STATE PAPERS. 
the commercial and friendly inte- 
rests that connect them with her; 
and it is therefore hereby declared, 
—That all the agents of France, 
actually residing with due creden- 
tials at foreign courts, are there to 
continue their services as long as 
their character and treaties are re- 
spected. France will observe those 
treaties with scrupulous exactness, 
and will therefore shew the greater 
ardour in pursuing, by every means, 
the reparation of any real injuries or” 
affronts that may be offered to her. 
In doing the most impartial justice 
to other governments, she is entitled 
to demand a similar return; and 
will employ every means in order 
to attain it. 
Memorial to the King of Prussia. 
Sept. 26th, 1792. 
HE French nation has undoubt- 
edly decided its fate, and fo- 
reign powers cannot refuse to ac- 
knowledge the truth of this asser- 
tion. They no longer see the Na- 
tional Assembly, whose powers were 
confined; whose acts required to 
be either confirmed or abrogated to 
have the force of laws; who pos- 
sessed only a contested authority, 
which might have been considered 
as usurped; and who had the wis- 
dom to appeal to the whole notion, 
and to request of themselves, the 
eighty-three departments, to put an 
end to their existence, and to sup- 
ply their place by representation in- 
vested with all the powers and 
- complete sovereignty of the French 
people, authorised by the constitu- 
tion itself, under the name of the 
National Convention. 
This assembly, the first day of its 
277 
sitting, actuated by a spontaneous. 
movement, which is the same 
throughout the whole empire, de- 
creed the abolition of royalty. This 
decree was everywhere received 
with great joy; it was everywhere 
expected with the utmost impa- 
tience; it everywhere augments the 
energy of the people; and at pre- 
sent it would be impossible to make 
the nation re-establish a throne 
overturned by the crimes which 
surrounded it. France then must 
necessarily be considered as a re- 
public, since the whole nation has 
declared the abolition of monarchy. 
This republic, then, must either be 
acknowledged or combated. 
The powers armed against France 
had no right to intermeddle in the 
debates of the National Assembly on 
the form of its government. No 
power has a right to impose laws on 
so great a nation; they therefore 
resolved to employ the right of the 
strongest.—But what has been the 
result ?>—The nation has been more 
incensed; they have opposed force 
to force, and the advantages certain- 
ly which the numerous troops of 
the King of Prussia and his allies 
have gained, are of very little con- 
sequence, ‘The resistance which 
he meets with, and which increases 
as he advances, is too great not to 
prove that the conquest of France, 
represented to him as very easy, is 
absolutely impossible. Whatever 
difference of principies may exist 
between the respectable monarch 
who bas been misled, and the French 
people, neither he nor his generals 
can any longer consider that people, 
or the armies which oppose him, as 
a collection of rebels.—The rebels 
are those infatuated nobility who, 
after having so long oppressed the 
people in the name of monarchs, 
whote 
