no

declaring, "that kings were longer useful but in their deaths," &c. Gentlemen had said, that if lord Gower had been left at Paris, or another ambassador had been sent in his place, the unhappy fate of the king of France might have been prevented. This, he said, was answered by the fate of the king of Spain's ambassador, who had made, at the desire of his court, a requisition, but was refused. The murder of the king was intended only as a step to the murders of the other kings of Europe, for they had declared that no monarchial country could have alliance with them: this too, at the very moment that they were affecting to conciliate and explain away the decree of the 19th of November.

Mr. Burke readily allowed, that this was the most dangerous war in which we were ever engaged: that we were to contend with a set of men now inured to warfare, and led on by enthusiasm and the ardour of conquest, to such a degree, that they bartered the arts, commerce, industry, manufactures, and civilization itself for the sword. With regard to the means the French have of carrying on the war, the plan of supply they had proposed was worthy of attention. Their minister stated, that the country had been purged of 70,000 men of property, all of whose effects were to be confiscated, to the amount of two hundred millions sterling. Thus, like a band of robbers in a cave, they were reckoning the strength of their plunders. He said, that they had two terms for raising supplies-confiscation and loan. The common people were relieved by confiscation of the property of the rich; and they reckon

means of war.

ed on the confiscation of property in every country they entered, with the brotherly intent of fraternizing, as a sufficient supply for their exigencies in that country, and their resource for making war, thus they made war supply them with plunder, and plunder with the The right honourable gentleman (Mr. Fox) had spoken with some asperity of an intention in ministers to restore the ancient government. He would not compare that government with the government of Great Britain; but certain it was that it would be felicity and comfort, compared to the present state of tyranny exercised in France; for the very same papers out of which he had read the extracts before, contained the melancholy account, that 30,000 manufacturers were perishing for want, in Lyons alone. Thus their enormities have produced misery; their misery will drive them to despair; and out of that despair they will look for a remedy in the destruction of all other countries, and particularly that of Great Britain.

Mr. Sheridan rose professedly to repel the insinuations and charges of the last speaker against Mr. Fox, which he attempted with his usual ability in a speech of great length. Among other retorts on Mr. Burke, Mr. Fox, he said, was charged with a dereliction of principle, in having that day omitted to express his apprehension of the increase of French power, be the French goverment what it may. It is most true, that Mr. Fox had not said one word upon that subject in his speech that day; but had he not in every one of his various previous speeches in this session, distinctly

and

and most forcibly avowed and urged his sentiments on that head? How pleasant to observe a gentleman who begins his speech with taunting his right honourable friend, for repeating things too often, reproach him in the next sentence for avoiding a repetition the most unnecessary he could have fallen into! But if the reproach was on that ground extraordinary, it was still more extraordinary that the general observation itself should come from the quarter from which it proceeded! A dread of France it seemed ought to be a fundamental principle in the mind of a British statesman; no alteration in her government can change this principle, or ought to suspend this apprehension, and who was the gentleman so tenacious of this creed? The only man in all England who had held the directly contrary doctrine. Had he or could we have forgotten, that in his very first contemptuous revilings at their revolution, only in the last session of parliament, he had expressly scorned and insulted them as a nation extinguished for ever, and to be feared no more, and all in consequence of the change in their government; that he described the country as a gap and chasm in Europe. Their principles had done more, said he, than a thousand fields like Blenheim or Ramillies could have effected against them; had they even got power by their crimes, like the usurpation of Cromwell, he could have respected or feared them at least, but they were blotted out of the European map of power for ever! And the historian had only to record" Gallos olim bello floruisse"--yet this very gentleman, said Mr. Sheridan, hav

ing last year expressed all this with as much heat as he had this year expressed the contrary sentiment, arraigns my right honourable friend for having omitted to re-echo for a single hour his unalterable apprehensions of the power of France, be the changes of its government what they may: but the ambition of France, and her aggressions against this country, were not, according to the honourable member, the only causes of war. Religion demanded that we should avenge her cause. Atheism was avowed and professed in France. As an argument to the feelings and passions of men, Mr. Sheridan said, that the honourable member had great advantages in dwelling on this topic; because it was a subject upon which those who disliked every thing that had the air of cant and profession on the one hand, or of indifference on the other, found it aukward to meddle with.

Establishments, tests, and matters of that nature, were proper objects of political discussion in that House; but not general charges of deism or atheism, as pressed to their consideration by the honourable 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 is 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. [F 2]

and

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 honourable 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.

Mr. Sheridan next argued on an observation of an honourable member's, who had said, that we refused to make any allowance for the novelty of the situation in which France stood after the destruction of its old arbitrary government. This Mr. Sheridan pressed very forcibly; insisting that 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 ten-fold horror of the despotism which had so profaned and changed the nature of social men; and of a more jealous apprehension of withholding rights and liberties 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.

The amendment of Mr. Fox was then negatived, and the address as moved by Mr. Pitt was carried without a division.

