Norfolk Gazette And Publick Ledger

The following Address to the Citizens of Rome was issued by Lucien Bonaparte and privately distributed two days after he sailed but was immediately suppressed by official order.

SIR TO THE ROMAN CITIZENS

"In the bosom of retirement occupied with no other cares than those of contributing to the happiness of my family and my neighbors and tasting on Rome's classic territory all that pure refined bliss which a mind imbued with a love of the arts can enjoy, I was assailed by the ruthless hand of despotism, rendered still more heavy by its being that of a brother; still more galling, as he owes his life and his honors to my intrepidity.

"This internal mandate was, that I should repudiate an endeared wife, and desert those children whom nature identifies with my existence: that I should ascend a throne created by the most horrible perfidy, and unite my efforts to despoil and subjugate the yet unconquered part of the.

"Citizens, I had no choice between unconditional submission and unmeditated flight. I did not hesitate.--The Tiber, on whose banks I had vainly hoped to pass my allotted term of life, received me on her bosom, and she will waft me, I trust, in safety to those shores which dreadful when sought in hostility, become a sure place of refuge to the destitute and the oppressed.

Citizens, farewell; my gratitude is all I can leave behind. May your chains sit light upon you or rather may you soon cease to bear any, by the intervention of that Omnipotent vengeance which sooner or later punishes usurpation, tyranny, and oppression.

"LUCIEN BONAPARTE."