The circumstances, in consequence of which his majesty has found himself engaged in a defensive war against France, are known already to all Europe. The objects which his majesty has proposed to himself, from the commencement of the war, are of equal notoriety. To repel an unprovoked aggression, to contribute to the immediate defence of his allies, to obtain for them and for himself a just indemnification, and to provide, as far as circumstances will allow, for the future security of his own subjects, and of all the other nations of Europe; these are the points for which his majesty has felt it incumbent on him to employ all the means which he derives from the resources of his dominions, from the zeal and affection of his people, and from the unquestionable justice of his cause.

But it has become daily more and more evident, how much the internal situation of France obstructs the conclusion of a solid and permanent treaty, which can alone fulfil his majesty's just and salutary views for the accomplishment of these important objects, and for restoring the general tranquillity of Europe. His majesty sees, therefore, with the utmost satisfaction, the prospect, which the present circumstances afford him, of accelerating the return of peace, by making, to the well-disposed part of the people of France, a more particular declaration of the principles which animate him, of the objects to which his views are directed, and of the conduct which it is his intention to pursue. With respect to the present situation of affairs, the events of the war, the confidence reposed in him by one of the most considerable cities of France, and above all, the wish which is manifested almost universally in that country, to find a refuge from the tyranny by which it is now overwhelmed, render this explanation on his majesty's part a pressing and indispensable duty and his majesty feels additional satisfaction in making such a declaration, from the hope of finding, in the other powers engaged with him in the common cause, sentiments and views perfectly conformable to his own.

From the first period when his most Christian majesty, Louis the 16th, had called his people around him, to join in concerting measures for their common happiness, the king has uniformly shown, by his conduct, the [VOL. XXX. ]

sincerity of his wishes for the success of so difficult, but at the same time so interesting an undertaking. His majesty was deeply afflicted with all the misfortunes which ensued; but particularly when he perceived, more and more evidently, that measures, the consequences of which he could not disguise from himself, must finally compel him to relinquish the friendly and pacific system which he had adopted. The moment at length arrived, when his majesty saw that it was necessary for him, not only to defend his own rights and those of his allies, not only to repel the unjust aggression which he had recently experienced, but that all the dearest interests of his people imposed upon him a duty still more important, that of exerting his efforts for the preservation of civil society itself, as happily established among the nations of Europe.

The designs which had been professed of reforming the abuses of the government of France, of establishing personal liberty and the rights of property on a solid foundation, of securing to an extensive and populous country the benefit of a wise legislation, and an equitable and mild administration of its laws, all these salutary views have unfortunately vanished. In their place has succeeded a system destructive of all public order, maintained by proscriptions, exiles, and confiscations without number; by arbitrary imprisonments; by massacres, which cannot be remembered without horror; and, at length, by the execrable murder of a just and beneficent sovereign, and of the illustrious princess, who, with an unshaken firmness, has shared all the misfortunes of her royal consort, his protracted sufferings, his cruel captivity, his ignominious death. The inhabitants of that unfortunate country, so long flattered by promises of happiness, renewed at the period of every fresh crime, have found themselves plunged into an abyss of unexampled calamities; and neighbouring nations, instead of deriving a new security for the maintenance of general tranquillity from the establishment of a wise and moderate government, have been exposed to the repeated attacks of a ferocious anarchy, the natural and necessary enemy of all public order. They have had to encounter acts of aggression without pretext, open violations of all treaties, unprovoked declarations of war; in a word, whatever corruption, intrigue, or violence could effect, for the purpose so openly avowed, of subverting all the institutions of society, and of extending over all the nations of Europe that confusion which has produced the misery of France.

