Gazette Of The United States, & Philadelphia Daily Advertiser

From a late London paper,

LIBERTY.

How ill qualified the multitude are to govern themselves, to discern the true from the false friend to discover the cheats practiced upon their understandings, by those who call themselves their champions, or to assert the dignity of their country, appears but too clearly from the conduct of Buonaparte in Italy, and the submission of millions to be plundered in the name of Liberty—Buonaparte tells the people there that they are the true and only legitimate sovereigns of the countries they inhabit; and all lands hitherto enjoyed by corporate bodies, are their (the people's) property by right of sovereignty; and the sovereign inhabitants have an unalienable and imprescriptible right to frame their own government and laws. -But mark how he follows up this declaration of rights:--by his, own authority, or that of the French Directory, he confiscates to the use of the French Republic several rich Abbeys in the territory of Verona, which, according to his own principles, if they were to be found any where but on his lips, are the property of the people. in the midst of whom they are situated, and which he could not appropriate to the use of France, without convicting himself of robbery by forcibly taking national lands, from those whom he called and acknowledged to be their rightful owners ·the People. On the other hand, he has stipulated in the Preliminary treaty of peace with Austria that several provinces, cities, and islands, lately belonging to Venice, should pass under the. dominions of the Emperor, without any previous consent on the part of the inhabitants either given or asked. Thus, completely disregarding his own boasted declaration of the unalienable and imprescriptible rights of the people to choose their own form of government, he transfers them like Muscovites or Negroes in the West Indies, or cattle on a farm, to serve masters without deigning to consult their inclination on the subject, or indeed any thing but the convenience of the French republic. Will not this serve as a warning to England, and to the rest of Europe, to put any faith in French professors or in French principles, which are calculated only to promote the ambitious views of that restless nation, at the expense of the happiness and tranquility of every one of its neighbours, Philadelphia, Oct. 13.