The New Hampshire Gazette

HAGUE, September 17.

Extrait of a Letter from Brussels, Sept. 13.

Whilst the ministry at Versailles pretended ignorance of the loss of Cape Breton, the people did not cease to make many reflections, and murmur against several things. A mandate of the Bishop of Toulouse handed about in Paris, which is doubtless apocryphal. There are very singular strokes in it, some of which are these:

"The Anger of the Lord is kindled, my beloved Brethren, and the Evils you suffer at this Day, are evident Proofs of God's Wrath. Your Fortunes have been long exhausted by the Exactions of the Farmers (of the Revenue) your Commerce enervated by successive Misfortunes; your Privileges abolished, contrary to the Faith of Treaties; your Lands made desolate by Poverty and Disease; your Harvests ready to perish by Inundations; your Labours in the Field daily disturbed and interrupted without any Necessity arising from the publick Good, and most commonly to serve private Interest; your Fields became barren and useless, even in a Time of Peace: Your Labour illegally commanded by Avarice: your Families leaving their Country in despair, to avoid the yoke of Oppression; Prisons shamefully broke open to the Crucifixion Day of our Saviour God to drag out innocent Persons and send them into Slavery; an august Senate daily contemned by the haughty Despotism of the Author of your Calamities; Judges at one Time humbled and depreciated by the Force of an abused Power, at other Times proscribed and dispersed by Revenge and Injustice; the Laws overturned and reduced to a melancholy Silence; the Justice and Religion of an equitable Administration hourly imposed upon by the Deceit and Wiles of a perfidious and haughty Haman; a Mordecai, in short, on the point of becoming the Victim of Hatred and Rage, for refusing to bend the Knee to the Destroyer of the Nation.

"Such, my beloved Brethren, is the afflicting Picture which your distressed Country offers to your weeping Eyes."