.ocic.
Old Annuities
New Ditto
Ex. Bills 1001. 2d
Ditto lid.
Ditto 5001.
Ditto 11d. 62 64
Ditto Small
Ditto 1 id.....
Ditto Advertised
Bank for Act.
India for Acct.
Cons. for Account

>PONDENTS.
—Miss FooTE's return to the
Lay. Also Civis.

PRICE OF STOCKS TIIIS
Baxk Stock 230 '
3 per Cent. Red. 94iii.
3 per Cent. Cons. 9-18 9ili
38 per Cent
Ditto Red 101 i 100 i
4 per Cent. -(
( Dissd
New 106 i a 1051
Bank Long Ann. 22 15 16th 23
Imp. 3 per Cents.
India Stock shut
Ditto Bonds
South Sea Stock shut

shut

62 64

PRICES 'OF FOREIGN FUNDS, AT ONE O'CLOCK.
A ustrian Bds, 5 per ct ....... Peruvian Bonds Bl4 82
Brazilian Scrip 114;1 12 124 pr. Portuguese Bonds
Buenos Ayres 8d5......... 954 ----Scrip — (Milian, lids, 6 per ct.... 86i4 Prussian, 5 per et. ...... —100?
Colombian Bds.6 per ct.... •Ditto New
Do. - do. 1824 914 94 Russian, New, sjper et. 96 6
Danish, 5 per cent. Spanish 1821, 5 per ct. ... 224
Greek Bds 56i 56 ---- 1823, ditto —
Mexican Bds 77ii4i4 French Rentes
Neapolitan, 5 per cent.... _______ Exchange ... 25f. 10e.
------- Scrip

Scrip —

PRICES OF SIIiIiES•AT ONE O'CLOCK.
Alliance Fire and Life Assurance Company
Ditto, Marine Department
Palladium Assurance Company
Anglo-Mexican Mining Company 63 72 70 82 78 84
Arigna Iron and Coal Mining Company ... 13i 91 3i 91 pm.
Brazilian Mining Company
Colombian Mining Company
Hibernian Mining Company Nii pm.
Real del Monte Mining Company
Rio de la Plata Mining Company 49 531 50 53 52 pm.
United Mexican Mining Company
Continental Gas Company
Provincial Portable Gas COmpany
United General Gas Company
Birmingham and Liverpool Railway 5 Pm.
London and Birmingham Railway Company
London and Bristol Railway Company
Australian Company op 21 91
Canada Company
General Steam Navigation Company
Gas Engine Carriage Company ll
Pawl Fishery Company lsi 17i 17 191 18 19 pm.
Hibernian Joint Stock Company 2i pm.