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Grenville.

HE undersigned, minister plenipotentiary of France, has the honour to communicate to his excellency Lord Grenville, the instructions which he has received from the executive council of the French republic, with orders to lay thern before his Britannic majesty's secretary of state for the department of foreign affairs, in case he should believe that he could not sufficiently soon obtain an interview with that minister.

The French government, by continuing, since the recal of lord Gower from Paris, to leave at London its minister plenipotentiary, conceived that it gave his Britannic majesty an unequivocal proof of the desire it had to continue to live upon good terms with him, and to dispel those clouds which the events, necessary and inherent to the internal regulations of France, appeared at that time to have occasioned. The intentions of the exe cutive council of France, with regard to England, have not ceased to be the same; but it has not been able to see with indifference the public conduct which the British ministry maintains at present towards France. It is with regret that it has remarked in this con

it is yet unwilling to give credit. It has however felt, that its duty to the French nation required it no longer to leave it in a state of uncertainty, into which it had been thrown by several measures recently adopted by the British government-an uncertainty which must be shared by the British nation, and which is equally unworthy of both countries.

The executive council of the French Republic has, in consequence, authorised the minister of France at London to demand with openness of the ministers of his Britannic majesty, if France ought to consider England as a neutral power, or as an enemy; and it has especially charged him to obtain a definitive answer upon this point.

But, in asking from the ministers of his Britannic majesty a frank and open explanation as to their intentions with regard to France, the executive council is unwilling that they should have the smallest remaining doubt as to the disposition of France towards England, and as to its desire of remaining in peace with her: it has eren been desirous of answering beforehand all the reproaches which they may be tempted to make in justification of a rupture.

On reflecting what may be

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the reasons which may determine his Britannic majesty to break with the French republic, the executive council has been able to find no other than a false interpretation, which is, perhaps, given to the decree of the national convention of the 19th of November. If a real alarm has been occasioned by this decree, it can have arisen only for want of understanding its true sense. The national convention never meant that the French republic should favour insurrections, should espouse the quarrels of a few seditious persons, or in a word, should endeavour to excite disturbances in any neutral or friendly country whatever. Such an idea would be rejected by all the French. It cannot be imputed to the national convention without doing it injustice. This decree then is applicable only to those people who, after having acquired their liberty by conquest, may have demanded the fraternity, the assistance of the republic, by the solemn and unequivocal expression of the general will. France ought and will respect, not only the independence of England, but even that of those of her allies with whom she is not at war. The undersigned has therefore been charged formally to declare, that she will not attack Holland so long as that power shall, on its side, confine itself towards her within the bounds of an exact neutrality.

The British government being thus set at its ease upon these two points, no pretence for the smallest difficulty could remain, except as to the question of the opening of the Scheldt; a question irrevocably decided by reason and by justice, of small importance in itself, and

on which the opinion of England, and perhaps of Holland itself, is sufficiently known, to render it difficult seriously to make it the single subject of a war. Should, however, the British ministry avail itself of this last motive, as a cause of declaring war against France, would it not, in such case, be probable, that its secret intention must have been, at all events, to bring on a rupture, and that it made use, at the present moment, of the vainest of all pretences, to colour an unjust aggression, long ago determined upon?

On this unfortunate supposition, which the executive council rejects, the undersigned would be authorised forcibly to support the dignity of the French people, and to declare with firmness, that this free and powerful people will accept the war, and repel with indignation an aggression so manifestly unjust, and so little provoked on its part. When every explanation, calculated to demonstrate the purity of the intentions of France, when all peaceable and conciliatory measures shall have been exhausted by her, it is evident that all the weight, all the responsibility of the war, will fall sooner or later on those who shall have provoked it. It will, in fact, be nothing but a war of the administration alone against the French republic; and, if this truth could for a moment appear doubtful, it would not perhaps be impossible for France speedily to convince of this a nation which, in bestowing its confidence, has never renounced the exercise of its reason or its respect for truth and justice.

Such are the instructions which
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you the notification stated above, without at the same time explaining myself clearly and distinctly on the subject of what you have communicated to me, though under a form which is neither regular nor official.

