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4 
APPENDIX to the CHRONICLE. 
state of imaginary security, the ar- 
mistice was broken, and the French 
pushed on their forces, when those 
of the Swiss were dispersed. Resist- 
ance on the part of the latter, whose 
numbers did not amount to a tenth 
of those of their flagitious’ ene- 
my, now became hopeless: and 
though the little army was brave, 
though the people were faithful and 
active, though the Jast battle was 
long, obstinate, and bloody; though 
the Swiss achieved wonders, and 
though the women fought by the 
sides of their husbands, inciting 
them to victory or death, all was in 
vain; hundreds and thousands pe- 
rished by the sabres of the French, 
and while the earth was strewed with 
their dead bodies, and while the 
flames ascended from the once happy 
dwellings of this valiant and innocent 
people, the hard-earned and long- 
preserved liberties of Switzerland 
expired. 
Germany, which closes this awful 
_ Jesson, was invaded by the French 
_ in 1796 and 1798. 
There invasions 
were attended with crimes too atro- 
cious to be credited, were they not 
proved by indisputable evidence, and 
_ did they not accord with the general 
practice of the inhuman wretches by 
whom they were committed. In 
adverting to these detestable acts of 
oppression and cruelty, we must 
_ recollect, that they were perpetrated 
upon a people, who had made no 
_ resistance of any sort against the in- 
_ vaders, and who in every instance 
_ had entered into an agreement with 
_ the French generals, to pay them 
great sums of money, in order to 
preserve their country from plunder. 
_ In consequence of the ransom thus 
wrung from the people, the inya- 
ders declared, by public proclama- 
tion, that the persons and property 
59) 
of the inhabitants should be strictly 
respected; and that their rights, 
usages, laws, and religion, should 
remain inviolate and undisturbed. 
On these assurances, thus solemnly 
made, the credulous people all im- 
plicitly relied; while some of the 
poorer classes regarded the French, 
not as enemies, but as their deli- 
verer from taxes and labour. No 
sooner, however, had the invasion 
taken place, no sooner had the 
French become masters of the coun- 
try, than they spread themselves 
over it like beasts of prey, devour- 
ing and destroying every thing be- 
fore them. They spared neither ci- 
ties nor towns, neither villages nor 
hamlets, nor solitary houses; from 
the church to the cell, from the cas- 
tle to the cottage; no state of life, 
however lofty or however humble, 
escaped their rapacious assaults ; no 
sanctity excited their veneration ; 
no grandeur their respect; no mi- 
sery their forbearance or their pity. 
After having plundered the houses 
of the gentry, the clergy, and the 
tradesmen; after haying pillaged the 
shops, warehouses, and manufacte- 
ries, they proceeded to the farm- 
houses and cottages; they rifled 
the pockets and chests of the inha- 
bitants, cut open their beds, tore 
up the floors of their rooms, dug 
up their cellars, searched the newly 
made graves, and broke open the 
coffins in hopes ‘of finding secreted 
money. They sometimes threatened 
people with immediate death, some- 
times put them to the torture, some- 
times lacerated and crippled them, 
in order to wring from them a dis- 
covery of their little pittance of 
ready money. ‘The deepest and 
most apparent poverty was no pro- 
tection against their rapacity ; grey 
hairs and lisping infancy ; the sick, 
the 
