Another gang, known under the appellation of the patriotic avengers, also desolates the Ligurian Republic.  They never rob, but always murder those whom they consider as enemies of their country.  Many of our officers, and even our sentries on duty, have been wounded or killed by them; and, after dark, therefore, no Frenchman dares walk out unattended.  Their chief is supposed to be a ci-devant Abbe, Sagati, considered a political as well as a religious fanatic.  In consequence of the deeds of these patriotic avengers, Bonaparte’s first act, as a Sovereign of Liguria, was the establishment of special military commissions, and a law prohibiting, under pain of death, every person from carrying arms who could not show a written permission of our commissary of police.  Robbers and assassins are, unfortunately, common to all nations, and all people of all ages; but those of the above description are only the production and progeny of revolutionary and troublesome times.  They pride themselves, instead of violating the laws, on supplying their inefficacy and counteracting their partiality.

LETTER XXXVI.

Paris, September, 1805.

My lord:—­Bonaparte is now the knight of more Royal Orders than any other Sovereign in Europe, and were he to put them on all at once, their ribands would form stuff enough for a light summer coat of as many different colours as the rainbow.  The Kings of Spain, of Naples, of Prussia, of Portugal, and of Etruria have admitted him a knight-companion, as well as the Electors of Bavaria, Hesse, and Baden, and the Pope of Rome.  In return he has appointed these Princes his grand officers of his Legion of Honour, the highest rank of his newly instituted Imperial Order.  It is even said that some of these Sovereigns have been honoured by him with the grand star and broad riband of the Order of His Iron Crown of the Kingdom of Italy.

Before Napoleon’s departure for Milan last spring, Talleyrand intimated to the members of the foreign diplomatic corps here, that their presence would be agreeable to the Emperor of the French at his coronation at Milan as a King of Italy.  In the preceding summer a similar hint, or order, had been given by him for a diplomatic trip to Aix-la-Chapelle, and all Their Excellencies set a-packing instantly; but some legitimate Sovereigns, having since discovered that it was indecent for their representatives to be crowding the suite of an insolently and proudly travelling usurper, under different pretences declined the honour of an invitation and journey to Italy.  It would, besides, have been pleasant enough to have witnessed the Ambassadors of Austria and Prussia, whose Sovereigns had not acknowledged Bonaparte’s right to his assumed title of King of Italy, indirectly approving it by figuring at the solemnity which inaugurated him as such.  Of this inconsistency and impropriety