Gazette Of The United States & Evening Advertiser

(TRANSLATION.)

LIBERTY-EQUALITY-or Death.

The Representatives of the French people, Members of the Committee of Public Safety.

To the Citizens, Members of the Congress of the United States of America.

AFTER having laid the foundation of our Liberty, it became incumbent on us to secure it. A national government is born, and with it victory. Emanating from the will of the people, it has their energy. For the salvation of the state it has been resorted to, and the state is saved. At its voice 15 armies are in motion, and triumph. At its signal, interior order is restored—fruitful industry is expanded—the conspirators fall.

We impart the news of the success of our armies to a people, who, having obtained liberty in a similar manner with ourselves, cannot learn, but with enthusiasm, of the victories of republicans, & the downfall of tyrants.

Policy already appreciates the advantage of the retaking of Toulon. Already have the neutral powers proclaimed themselves, and Genoa, indignant at the atrocity of our enemies, who have sullied her territory by the vilest and blackest of crimes;—Genoa has resumed all her energy, and driven the English and Spaniards from her ports.

In the North, our Triumphs, not less brilliant, have given the combined powers some severe shocks. They had dared to menace Dunkirk, Maubeuge, and Landau. Everywhere have they been beaten—everywhere have they been put to flight;—and even towards the Rhine, our army in pursuit of them had advanced to the very gates of Mayence.

Such is the long catalogue of success which unfolds itself at the same moment, at every point to which the French Republic sends her invincible phalanxes.

So many victories will convey nothing astonishing to you;—you, magnanimous republicans, who will easily conceive the prodigies which liberty is capable of performing, after having in this vast career left to the defenders of the people memorable examples.

You had already participated in our triumphs as well in thought as political union: Our successes reverberate on you, and the fall of our eternal and implacable enemies, will be as satisfactory to America as to outraged France. Our cause is reciprocal; it is that of every people who honor humanity.

It is under these glorious auspices that the representatives of the French people are pressed by the desire of drawing closer more than ever, the bonds of friendship, which unite two great, generous, and free nations.

Thus liberty will have two points of fixture on the world, and being an immovable Colossus, she will rest one foot on each hemisphere,

At her voice let Agriculture and Commerce, those two sources of national prosperity, picturing out under our hands their mutual exchanges, multiply, aggrandize and cement our friendly relations and public felicity.

Let us discard every thing which may disturb that necessary harmony pointed out by the nature of things, till more than by a reciprocal interest;—that harmony which has not a cautious, selfish mercantile policy for its principle, but the esteem, the fraternity, all the social and beneficent virtues which flow from Liberty.

Honor, Prosperity, Safety, and Fraternity.

The Representatives of the French people, Members of the Committee of public safety.

Jean Bon St. Andre,

Robespierre.

C. A. Prieur

Couthon,

P. Barere,

Carnot,

Billaud Varenne,

Collot D'Herbois.

R. Lindet.

Paris, 22 Pluviose. 2d year of the French Republic, one and indivisible.

(10th February, 1794.)

Faithfully translated from the original by

GEO. TAYLOR, Jun.

23d April, 1794.