Gazette Of The United States And Daily Evening Advertiser

Translated for the Gazette of the United States.

From the "Courier Francois" of Tuesday January 6th.

NATIONAL CONVENTION,

October 12.

Merlin of Thionville recalled the attention of the Convention to the atrocities committed in the department of the Lower Loire, and read the papers he had received from Bouquet, the war Commissary, which excited horror.

They prove in a manner, unhappily too authentic, that the (noyades) drownings were directed by the members of the detestable revolutionary committee of Nantes. He (Merlin) produced an order signed Le Fevre adjutant General commanding at Painbeuf requiring to be thrown into the sea, from the heights of Painbeuf, no less than forty one victims, among whom was one man eighty years old, and who had been six years blind, twelve women, twelve girls of different ages, fifteen children from six to ten years, and five infants from the breast. The commander at Painbeuf had ordered these miserable victims to Nantes, but the vessel on board which they were was scarcely in the Bay of Bourneuf, when Macé, the Captain of the vessel, received the order following:

d Liberty, Equality, Indivisibility.

Captain Macé is required to set Madame M. a shore, and to throw overboard the other prisoners, rebels against the law —and this do on your peril.

(Signed)

LEFEVRE.

" 3d Ventose, the above order has been executed."

It is impossible to describe the emotions of horror that shook the Convention.

If cries Merlin, there are punishments proportioned to such crimes, let them fall on the execrable offenders.

Goupilleau de Fontenoy, transported with indignation, exclaims, declare them outlaws.

No, resumes Merlin, the confessions of the Cannibals will illustrate the history of these wretched times, and besides may bring out greater offenders. I demand the arrest and delivery of the culprits to the Revolutionary Tribunal.

At length we shall get to what infamously tyrants the country has been betrayed.

Andre Dumont rose to inveigh against the authors of the horrid plan of robbery and massacre which is still in agitation. Since, cried he, you invite justice to return again to this country, so desolated and swimming in the blood of brethren, smite the guilty and let them fall under the sword of the law.

Be warned, for these monsters are nearer than you are aware Forget not the night of the 9th and 10th Thermidor.

I ask you, have you punished all the accomplices of Robespierre, who within these walls ought to dissolve the Convention ? Respect is due to the institution of popular societies : but is it possible to restrain our indignation when we behold one of them where guilt audaciously domineering. Let complete justice be done, let us rid ourselves of the wretches who prey on our vitals.

Require the Revolutionary Tribunal to prosecute the persons accused of the horrible drownings (Noyades )at Nantes, and to sift out the accessories of the crime, without favor or exception. To that end, order the public accuser to consult with the committee of General Surety on -the measures proper to be adopted by you.

Applauded and unanimously adopted.

The next day, the public accuser transmitted to the 14 members of the Revolutionary Committee of Nantes the act of accusation he had drawn up against them.

Here follows the introduction of this important paper which it is impossible to read without horror.

" Whatever there is in cruelty most savage, in villainy most perfidious, in usurpation most arbitrary, in violence most frightful, in depravity most shocking, combines in the charge against the members and commissioners of the Revolutionary committee of Nantes.

In the most remote periods of the world, in the pages of history, in barbarous ages, no where is there a parallel for the atrocities committed by the accused."

PARIS, October 16.

We are assured that the Carpenter of Nantes who worked on the (bateaux a soupage) Suction Boat, for he drownings ordered by the revolutionary Committee having been required to appear in the affair of the members whose trial has been ordered, was assassinated on the way.

October 17.

The too famous Revolutionary Committee of Nantes, is this day before the Tribunal.

October 18.

The proceedings in the trial continue. Almost all the depositions which have been examined rather criminate the Representative Carrier, than the Committee accused.

Dubois Crance, alone has not been explicit in his information. He insists that he was solely engaged at the time in regimenting the Soldiers of the requisition. He says moreover that such were the terror and dismay of Nantes. that the sight of a Representative of the people made them shudder, that no person came near him, till les ventured to speak to him.

He confesses that in descending the river Loire, he saw the water purpled with blood, and the banks striped with dead bodies which had been cast a shore by the stream.

October 20.

At every step the abominable affair of Nantes discloses new horror. The monsters and their satellites, stripped his young persons of both sexes naked, and after tying t hem together in the most indecent posture, threw them into the sea, calling these Republican Mar-
Such are the abominations which stand proved by a cloud of witnesses.

Cazix, one of the witnesses, not denying these horrid facts, supposes they were directed and perpetrated by Lamberti and Fouquet, the agents of Carrier, who, they had publicly said had required them to do so.

It is therefore certain from the confession of the accused, as well as from the evidence of witnesses, that the abuses in the prisons of Nantes and the massacres that were bred there, have caused about ten thousand persons to perish, and that in the same city, they have drowned, shot and guillotined about twenty thousand more, including victims belonging to La Vendee and other places.