Buonaparte and his posts in Italy. For this purpose forty thousand of the Venetian peasantry were armed, and embodied with ten regiments of Sclavonians. They were posted on all the roads, and the couriers and convoys to the French army were stopped every where.

In the mean time, the hatred of the Venetians burst forth in the most outrageous manner. Those among them, who had behaved kindly to the French, were treated as enemies to the state, and put under arrest; and none but their declared adversaries entrusted with any authority. In all places of public resort, the French were insulted and reviled in the grossest terms. They were expelled from the city of Venice, and at Padua, Vicenza, and Verona, the inhabitants were ordered to take up arms against them. The officers of the Venetian military openly boasted, that the lion of St. Mark would verify the proverb, that Italy was the tomb of the French. The clergy inveighed against them in the pulpit, and the press teemed with publications to defame them. What brought th se proceedings home to the government was, the notoriety that neither priests nor printers in Venice dared to preach or publish any thing not strictly conformable to the will and pleasure of the senate.

But these were only preludes to the outrages that followed. On the roads, from Mantua to Legnano, and from Cassano to Verona, upwards of two hundred French were assassinated. Two battalions, on their march to join the army under Buonaparte, were opposed by the Venetian troops, throngh whom they were obliged to fight their way. There were two other en

counters of the like nature. At Verona a plot was laid to murder all the French in that city. It was carried into execution on the Tuesday after Easter. None were spared, not even those that lay sick in the hospitals. More than four hundred Frenchmen perished on this occasion. Those who garrisoned the three castles of that city were besieged by the Venetian army till they were liberated by a body of their countrymen, who routed the Venetians, and made three thousand of them prisoners, among whom were several of their generals. At sea, the Venetians took openly the Austrian vessels under their pro tection, and fired at the French ships in pursuit of them. At Ve nice itself a republican vessel was sunk, by express order of the senate, and the commander and crew slaughtered.

Such were the accounts published by the French. They were made the subject of a manifesto, issued by Buonaparte, on the third of May. Herein he directed the French resident at Venice to quit that city, and ordered the agents of the Venetian republic in Lombardy, and in its provinces on the main land, to leave them in twenty-four hours. He commanded his officers and troops to treat those of Venice as enemies, and to pull down, in every town, the Lion of St. Mark, the arms of the Venetian republic.

In consequence of this manifesto, the French troops over-ran and subjugated, in a few days, all the Venetian dominions. The Veronese, whose behaviour to the French had been remarkably atro cious, were condemned to an ex emplary punishment. Some thousauds of the peasants, who attempted

tempted to oppose the French, were put to the sword, and obliged to consult their safety in flight. The Sclavonians, who had come to their assistance, were routed, and fled to a fort, filled with their powder and ammunition: but it was blown up by the cannon of the French, and they were all destroyed. Another engagement took place before the walls of Verona, and the Venetians fought with great fury; but they were defeated with vast slaughter, and the place compelled to surrender.

The Venetian senate, despairing of being able to make any effectual resistance, formally submitted to the French commander, and consented to deliver up those persons who had been instrumental in the atrocities of which the French complained. On the sixteenth of May, the French took possession of the city of Venice, where a provisional government was established on the republican plan. The press was declared free, persons and property secure, and religion left on its present footing. The only seizures, made in the name of the French government, were of the arsenal and its contents, with the shipping that belonged to the state.

Thus fell, after a splendid existence of fourteen centuries, the celebrated republic of Venice. No modern state had risen, from such small beginnings, to a situation of equal prosperity. It was with sincere regret that every nation in Europe beheld its fall. The celebrity it had long enjoyed, on a multiplicity of accounts, interested people in its preservation. With out enquiring how far the French could claim a right to doom it so umercifully to destruction, they

only considered that it had subsisted with honour to the present period, and had maintained its repu tation unimpaired amidst a variety of dangers and trials, that had reduced it sometimes to the last extremity. The political world saw with concern the fatal hour arrive, that was to deprive it of the place it had so long and so reputably held among the powers of Europe.

