purity of his intentions. The want of this confidence is what afflicts him more than all his other misfortunes; and he could bear with patience the groffeft calumnies, if they did not make an impression on the people. At the very thought of this effect of them, I have feen the tears ' come into his eyes. It is that, (faid he on the 3d of last Auguft, 1792) it is that circumftance that wounds my very foul-But the people, I truft, will one day know how • much their happiness was the object of my concern, my only wish, and my greatest want. Oh! how many of the misfortunes which I am doomed to fuffer, would become light, and lofe their power of afflicting me, if I could but once perceive the fligtheft mark of the return of 'my people's love." O! moft unhappy, and moft deluded people of France! furely when you hear that your Sovereign uttered thefe affectionate expreffions, your eyes also " ought to be filled with tears!' Mr. Printer, if you think these passages, in favour of the character of the late unfortunate King of France, worth publishing in your ufeful paper, I may perhaps fend you another extract from the fame book to the fame effect. Mr. Pope fays, that An honeft man's the nobleft work of God.' Now I take Lewis the XVIth to have been really an honeft man; and, if fo, he is not the less to be honoured on that account, because he was a King; but rather the reverse, on account of the temptations to which Kings are expofed from their high station, and the flattery with which they are continually furrounded, even from their early youth, and which has a ftrong tendency to corrupt thern. A CONSTANT READER. F. M. ON MR. COURTNAY'S INTENDED MOTION, CONCERNING THE PROCESS OF ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS, AGAINST PERSONS MARRIED TOGETHER IN SOME MANNER NOT ALLOWED BY LAW. To the PRINTER of the PUBLIC ADVERTISER. SIR, May 9, 1793 I CANNOT but wonder at Mr. Courtnay's having put-off his intended motion concerning the women that are now in prifon, by process of the Ecclefiaftical courts, on account of the difficulty of providing a remedy to this grievance. The remedy appears to me to be very obvious—it is fimply this: To allow of fome other mode of marrying, as legal, befides that prefcribed by the church of England. As the law now ftands, there is no other mode of marrying that is clearly and indisputably legal.—I fay clearly and indifputably legal, because I know that the marriages of Jews and Quakers are spoken-of in Lord Hardwicke's marriage-act, paffed in the year 1752, as if they were legal; which may be confidered as a fort of collateral, or occafional, legislative confirmation of them.-Yet, if a Quaker was to die inteftate, and in poffeffion of a landed cftate of inheritance, and his wife was to claim her dower of one third part of his faid landed eftate during her life; and the intestate's next heir, (18, for instance, his brother,) was to dispute her claim to such dower, on the ground of her not having been lawfully married to the inteftate, I do not fee how fhe could ever establish her marriage; as the only known way of proving a marriage in fuch an action for dower, is to procure from the bishop of the diocefe in which the marriage Was was folemnized, his certificate that the faid parties were at fuch a time and place joined-together in holy matrimony, legitimo matrimonio copulati; which certificate, I prefume, would not be granted to the Quaker's wife. And still lefs does our law allow the validity of marriages performed according to the ceremonies of the Mahometan religion, or any other religion lefs known to Englishmen. Yet it is certain, that all perfons who are permitted to live in England, ought to be permitted to marry there; and it is likewife certain, that, according to the principles of the Protestant religion, marriage is not a facrament, but a civil contract. It seems, therefore, to be reasonable that an act of Parliament fhould be paffed to this effect, to wit, 1ft, To make all the marriages celebrated in the meeting-houfes, or chapels, of Proteftant diffenters, (duly licensed according to the Toleration-act) lawful : and 2ndly, To declare all marriages celebrated by Quakers, in their meeting-houses, and by Jews in their fynagogues, to be alfo lawful: and, 3dly, To declare that all marriages that fhall be entered-into before the Juftices of the Peace of any county, at their Quarter-feffions, or other general feffions, and perhaps, even before any two Juftices of the Peace, fhall alfo be lawful. This would accommodate perfons of all religions, and of all different fects of religion, and prevent such grievances as those which Mr. Courtenay proposes to relieve. In the mean while, it must be observed, that the Ecclefiaftical courts are not to be blamed for their conduct in this unfortunate bufinefs, as they have only done their duty with respect to the perfons brought before them upon a charge of Incontinence, upon the principles of the Law, as it now ftands. I am your CONSTANT READER. REASONS WHY THE WAR WITH FRANCE COULD NOT BE AVOIDED. To the PRINTER of the PUBLIC ADVERTISER. SIR, Sept. 28, 1793. I AM One of those who lament the war we are now en- . gaged in with France as a very great evil, but think it is an evil of neceffity, that could not have been avoided, and therefore must be fubmitted-to with patience, and carriedon (as it has been) with vigour. My reafon for thinking it could not have been avoided is, that it feems to have been a fixed principle of the new republican governours of France (though not of the makers of the former Conftitutional Monarchy, as it is called) to extend their new mode of government to other nations. Their refolutions of the 15th and 30th of last December, 1792, prove this beyond a doubt; and their bold and wanton Declarations of war against both Spain and GreatBritain at the fame time, and their invafion of Holland by laying fiege to Williamstadt, and taking poffeffion of Breda, are notorious confirmations of it.-And lately Mr. Mallet du Pan, the bold and upright author of the valuable French periodical paper, called Le Mercure de France, which was published every week (if I mistake not) from the first meeting of the States General of France in May, 1789, to the beginning of Auguft, 1792, when Monarchy and the Liberty of the Prefs were abolished together, and the practice of affaffination, affaffination and of fummary trial and condemnation by the mob, or, as they are called, the fovereign people, acting in their own perfons, and not by their reprefentatives, was adopted, and, at least, connived-at by the Convention I fay, this Mr. Mallet du Pan has lately given us an extract from a letter of Monfieur Briffot (a great leader of the republican party in France) written in confidence to one of his friends, (who was a Member of the French Convention, and deputed by them to fuperintend the Generals of their armies,) which expreffly avows this most dangerous and hoftile principle. The words of Monfieur Briflot are as follows: "Il faut incendier les quatre coins de l'Europe: Notre falut eft là :" That is, "We mult fet the four cor ners of Europe on fire: Our fafety lies in that."-This paffage of Mr. Briffot's letter is contained in the 37th page of a pamphlet of Mr. Mallet du Pan, lately published, which is entitled, "Confidérations fur la Nature de la Révolution de France, et fur les Caufes qui en prolongent la durée," and contains much curious and important information. Mr, Mallet likewife informs us (in page 32 of the fame pamphlet, note 1), that this fame Monfieur Briffot, about laft September, 1792, when the mob of Paris. was plundering and beheading the editors of news-papers of a contrary party to himself (who is alfo a publifher of a news-paper), excufed all thefe enormities by faying, "That "it was proper to yield to the peculiar circumftances of "the times, and to let the laws fleep a little with refpect "to the perpetrators of them ;" and he further informs us, that the fame Monfieur Briffot publickly and folemnly boafted, "That he had been the caufe of the French "Government's declaring war against the Auftrians in April, 1792, with a view to find an opportunity, on the first "failure of fuccefs of the French arms, of throwing the blame "of fuch failure upon the King, and accufing him of collud "ing |