This state of things cannot exist in France; without involving all the surrounding powers in one common danger; without giving them the right, without imposing it upon them as a duty, to stop the progress of an evil which exists only by the successive violation of all law and all property, and which [3 Y]

attacks the fundamental principles by which mankind is united in the bonds of civil society. His majesty by no means disputes the right of France to reform its laws. It never would have been his wish to employ the influence of external force with respect to the particular forms of government to be established in an independent country. Neither has he now that wish, except in so far as such interference is become essential to the security and repose of other powers. Under these circumstances he demands from France, and he demands with justice, the termination of a system of anarchy, which has no force but for the purposes of mischief, unable to discharge the primary duty of all government, to repress the disorders, or to punish the crimes which are daily increasing in the interior of the country, but disposing arbitrarily of the property and blood of the inhabitants of France, in order to disturb the tranquillity of other nations, and to render all Europe the theatre of the same crimes and of the same misfortunes. The king demands, that some legitimate and stable government should be established, founded on the acknowledged principles of universal justice, and capable of maintaining with other powers the accustomed relations of union and peace. His majesty wishes ardently to be enabled to treat for the re-establishment of general tranquillity with such a government, exercising a legal and permanent authority, animated with the wish for general tranquillity, and possessing power to enforce the observance of its engagements. The king would propose none other than equitable and moderate conditions, not such as the expenses, the risks, and the sacrifices of the war might justify, but such as his majesty thinks himself under the indispensable necessity of requiring with a view to these considerations, and still more to that of his own security, and of the future tranquillity of Europe. His majesty desires nothing more sincerely than thus to terminate a war, which he, in vain, endeavoured to avoid; and all the calamities of which, as now experienced by France, are to be attributed only to the ambition, the perfidy, and the violence of those, whose crimes have involved their own country in misery, and disgraced all civilized nations.

As his majesty has hitherto been compelled to carry on war against the people of France collectively, to treat as enemies all those who suffer their property and blood to be lavished in support of an unjust aggression, his majesty would see with infinite satisfaction the opportunity of making exceptions in favour of the well-disposed inhabitants of other parts of France, as he has already done with respect to those of Toulon. The king promises, on his part, the suspension of hostilities, friendship, and (as far as the course of events will allow, of which the will of man cannot dispose) security and protection to all those who, by declaring for a

monarchical government, shall shake off the yoke of a sanguinary anarchy, of that anarchy which has broken all the most sacred bonds of society, dissolved all the relations of civil life, violated every right, confounded every duty; which uses the name of liberty to exercise the most cruel tyranny, to annihilate all property, to seize on all possessions; which founds its power on the pretended consent of the people, and itself carries fire and sword through extensive provinces, for having demanded their laws, their religion, and their lawful sovereign.

It is then, in order to deliver themselves from this unheard-of oppression, to put an end to a system of unparalleled crimes, and to restore at length tranquillity to France, and security to all Europe, that his majesty invites the co-operation of the people of France. It is for these objects that he calls upon them to join the standard of an hereditary monarchy; not for the purpose of deciding, in this moment of disorder, calamity, and public danger, on all the modifications of which this form of government may hereafter be susceptible, but in order to unite themselves once more under the empire of law, of morality, and of religion, and to secure at length to their own country external peace, domestic tranquillity, a real and genuine liberty, a wise, moderate, and beneficent government, and the uninterrupted enjoyment of all the advantages which can contribute to the happiness and prosperity of a great and powerful nation.

Whitehall, 29th October, 1793.

DECLARATION published in the king's name and by his majesty's order, by their excellencies vice admiral lord Hood, the right honourable sir Gilbert Elliot, bart., and lieutenant-general O'Hara, his majesty's commissioners plenipotentiary at Toulon, 20th November, 1793.

