i441 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1796. ve 
already taken place, farther fe- 
cured, confirmed, and guaranteed 
to the pofleflors, in the ftrongetft 
manner, by the celebrated treaty 
of Weftphalia, to which France her- 
felf was a contracting -party, and 
from which alone fhe can derive 
any legal title or claim to the pro- 
vinces in queftion; of which thefe 
leffer fiefs compofe a confiderable 
part. Yet thefe rights, fo authen- 
tically confirmed and guaranteed, 
_ had been, without the {malleft ex- 
_ planation or ceremony, ‘totally fet 
afide and fubverted, by the fimple 
decree of a new and unheard-of 
body of men, who fuddenly called 
themfelves a French afiembly, while 
a captive king, in violation of trea- 
ties by which he was perfonally, 
and his courtry through him di- 
re€ily bound, and in direét contra- 
diction to his own opinion and ad- 
vice publicly communicated to that 
afiembly, was compelled, moft un- 
willingly, to give his fanétion to 
this violation and wrong. 
We have already feen the indig- 
nation excited in the aflembly, juit 
before the king’s removal from 
Verfailles, upon receiving his let- 
ter, 1 Which he had ventured to 
expottulate, in the gentleft terms, 
upon the impolicy and danger, as 
well as the fiagrant injuttice, of this, 
and of fome others of their atts, 
which had heen then hattily de- 
creed ; we have likewife feen, that 
at*ten o’clock at night, in the midit 
of that dreadful tumult, in which 
his life apparently hung by a fingle 
hair, he was obliged, without com- 
ment, explanation, or reférve, to 
give his {anétion to this decree, as 
well as to that which eftablifhed and 
tonfirmed the revolution, and to all 
ethers which were then in readi= 
9 
nefs. Upon this, as well as upow BY 
every other occafion in which the 
fubje& was at all mentioned, the — 
national aflembly affe€led to treat 
the rights and claims, as well asthe 
perfons and condition of the fo % 
reign princes with the moft infuf-~_ 
ferable contempt; nor did their 
great bond of right and fecuritys 
the treaty of Weitphalia; which is — 
confidered as the Magna Charta of ¥ 
the Germanic empire, and held by, 
that people as little lefs than facreds 
meet with any greater refpect. 7 
This oteafioned a general outcry 
againft the French, and particularly” 
againft the conduét of their afiem- 
bly, in Germany ; while the injured 
princes, no lefs irritated perhaps by 
the injurious treatinent which they 
received, than by their immediate. ~ 
loffes; were inceflant' in their appli, 
cations, both individually and col ih 
le€tively, to the diet of the empiré 
for proteétion and redrefs. The 
diet took up the bufinefs with great 
fpirit; and though the untoward 
ftate of public affairs did not yet af- 
ford leifure to the great powers of the 
empire to take fuch an attive fhare 
in the bufinefs as night give imme- 
diate efficacy to its proceedings and | 
intentions, it was by no means thé — 
lefs fenfible of the injury and wrong; _ 
and of the infult thereby offered to — 
the whole Germanic body. It is | 
not indeed improbable, that the 
vexatious inability of enforcing its 
refolutions which the diet now ex- — 
perienced, ferved much to increalé — 
its indignation and refentment, We — 
accordingly find, that the diet be» 
came and cones’ exceedingly, 
adverfe, and avowedly.difpofed to 
be hoitile to the new French gos 
vernment, which they confidered as ~ 
commencing its career by a flagrant 
violation, — 