Your explanations are confined to three points:

The first is that of the decree of the national convention of the 19th of November, in the expressions of which all England saw the formal declaration of a design to extend universally the new principles of government adopted in France, and to encourage disorder and revolt in all countries, even in those which are neutral. If this interpretation, which you represent as injurious to the convention, could admit of any doubt, it is but too well justified by the conduct of the convention itself. And the application of these principles to the king's dominions has been shewn unequivocally, by the public reception given to the promoters of sedition in this country, and by the speeches made to them precisely at the time of this decree, and since on several different occasions.

Yet, notwithstanding all these proofs, supported by other circumstances which are but too notorious, it would have been with pleasure that we should have seen here such explanations, and such a conduct, as would have satisfied the dignity and honour of England, with respect to what has already passed, and would have offered a sufficient security in future for the maintenance of that respect towards the rights, the government, and the tranquillity of neutral powers, which they have on every account the right to expect.

Neither this satisfaction, nor this security, is found in the terms of an explanation which still declares to the promoters of sedition in every country, what are the cases in which they may count beforehand on the support and succour of France; and which reserves to that country the right of mixing herself in our internal affairs whenever she shall judge it proper, and on principles incompatible with the political institutions of all the countries of Europe. No one can avoid perceiving how much a declaration like this is calculated to encourage disorder and revolt in every country. No one can be ignorant how contrary it is to the respect which is reciprocally due from independent nations, nor how repugnant to those principles which the king has followed, on his part, by abstaining at all times from any interference whatever in the internal affairs of France. And this contrast is alone sufficient to shew, not only that England cannot consider such an explanation as satisfactory, but that she must look upon it as a fresh avowal of those dispositions which she sees with so just an uneasiness and jealousy.

I proceed to the two other points of your explanation, which concern the general dispositions of France with regard to the allies of Great Britain, and the conduct of the convention and its officers relative to the Scheldt. The declaration which you there make, "that France will not attack Holland so long as that power shall observe an exact neutrality," is conceived nearly in the same terms with that which you was charged to make in the name of his most christian majesty in the month of June last.

Since that first declaration was made, an officer, stating himself to be employed in the service of France, has openly violated both the territory and the neutrality of the republic, in going up the Scheldt to attack the citadel of Antwerp, notwithstanding the determination of the Government not to grant this passage, and the formal protest by which they opposed

it. Since the same declaration was made, the convention has thought itself authorized to annul the rights of the republic, exercised within the limits of its own territory, and enjoyed by virtue of the same treaties by which her independence is secured. And at the very moment when, under the name of an amicable explanation, you renew to me in the same terms the promise of respecting the independence and the rights of England and her allies, you announce to me, that those in whose name you speak intend to maintain these open and injurious aggressions.

It is not, certainly, on such a declaration as this, that any reliance can be placed for the continuance of public tranquillity.

But I am unwilling to leave, without a more particular reply, what you say on the subject of the Scheldt. If it were true that this question is in itself of little importance, this would only serve to prove more clearly, that it was brought forward only for the purpose of insulting the allies of England, by the infraction of their neutrality, and by the violation of their rights, which the faith of treaties obliges us to maintain. But you cannot be ignorant, that here the utmost importance is attached

to those principles which France wishes to establish by this proceeding, and to those consequences which would naturally result from them; and that not only those principles, and those consequences, will never be admitted by England, but that she is, and ever will be, ready to oppose them with all her force.

France can have no right to annul the stipulations relative to the Scheldt, unless she have also the right to set aside equally all the other treaties between all the powers of Europe, and all the other rights of England, or of her allies. She can even have no pretence to interfere in the question of opening the Scheldt, unless she were the sovereign of the Low Countries, or had the right to dictate laws to all Europe.

England will never consent that France shall arrogate the power of annulling at her pleasure, and under the pretence of a pretended natural right, of which she makes herself the only judge, the political system of Europe, established by solemn treaties, and guaranteed by the consent of all the powers. This government, adhering to the maxims which it has followed for more than a century, will also never see with indifference that France shall make herself, either directly or indirectly, sovereign of the Low Countries, or general arbitress of the rights and liberties of Europe. If France is really desirous of maintaining friendship and peace with England, she must shew herself disposed to renounce her views of aggression and aggrandisement, and to confine herself within her own territory, without insulting other governments,