was scarcely worth noticing, nor should had the air of cant and profession on the he have adverted to it, but just to show one hand, or of indifference on the other, how well entitled the right hon. gentle- found it awkward to meddle with. Estaman was to the credit he claimed for the blishments, tests, and matters of that accuracy of his facts and information. nature, were proper objects of political This ancedote wanted only one little in- discussion in that House; but not genegredient to produce possibly some effect, ral charges of deism or atheism, as pressnamely, fact. The truth was, that nei-ed to their consideration by the right hon. ther his nor Mr. Fox's health were drank at that meeting; and it was a little unlucky that the right hon. gentleman, who ransacked every corner of every French paper for any thing that would make for his purpose, should have overlooked a formal contradiction of such toasts having been given, inserted by authority in the Patriote François; and it was the more unlucky, as the purpose of bringing forward this important anecdote, was evidently to insinuate that they were in Paris at least considered as republicans; while the actual reason given for not drinking their healths was, that, though friends to the reform of abuses, they were considered as expressly against all idea of revolution in England, and known to be attached to the form of the existing constitution. gentleman; thus far he would say, and it was an opinion he had never changed or concealed, that although no man can command his conviction, he had ever considered a deliberate disposition to make proselytes in infidelity as an unaccountable depravity of heart. Whoever attempted to pluck the belief or the prejudice on this subject, style it which he would, from the bosom of one man, woman, or child, committed a brutal outrage, the motive for which he had never been able to trace or conceive. But on what ground was all this infidelity and atheism to be laid to the account of the revolution? The philosophers had corrupted and perverted the minds of the people; but when did the precepts or perversions of philosophy ever begin their effect on the root of the tree, and afterwards rise to the towering branches? Were the common and ignorant people ever the first disciples of philosophy, and did they make proselytes of the higher and more enlightened orders? He contended that the general atheism of France was, in the first place, no honour to the exertions of the higher orders of the clergy against the philosophers-and, in the next place, that it was notorious that all the men and women of rank and fashion in France, including possibly all the present emigrant nobility, whose piety the right hon. gentleman seemed to contrast with republican infidelity, were the genuine and zealous followers of Voltaire and Rousseau: and if the lower orders had been afterwards perverted, it was by their precept and example. The atheism, therefore, of the new system, as opposed to the piety of the old, was one of the weakest arguments he had yet heard in favour of this mad political and religious crusade. The next specimen of the right hon. member's extreme nicety with respect to facts, was the manner in which he proved the enormous ambition of France, by the Convention's having adopted a proposition of the minister of justice (Danton), that the future boundaries should be the Rhine, the Alps, the Pyrenees, and the Ocean; and great stress was laid upon this proposal having been made by a person of such rank in the state. Now for the fact. Danton was not the minister of justice, and the proposition was not adopted by the Convention. The right hon. gentleman might have recollected, that if Danton had been minister of justice, he could not have been a member of the Convention: and he ought also to have known, that the proposition, so far from having been adopted, was scarcely attended to. But the ambition of France, and her aggressions against this country, were not, according to the right hon. member, the only causes of war. Reli- Mr. Sheridan now adverted to Mr. gion demanded that we should avenge Burke's regret that we had not already her cause. Atheism was avowed and formed an alliance with the Emperor, professed in France. As an argument to and to Mr. Dundas's declaration, that he the feelings and passions of men, Mr. hoped that we should ally with every Sheridan said, that the right hon. mem-power in Europe against the French; this ber had great advantages in dwelling on this topic; because it was a subject upon which those who disliked every thing that § appeared to him to contradict Mr. Pitt's declaration, and it was the most unpleasant intelligence that he had heard that day. If we made such alliances, our principles and our purposes would soon become the same; we took the field against the excesses and licentiousness of liberty; they against liberty itself. The effect of a real co-operation would be a more fatal revolution than even prejudice could paint that of France-a revolution in the political morals of England, and, in consequence, the downfall of that freedom which was the true foundation of the power, the prosperity, and the glory of the British nation. Sooner than entwine ourselves in such alliances, and pledge the treasure and blood of the country to such purposes, he had almost said he had rather see England fight France single-handed. He feared the enemy less than our allies. He disliked the cause of war, but abhorred the company we were to fight in still more. He had a claim to call on the right hon. gentleman to join him in these principles. Who were these allies, and what had been their conduct? Had he (Mr. Burke) forgot his character of the Polish revolution? "That glorious event had bettered the condition of every man there, from the prince to the peasant; it had rescued millions, not from political slavery, but from actual chains and even personal bondage." Who had marred this lovely prospect, and massacred the fairest offspring of virtue, truth, and valour? Who had hypocritically first approved the revolution and its purposes, and had now marched troops to stifle the groans of those who dared even to murmur at its destruction? These allies, these chosen associates and bosom counsellors in the future efforts of this deluded nation. Could the right hon. gentleman palliate these things? No. But had he ever arraigned them? Why had he never come to brandish in that House a Russian dagger, red in the heart's blood of the free constitution of Poland? No, not a word, not a sigh, not an ejaculation for the destruction of all he had held up to the world as a model for reverence and imitation! In his heart is a record of brass for every error and excess of liberty, but on his tongue is a sponge to blot out the foulest crimes and blackest treacheries of despotism.-It was a mean and narrow way of viewing the subject to ascribe the various outrages in France to any other cause than this unalterable truth, that a despotic government degrades and depraves human nature, and renders its subjects, on the first recovery of their rights, unfit for the exercise of them. But was the inference to be, that those who had been long slaves ought therefore to remain so for ever, because, in the first wildness and strangeness of liberty, they would probably dash their broken chains almost to the present injury of themselves, and of all those who were near them? No. The lesson ought to be a tenfold horror of the despotism, which had so profaned and changed the nature of social men, and a more jealous apprehension of withholding rights and liberty from our fellow creatures, because, in so doing, we risked and became responsible for the bitter consequences: for, after all, no precautions of fraud or of craft, can suppress or alter this eternal truth, that liberty is the birthright of man, and whatever opposes his possession is a sacrilegious usurpation. Mr. Sheridan concluded with adverting to the evident intention of the minister, to render unanimity impossible, but said he should never retract his former declaration; that the war once entered into, he should look to nothing but the defence of the country and its interests, and therefore give it a sincere and steady support. Mr. Ryder begged to remind the House, that they were now actually at war; that it did not lie with them to argue about it, for they were forced into it. The question was simply, whether they should support his majesty in his honourable intention of maintaining the dignity of his crown and the interests of the empire. The declared purpose of the amendment was to procure unanimity. Certainly unanimity was a desirable thing; but he did not covet much the sort of unanimity which the amendment was calculated to produce. He wanted an unanimous expression of firmness in opposing the French, not a tame unanimity which promised no essential support. The nation was unanimous: more perfect assent was never given to any war: the atrocious event in France had awakened the feelings and united the hearts of all the English people: that event, however it was to be deplored, might be said to have been so far beneficial, as it had thus aroused the genuine feelings of Englishmen, and had opened their eyes to the enormity of French principles. Mr. T. Grenville said, that the address should not only promise his majesty support, but to reprobate the unprovoked showed that peace was not the object of France; for she must have known that England would never bend to threats, and that therefore to hold them out was the most effectual way not to conciliate or maintain a good understanding, but to provoke a war. His majesty, in the whole course of the negociation, had demonstrated, that the continuance of peace was the object nearest his heart, and that nothing but dire necessity would make him resort to war. It was this pacific disposition which had induced the king to authorize his ministers to treat with M. Chauvelin even in an unofficial aggression of France; for no reasonable man could read the papers before the House, and presume to tell the country that proper satisfaction had been given for that aggression. The decree of the 19th of November was justly called a decree of universal hostility; so far from explanation or satisfaction being given in it, there was a subsequent decree to execute it, with a disgusting menace, giving only fifteen days to adopt the plan laid out for them by the French, under penalty of being treated as enemies. As to the Scheldt, they had taken upon them to settle it upon the rights of nature, contrary to the rights of treaties, and inso-way, that no means of preserving peace lently put off the question on it until the consolidation of French liberty in Belgium, a period entirely dependent on their own pleasure. The amendment was negatived, and the address agreed to without a division. might be lost. In obedience to his majesty's commands, a negociation was opened in which his ministers desired to wave for a time the question of recognising the new French government or its ministers: they wanted not to make this a preliminary to negociation, but a measure to which a Debate in the Lords on the King's Mes-friendly intercourse might ultimately lead, sage respecting the Declaration of War with France.] Feb. 12. The order of the day being read for taking his Majesty's Message into consideration, Lord Grenville rose. He began by observing, that when he last addressed the House on the subject of the misunderstanding between this country and France the motion which he made on that occasion was honoured, not indeed with the unanimous support of their lordships, but with a concurrence so very nearly ap. proaching to unanimity, that it could not possibly be the result of any thing but a thorough conviction of the necessity of farther armaments, and of actual war. The conduct of their lordships on that occasion he must consider as an auspicious omen of the support which he might expect that night; for he was fully persuaded that every noble lord who voted for the last address was thoroughly convinced, that war was at that moment unavoidable, and at no distant period. The event had sufficiently proved that the conviction was but too well founded. Their lordships would recollect the state in which the negociation with M. Chauvelin was when it broke off: he had delivered a paper, purporting to contain explanations calculated to remove the jealousies of this country and avert a war; but it concluded with a declaration, that in case these explanations should not prove satisfactory, France would then prepare for war. This was a menace which sufficiently if France should manifest, in the course of unofficial communications, a pacific disposition. Had France been really disposed to peace, she would have adopted this mode of treating, or at least she would have declared, that it would not become her dignity to treat in such a manner; but instead of concurring with his majesty in the measure which he had recommended for the sake of peace, or of stating any objection on the score of dignity, she pressed forward the question of recognition, and desired that her minister might be immediately received as ambassador from the republic. Such a proceeding could not have been dictated by the spirit of peace, and might well be considered as a preliminary to war; the object of it could be mistaken only by a shallow statesman; there was little doubt but that it was to sound the disposition of England towards her allies, to try whether she was firmly determined to support them, and whether the people of this country were ready to stand by his majesty in a war against France. If such was her object, it was evident she had been out in her calculations; for she had discovered that the people of England were not to be separated from their king, and that they were at all times ready to arm, when summoned by the sacred obligation of treaties, and a regard to the honour and character of their country. When his majesty's ministers refused to make the recognition of the French re public a preliminary to negociation, the Executive Council of France adopted a measure which, of itself, might be considered as a complete rupture of all negociation, and tantamount to a declaration of war; for an order was immediately issued, contrary to the law of nations and to the faith of treaties, for stopping all the British ships in the ports of France. Here his majesty might have considered his dignity so far attacked as to justify a determination on his part not to listen to any offer of negociation, short of an apology and reparation, for so outrageous an act; but his love for peace still prevailed, and would not suffer him to renounce any chance for the continuance of it. To this end it was that lord Auckland, the English ambassador at the Hague, having dispatched advice home that general Dumourier, commander in chief of the French armies in the Netherlands, had sent to him to propose a personal conference with him at a certain time and place, for the purpose of resuming the negociation, and trying to avert the calamity of a war, his majesty resolved to give his ambassador leave to attend the conference. From this step on the part of France, and the king's readiness to cooperate in the happy work of restoring peace to Europe, it might well have been expected that the period of a general pacification was at no great distance. But how would their lordships be astonished when they should hear, that, on the very day fixed for the conference between lord Auckland and general Dumourier, the National Convention actually declared war against England and Holland? This step was a clear manifestation of the hostile disposition of France, and of her determination at all events to break with us, and to attack the Dutch. This step could not possibly leave a doubt in any man's mind which of the two, England or France, was the aggressor. Were he to rest the motion which he intended to make, on what he had already advanced, he was convinced that their lordships would agree with him in declaring, that the war was unprovoked on our part; that it was on groundless pretences that France was entering into it; and that those pretences were urged for the purpose of concealing from Europe, as far as she was able, the system of aggrandizement which she was endeavouring to establish. But in a case of such magnitude as the present he was willing to meet every thing that had been advanced by the National Convention as ground of the war; and he trusted he should make it appear, that the pretences which they brought forward were in some instances false, in others either frivolous or absurd. That he might speak with greater accuracy, he would read those different grounds from the account published by the Convention. This account consisted of three parts: first, the report made by M. Brissot; second, the speech made by another member, which the Convention ordered to be printed; third, the decree, containing the enumeration of the acts by which England was said to have provoked the war, and the declaration of hostilities. He said, he had too much respect for their lordships to read the infamous libel which Brissot's speech contained upon the king of Great Britain, a sovereign who was so beloved by his people, and who invariably considered his own happiness as inseparable from that of his subjects. The enumeration of the grounds on which the decree for the declaration of war was founded, contained some, which in point of date, were long anterior to the negociation with M. Chauvelin, and of which that minister had never once complained. This he would make appear in the course of his observations upon the decree, which began as follows: "The National Convention, after having heard the report of their committee of general defence, on the conduct of the English government: considering that the king of England has persisted, especially since the revolution of the 10th of August 1792, to give proofs of his being evil-disposed towards the French nation, and of his attachment to the coalition of crowned heads:"-It was very remarkable, that this was the first time that it was stated by France, that England had in the smallest degree departed, before the date of the present armaments, from the strict line of neutrality, which the king had resolved to pursue with respect to the affairs of France; with what a bad grace the Convention brought such a charge, would ap pear from this striking circumstance, that the very first paper which M. Chauvelin delivered to his majesty's minister on his arrival in this country contained the grateful acknowledgments of the French government for the strict neutrality which the king had observed in the war between France and the other powers then at war with her. If any departure had taken place from that neutrality, why had not she complained of it? But no complaint was made; and therefore it might be fairly concluded, that she had none to make. Her making it at present served only to expose her to the reproach of having advanced what could not be supported, because it was not true. The next charge was, "That at the period aforesaid, he ordered his ambassador at Paris to withdraw, because he would not acknowledge the Provisional Executive Council, created by the legislative assembly:" In answer to this, lord Grenville said, he must touch upon points which could not but revive the remembrance of transactions, which it would be for the honour of humanity to bury, if possible, in eternal oblivion. Their lordships would recollect that on the 10th of August a scene of massacre had taken place, which had filled the mind of almost every man in Europe with horror: this massacre had been regularly planned, and executed with circumstances the most shocking. It was true, that this massacre was followed by another on the 2nd of September, which left the horrors of the former so far behind, that when compared with each other one appeared completely lost in the enormity of the other. But before the 2nd of September, the revolution of the 10th of August must be, and was, considered as one of the most horrid transactions that had ever disgraced the annals of mankind The murders and butchery of that day threw into the hands of the perpetrators the power of France. They boasted in the face of the world, of the share which they had had in the dreadful tragedy, and stated it as the ground of their I claim to public favour. Was it with such men, that his majesty's ambassador was to treat? Would it have become the character of Great Britain, to give her sanction to a measure, which could not fail to excite the general execration of all Europe? Would it have become her to make her minister treat one day with the king of France, and the very next day with those who had dethroned him, and by means of acts which must fill the mind of every man with horror? On such an occasion, he was ordered to do what was best suited to the dignified and humane character of England, he was ordered to quit France and return home. His lordship did not of their constituents, devoted to execra[VOL. XXX.] mean to say that, because a country had changed its government, other nations had a right to interfere in its concerns; but this he meant to maintain, that every surrounding nation had a right to expect the establishment of such a government, as would give security to the people at home, and tranquillity to neighbouring states: and that until such government was established, they were not bound to enter upon the question of recognition, but had a right to wait to see the effects of any institution, which might be set up for the moment, by those who for the time possessed the power of the country. Our ambassador could not have been suffered to remain in Paris after the event of the 10th of August, without recognizing the new government, a measure which would on many accounts have been highly indecent, and which on one ground would have been extremely impolitic, as it could not have taken place without a hasty and premature decision on the question of recognition. It would, he was sure, be con. ceded to him, that as a faction might for a time procure power, so a foreign nation was not bound to recognize the government set up by such faction, until it should appear to have had the sanction of the people at large. This principle applied to the situation of France at and before the 10th of August would decide the question, and show that our ambassador ought not to have been authorized immediately to recognize the new government. It was well known that the Constituent Assembly had, with the almost unanimous concurrence of the nation, established a limited monarchy in France. A republican party was known to exist in the kingdom; but it was comparatively small, and served only to show by their feeble opposition at the outset, that the great bulk of the nation was for a limited monarchy. This party, however, gaining ground in the second assembly, began to entertain hopes of overturning the monarchy, and establishing a republic on its ruins. For this purpose, the persons who composed it began to form plans for dethroning the king; but no sooner had their designs got wind, than addresses were sent up from all the departments declaring their determination to maintain the constitution with a limited monarch at its head, and oppose at the hazard of their lives and fortunes, the establishment of a republic. The Legislative Assembly, following the impulse of the general sense [D] |