On the 11th of February a similar message was sent by his majesty to the House of Lords, who took it into consideration on the following day; when an address to the same effect as that of the Commons was moved by lord Grenville, and seconded by the duke of Portland. An amendment was moved by lord Stanhope, accusing his majesty's ministers of producing a rupture between this kingdom and France, and requesting to be informed of the objects which his majesty proposes to obtain by carrying on a war against France. A second

amend

amendment was proposed by lord Lauderdale, which, after lamenting the French declaration of war, assures his majesty of the most firm and effectual support, in repelling every hostile attempt against this country; and in such other exertions as may be necessary to induce France to consent to such terms of pacification as may be consistent with the honour of his majesty's crown, &c.

After a debate of considerable length, in which the address was further supported by the duke of Leeds, and the lords Morton, Stormont, Kinnoul, and Hawkesbury; and opposed by the marquis of Lansdowne, the two amendments were successively negatived, and the motion for the address carried in the affirmative without a diuision,

Though the several questions which had been agitated, since the commencement of the sessions in both Houses, evidently proved, that the conduct of ministers had the approbation, as they themselves possessed the confidence of parliament; the opposition, though diminished in numbers, seemed to have increased in energy, and to exert themselves with a more concentrated activity. Mr. Fox, accordingly, on the eighteenth of February, introduced a series of resolutions, with observing, that the necessity of the war might be defended on two principles: first, the malus animus, or general bad disposition of the French towards this country; the crimes they have committed among themselves; the systems they have endeavoured to establish, if systems they might be called; in short, the internal government of their country. On this principle, there were few in

deed that would venture to defend it: and this being disavowed as the cause of war by his majesty's ministers, it was unnecessary for him to dwell upon it. 2dly, that various things have been done by the French, manifestly extending beyond their own country, and affecting the interests of us and our allies: for which, unless satisfaction were given, we must enforce satisfaction by arms. This he considered as the only principle on which the necessity of the war could be truly defended, and in this he was sure the great majority of the House and of the country were of the same opinion. His object was to record this in an address; and whatever objection there might be as to time or circumstances, could he obtain the sense of the House purely upon the principle, he should be very sanguine in his hopes of success. Such a record would be a guide to their conduct in the war, and a landmark on which to fix their attention for the attainment of peace. In examining the alleged cases of provocation, he had maintained that they were all objects of negotiation, and such as, till satisfaction was explicitly demanded and refused, did not justify resorting to the last extremity. He had perhaps also said, that ministers did not appear to have pursued the course which was naturally to be expected from their professions. He did not mean to charge them with adopting one principle for debate, and another for action; but he thought they had suffered themselves to be imposed upon, and misled by those who wished to go to war with France on account of her internal government, and therefore took all occasions

occasions of representing the French as utterly and irreconcileably hostile to this country. It was always fair to compare the conduct of men in any particular instance with their conduct on other occasions. If the rights of neutral nations were now loudly held forth; if the danger to be apprehended from the aggrandizement of any power was magnified as the just causes of the present war; and if, on looking to another quarter, we saw the rights of Poland, of a neutral and independant nation, openly trampled upon, its territory invaded, and all this for the manifest aggrandizement of other powers, and no war declared or menaced, not even a remonstrance interposed, for if any had been interposed, it was yet a secret, could we be blamed for suspecting that the pretended was not the real object of the present war-that what

we

were not told was in fact the object, and what we were told, only the colour and pretext:

Mr. Fox then proceeded to enlarge on those topics which had of late so often employed his eloquence, and concluded with moving the following resolutions :

"That is not for the honour or interest of Great Britain, to make war upon France, on account of the internal circumstances of that country, for the purpose either of suppressing or punishing any opinions and principles, however pernicious in their tendency, which may prevail there, or of establishing among the French people any particular form of government.

"That the particular complaints which have been stated against the conduct of the French government

are not of a nature to justify war in the first instance, without having attempted to obtain redress by negotiation.

"That it appears to this House, that, in the late negotiation between his majesty's ministers and the agents of the French government, the said ministers did not take such measures as were likely to procure redress without a rupture, for the grievances of which they complained; and particularly that they never stated distinctly to the French government any terms and conditions, the accession to which, on the part of France, would induce his majesty to persevere in a system of neutrality.

"That it does not appear that the security of Europe, and the rights of independent nations, which have been stated as grounds of war against France, have been attended to by his majesty's ministers in the case of Poland, in the invasion of that unhappy country, both in the last year, and more recently, the most open contempt of the law of nations, and the most unjustifiable spirit of aggrandizement has been manifested, without having produced, as far as appears to this House, any remonstrance from his majesty's ministers.

"That it is the duty of his majesty's ministers, in the present crisis, to advise his majesty against entering into engagements, which may prevent Great Britain from making a separate peace, whenever the interest of his majesty and his people may render such a measure adviseable, or which may countenance an opinion in Europe that his majesty is acting in concert with other powers, for the unjustifiable purpose of compel