There was another republic, the rulers of which had grievously offended the French, by the partiality they had shewn to the Imperial interest. This was Genoa, where the nobility exercised the supreme away, and were justly apprehensive that the French, if successful, would destroy the aristocracy, and erect a government intirely democratical. They opposed, from that motive, the projects of the French, by every clandestine impediment they could throw in their way; but the torrent of that irresistible fortune, which attended the arms of France, overwhelmed them, in common with all the rest of Italy. After the revolution at Venice, the French proceeded immediately to introduce another at Genoa. The majority of the people here were desirous of a popular government. Feuds had, of course, arisen between them and the partizans of the nobility. A desperate fray took place between both parties, shortly after the signing of the preliminaries between the emperor and the French. Elated by this event, the republican party raised a violent commotion in the city, and proceeded to open force, in support of their pretensions: but numbers of them were killed, and the insurrection was suppressed. As their principal leaders had fallen, their projects were considered as at

an

an end, and they were treated with excessive severity. Determined, however, not to yield, they applied to Buonaparte for his protection, against their antagonists. This was readily granted, and the French having taken possession of the city, the enemies to the aristocracy could no longer, with safety, be opposed. It was intimated to the Genoese nobles, that, after the expulsion of the Austrians from Italy, and the submission of all the principal powers in that country to the dictates of France, it were the height of temerity in them, to continue a resistance to the general will of their fellow-citizens. They yielded prudently in time, and agreed to the establishment of a commonwealth, on the principle of a perfect equality of rank and privileges among all the classes of society. The French system of legislation took place in every respect; and the territory of Genoa was distributed into communes and municipalities, in imitation of France. The discretion of Buonaparte, upon this occasion, was remarkable in two material instances. He provided for the security of all persons, by an act of amnesty; and for the maintenance of religion, by leaving it to the protection of the laws instituted for its support. It was happy, however, for Genoa, that it was situated at a distance from the domains of Austria. Had this republic, like Venice, been seated in the neigh bourhood of that ambitious power, it might also have partaken of a similar destiny. It had offended in the same manner, though not to the same extent, and might have been sacrificed, with as little scruple, to the conveniency of reciprocal arrangements.

In the course of the negociations for peace, which were studiously prolonged on the part of Austria, and far from accelerated on that of France, both parties seemed to have forgotten their animosity, and to concur in the means of settling their contest, at the expence of others. Exchanges of territory were proposed, and acceded to, with that remorseless indifference, which characterises despotic princes, transferring to each other their subjects, like cattle, without consulting any other title to act in this manner than the incapacity of the helpless people thus treated, to vindicate the rights of human nature, and to resist such arbitrary usage.

It was in virtue of such principles that a cession of part of the Venetian territories was mentioned in the very outset of the treaty, for which Venice was to be indemnified out of the pope's dominions, newly republicanized. Here at once was a total dereliction of those maxims, on which the French chiefly founded the superiority of their system: a scrupulous regard for the dignity of man, and a reference to his will and consent, in whatever he was concerned. The partition alluded to did not indeed take place, as Venice was doomed to far worse treatment: but the principle, to the shame of the French, was clearly admitted.

The French commander was too jealous of his own character to undergo the reproach, of suffering the noble republic he had founded to be destroyed at its very birth; and it is not to be doubted, whether we contemplate the precedent or subsequent conduct of Buonaparte, that he would not have suffered this, no more than certain

other

other acts of oppression, had he possessed the means of acting uniformly on his own principles. He might, indeed, have abstained from acting at all; but hampered as he was, by the directory, he could not unite a strict adherence to his principles with his views of ambition. He displayed the utmost solicitude in consolidating it, in such a manner, that no state, or sovereignty, in Italy, should exceed it in strength and importance. To this purpose, the confederations formed between the cities of Bologna, Ferrara, Modena, and Reggio, and the provinces, comprised under the name of Lombardy, were converted into a single republic. The different arrangements that were made, to render their incorporation firm and durable, were due to the sagacity and laborious exertions of Buonaparte, who spared no pains to afford every reason, to the people of these countries, to prefer their present to their former condition; and to be convinced, that they had made an advantageous change in their circumstances, by assuming the government into their own hands, instead of leaving it to the uncontroled exercise of absolute and arbitrary

masters.

In the mean time, events were taking place, that fully demonstrated a connivauce, on the part of the French, at the endeavours of the court of Vienna, to seek an indemnification for its loss of territories in those of the Venetians. 1t had been a current opinion, at the opening of the conferences for peace, that large portions of the Venetian territories, on the main land, would be made over to the emperor, as compefisations for what had been wrested from him in the

Netherlands and Italy. Conformably to the general expectation, it was not long before these surmises received ample confirmation. The range of coast, along the province of Dalmatia, had, ever since the downfal of Venice, excited a new species of ambition in the councils of Austria; that of increasing its naval strength, and succeeding to Venice in the dominion of the Adriatic. The idea of sharing in the spoils of an unfortunate friend, whose calamities arose, in a great measure, from an unsuccessful exercise of its good will, was odious to all those who did not think that politicians had a right to exclude moral justice from their transactions. But the policy of the house of Austria had long convinced those that attended to it, how feeble a bar all sentiments of this nature would prove, as in truth they had always proved, whenever fortune laid be fore it opportunities of aggrandizement. Pursuant to the long-standing maxims of its conduct, the court of Vienna availed itself of the secret permission, either formally obtained, or indirectly given by the agents of France, to make an irruption into the province of Istria, a dependency of Vienna, and reduce it to its own subjection. This happened in the month of June. The reasons set forth in the proclamation, that accompanied the entrance of the Austrian troops into that province, were, that a revolutionary spirit had manifested itself in the Venetian territories, which threatened to extend itself to the neighbouring countries. In order therefore to secure himself from the pernicious conse quences which this might produce, the emperor had thought it necessary to take possession of that province,

for

for the preservation of tranquillity. He alleged, at the same time, the an-ient rights of his family to Venetian Istria, as formerly making part of the kingdom of Hungary. Several provinces, in the dependency of Venice, having withdrawn themselves from it, he conceived this to be a fit opportunity to assert those nights. This proclamation was dated the twenty-first of June. By this time, the conditions of the peace in agitation were well understood, by the French and Austrian negocia tors: more than two months had been consumed in adjusting them, and enough had transpired to inform the public, that both parties concurred, in dividing, between them, the spoils of the Venetian republic.

It was not, however, till October, that a definitive conclusion of this treaty took place. Buonaparte had How compleated the settlement of every point, relating to the new founded republic, and to that of Genoa, now denominated Liguria, conformably to the disposition prevailing among the revolutionists, of reviving the ancient names of countries and nations. He returned to Udina, where he found the conferences not yet terminated, notwithstanding that he had left them, on his departure, in a state that promised a more expeditious progress, as the terms of pacification were mutually acceded to; and as the only causes of farther delay, were the endeavours of the Imperial court to procure the addition of some favourable clauses, he determined that no farther prolongation should be allowed for such purposes. He signified to the plenipotentiaries of that court, that a speedy termination of matters was necessary, and would no longer be

deferred. They knew the decisiveness of his temper, and complied in consequence with his requisition.. The treaty of peace between France and Austria was accordingly signed, on the seventeenth of October, 1797, at Campo-Formio, a village in the vicinity of Udina, by Buonaparte, for the French republic, and by the marquis De Gallo, count Cobentzel, count Demeerfred, and baron Dagelman, the Imperial plenipotentiaries. They were men of abilities, and had certainly exerted them in the course of these nego ciations, as appeared by the advantages they obtained for Austria, notwithstanding the state of depression to which it had been reduced.

By this celebrated treaty, the emperor ceded, in full sovereignty, to the French republic, the whole of the Austrian Netherlands, and consented to their remaining in possession of the Venetian islands of Corfu, Zante, Caphalonia, and of all their other isles in the Adriatic, together with their settlements in Albania, situated to the south-east of the Gulph of Lodrino. He acknowledged the republic newly constituted under the name of Cisalpine, to be an independent state. He ceded to it the sovereignty of the countries that had belonged to Austria in Lombardy, and assented to it possessing the cities and territories of Bergamo, Brescia, and others, late in the dependence of Venice, together with the duchies of Mantua and Modena, the principalities of Massa and Carrara, and the cities and territories of Bologna, Ferrara, and Romagna, lately be longing to the pope.

The cessions of the French republic to the emperor, were Istria,

Dal