We, the undersigned commissioners plenipotentiary of his majesty the king of Great Britain, do hereby publish, by his order, and in his name, the following declaration:

His Britannic majesty having been informed of the circumstances under which the town, harbour, and forts of Toulon, and the ships in the said harbour, have been entrusted to vice-admiral lord Hood, commander-inchief of his majesty's ships and vessels in the Mediterranean, and of the declaration and proclamations published by the said vice-admiral, as well as of the declaration made to him on the part of the inhabitants and people of Toulon, has thought fit, for the entire satisfaction of the said inhabitants and people, and for the further explanation of his royal intentions, to declare as follows:

I-When monarchy shall be re-established in France, and a treaty of peace shall be made and concluded, stipulating, in favour of his majesty and his allies, the restitution of all conquests made by France during the war,

French colonies, there was reason to believe that many of the most valuable of them would soon belong to Great Britain. He was not inclined to consider the French navy as contemptible; but ours, by the efficient exertions of the admiralty, was become greatly superior; he believed he might add, that more men had been raised for the English navy, in the course of the last twelve months, than in any year of any former war; and recently a blow had been given to the naval power of France, in those seas where she lately rode out triumphant to an extent which, in ordinary times, would have been thought a full compensation for the expense of a whole campaign. He would add, that many considerable powers had joined us in a cause which affected the honour and essential interests of every government of every description.-If we could stop here, he said we might flatter ourselves with a speedy return of that tranquillity which had lately been driven from men's bosoms, and in the place of which the French had presented the most hideous dream of sedition, rapine, and murder. We must, however, look to the position of the enemy, as well as to our own; and he confessed himself to see with anxiety, though not with discouragement, the new invention of raising an armed force by the operation of popular tyranny. The rising in a mass was certainly a terrible expedient, and the more so, as it could not be imitated by nations who retained a respect for law, for justice, and humanity: but it carried with it its own antidote, as it could not easily be repeated, and exhausted the country which employed it. He could render justice to the talents of the present leading regicides, and to the ability with which their combination against God and man, against the liberties and religion of the world, had been formed and conducted. It was, however, the pressure of their crimes and of their situation which had prompted them to this desperate and unheard-of exertion. They had used confiscation, imprisonment, and massacre, as the means of filling their treasury, of enforcing their paper currency, and of completing their armies. History showed examples of great nations over-run and swept from the face of the earth by hordes of barbarians; in the present age, all the ferocity of barbarism had been engrafted on the corruption of polished society, and supported by the modern arts of war, by

all the advantages resulting from the force of language, and the invention of printing; and above all, by that perversion of principle which seeks the destruction of every thing valuable or respectable; and certainly, no army could be more formidable, whilst it lasted, than an army of robbers and murderers. Perhaps it was no paradox to say, that against such an army, the progress and result of the war would not entirely depend on the number of our victories, or on the extent of our conquests. The surest mode, perhaps would be, in resisting their progress, till they should ultimately defeat themselves by sinking under their own unnatural exertions. Under such circumstances, would any noble lord advise his majesty to open a negociation for a peace or for an armistice? Such a proposition was big with absurdity, folly, and dishonour. It supposed a compact with men who, by their perfidious seizure of our merchants property, contrary to the commercial treaty, had shown themselves regardless of public faith, and who had established it as a principle, that what they called a free people, ought not to be restrained by any compact whatever. Supposing a treaty to be made with them, would it be possible to disarm on the faith of such a treaty? Would it be expedient, for the sake of such a treaty, to renounce the prospects which we now had of taking their foreign possessions? They had declared that they would build large fleets: in such a moment, and with a great superiority on our part, would it be wise to withdraw our fleets, in order to give to France the means of completing hers ?— There was another possible mode of conduct, but so grossly dishonourable, that he was ashamed to mention it; he meant the withdrawing our armies from the continent; the consequence of which would be, that the Austrian Netherlands and the United Provinces would fall into the possession of the regicide hordes, and of such malignant and desperate adventurers as might be collected from every other nation. From that hour, every port now open to our trade between Denmark and France, would be in the same state as the unfortunate town of Bourdeaux; and all the ports of Holland would be crowded with pirate vessels, manned by the refuse of France, and paid by the pillage of Amsterdam. It had happened to him to see the near approach of the calamity which he was now describing: