The New Hampshire Gazette And General Advertiser

PARIS, May 12.

ADDRESS of M. La FAYETTE, To his army.

Soldiers of the Country!

The legislative body, and the king in the name of the French people have declared war. The country, by the constitutional organs of it, call us to its defence, what citizen can refuse his arm!

At the moment in which we first obey the oath, pronounced upon the altar of the federation of the nation in arms, I wish to inform you of my intentions, and remind you of my principles.

Convinced by the experience of a life devoted to liberty, that it can exist only among citizens submitting to the laws, as it can be defended by troops consenting to subordination. I have served the people without flattering them, and, in my constant opposition to licentiousness and anarchy, have deserved the hatred of all the ambitious, and all the factious. Now, that the army expects of me not pernicious compliances, but an inflexible discipline, it is by rigorously fulfilling this duty, that I shall justify the affection which it grants, and the esteem which it owes me.—But when I subject freemen to the imperious will of a chief. we shall all know, General, Officers, Soldiers, that, in this war, becomes a deadly combat between our principles and the pretensions of despotsthe rights of every citizen, and the safety of all are involved. The constitution to which we are sworn, the sacred cause of liberty and equality are involved in it. The contest is for the national sovereignty, under which there can be no compromise with any combination of strength, or with any dangers, without betraying, not only the French people, but all humanity.

Soldiers of Liberty! to deserve these blessings is not sufficient to be brave. Your General ought to foresee and order; you to obey. Be generous; respect the enemy when disarmed. Troops which always give quarter and receive it not, will be forever invincible. Be disinterested; let not the degrading hope of pillage sully the nobility of our motives. Be humane: that our sentiments may be admired, and laws blessed, wherever we may go. Be, in short, like your General—resolved to see the triumph, liberty, or to die!

Soldiers of the constitution fear not, that she may cease to watch for you,while you fight for her; do not believe, that while you are gone forth to combat for your country, intestine commotions will disturb your homes—The legislative body, and the King will doubtless unite themselves intimately in the decisive moment, to assure the empire of the law. Persons and property will be respected; civil and religious liberty will never be profaned, the peaceable citizen will be respected, whatever may be his opinion; the guilty will be punished, whatever may be their pretexts; all pretexts will be dissolved; and the constitution will prevail alone both over the rebels, who attack it by open force, and over the traitors, whom in disgracing it by their vile passions,seem to have sworn to make it feared at home and suspected abroad.

Yes; we shall have this price forour labors and our blood. Let us adhere then, with confidence, to the chosen representatives of the people, who have sworn not to avoid the duties of the constitution as we will not its dangers; to the hereditary representative, that Citizen King, whose throne the constitution has placed upon an irrefragable foundation; and to all the other depositaries of the powers delegated by the constitution.

They all know. that the use of that authority is a duty for them, to whom the constitution has deputed it, as obedience is for those whom she has submitted to it; and that they may transgress the laws, by not doing what they prohibit. Let us adhere to the National Guards. whom the rising constitution when in danger will find always ready to defend it, and whose patriotism will render glorious the calumnies which may be shared with them.

As for us, bearing the arms which liberty has consecrated, and the declaration of rights, let us march to the enemy.

(Signed)

LA FAYETTE.