single symptom. Time will soon develope | to us the secret resolutions of the government of England. Should these resolutions be just and moderate, we shall see the calamities of war at an end; should, on the contrary, this first appearance of accommodation prove but a false light, intended only to answer speculations of credit, to facilitate a loan, the acquisition of money, pur chases, or enterprises, then we shall know how far the dispositions of the enemy are implacable and obstinate, and we shall have only to banish all hope from a dangerous lure; and trust without reserve to the goodness of our cause, to the justice of Providence, and to the genius of the Emperor. Whilst expecting new lights to illustrate the obscurity of the actual state of affairs, bis Majesty the Emperor has conceived, that the imperfect disclosure which his Majesty the King of England has thought proper to make of the first overtures of France, called for a full explanation on his part of all that he wished, of what he did, and, of the answer of the English government. At the same time he has commissioned me to make known to you, that he will ever feel a real satisfaction dear to his heart, in making known to the senate, and to his people, by frank, full, and unambiguous communica. tions, every thing that shall be connected with the interests of its prosperity and its glory, on every occasion when such communication shall be consistent with the principles of policy, and the rules of discretion.

After the report, a member proposed an address to his Imperial Majesty, to thank him for this testimony of confidence which the senate had received in the communication of so remarkable and important a report; and stating, that pursuant to the practice of the senate on political questions, this subject should be referred to a special commission.--Messrs. Barthelemy, Cacault, Hedouville, and his Excellency Marshal Perignon and M. Francois de Neufchateau, President of the Senate, were named as commissioners.

M. SEGUR'S SPEECH in the Legislative Body of France, upon the subject of the Overtures of Peace ta. England. "Dated 4th Feb. 1805.

Gentlemen,His Majesty the Emperor has wished you to be made acquainted by an official communication with recent facts interesting to our political situation. His Majesty, ever since he has been raised to the imperial dignity, has been of opinion, that this situation, and the circumstances which placed him in it, might natu

rally lead him to entertain hopes of [peace. The enemy, undeceived with respect to the vain hopes which he had founded on the chances of an elective power, found himself in a situation which ought to dispose him to listen to more moderate counsels. The Emperor has done what Gen. Buonaparté did before the crossing of the Drave; what the First Consul did before he was forced to combat at Marengo; he has written to his Britannic Majesty the letter which I am about to read to you (Here he read the Letter of the Emperor, see p. 257.) This letter, gentlemen (continued he), was suitable to the dignity of a power which relies on its strength, yet will not abuse it; the character of the Emperor not permitting the suspicion of weakness. To this letter the British minister returned an answer, not suitable to overtures so frank and so pacific, but an answer, the terms of which, at least,when compared with those employed in the year S, in other circumstances, do not offend against decorum; and permit us to hope for communications of more utility. It is as follows: (Here he read the letter of Lord Mulgrave, see p. 258.) The letters and the answer would have remained among the secrets of government, like all preliminary acrs, the object of which is to lead to effective negotiations, if the message (speech) of the King to his parliament had not called for its publicity. This message which announces that pacific communications had been made on the part of France is full of acrimony, accusations and reproaches. An insulting pity is feigned for a generous nation which has been suddenly attacked in the midst of peace, and whose ships, sailing under the protection of treaties, have been seized, pillaged, and destroyed. Yet astonishment is pretended that she should not have humbled herself by explanations with an enemy who has treated her as a robber, and that she has applied to hostilities by a declaration of It also announces connexions, a correspondence, and confidential relations with the powers of the Continent, to insinuate the idea of a coalition which does not exist, and which it will be impossible to realize. --France is too great to condescend to return invectives; she owes to an ally, cruelly injured, not an useless pity, but the most constant and faithful support.-France has not an enemy on the Continent; she has no discussion with any continental power, which can attach it to the war of the British ministry, Austria, Prussia, the whole of Germany, wish for peace, and wish it with France. Even within these few days,

war.

monarch is above the passions of common men. If one recollects how Great Britain, braving public morality, and the law of nations, has prostituted her ambassadors, degraded her most distinguished soldiers, by the vilest functions, by the most shameful missions; if we consider how she employs the treasures of her, commerce, acquired in contempt of the law of nations, and of all laws, to pay the fabricators of infernal machines, to organise conspiracies the traces of which are still in the midst of us, and which have excited cries of indignation that reecho throughout Europe. If we trace out to ourselves such a picture, and ask how the chief of this great nation, marked by France and Europe as the avenger of so many outrages, stifles in his heart the malice and hatred which would prevail in an ordinary soul,, we must answer, the man, to whom the great nation has given its crown, aspires from that moment only to the title of Father of the French. Napoleon had scarcely ascended the throne, when he had scarcely gone out of this metropolis, where all that is most august in religion, had consecrated what is most solemn in the wishes of the people, when his heart still full of emotion at the public acclamation, inspired him with the thought of writing to Geo, 11. the letter which I am charged to communicate to you.

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ens, no fiend of aggression had provoked their rage? Had he forgotten how, on the 8th March, it was stated to the Parliament of England, that our ports and our arsenals, though then in a state of pacific silence and inactivity, were filled with armed vessels, and holding out, in the state of their equipment, a most menacing appearance ?—No, Tribunes; such recollections are not to be effaced; but since the æra that gave them birth, what happy changes have taken place, in the attitude of France, attacked, as she has been, by imprudent and unjust enemies! -Is it necessary, Tribunes, that I solicit your attention to our internal situation, and to remind you of the strong pledge it holds out to you of security, strength, and wellgrounded expectation? Were you not the first to interpret and express the national wish ratified by the suffrages of five millions of citizens, and since the accomplishment of that wish, since the establishment of the NAPOLEON dynasty, has for ever fixed the destinies of the French Empire! Was ever au empire more firmy founded? Never in any nation has the conspiring will and energies of the Government and of the People, created a mass of strength and power more imposing and more formidable! Never has any State advanced with more rapid strides towards prosperity and greatness! For these two years past, it is true, war with England has been declared, and no important occurrence has marked its progress; no decisive blow has been struck that can furnish any conjecture of its termination. But in our ports we have fleets; in harbours armed flo

land, the expression of all the generous, moderate, and, if I may so speak, the religious sentiments that can be conceived and professed by a noble soul: and indeed, that immortal dispatch will not rank among the less glorious monuments of the reign of his MAJESTY; nor will it be the least certain of his titles to the gratitude and love of France; neither will it be the least secure pledge of the esteem of those wise philantrophists, who, in whatever light they may be represented by obscure and perverse men, by whom they are calumniated without being understood, still form so numerous a class in the bosom of enlightened Europe. But on this occasion may not the humanity of the Monarch have deceived his wisdom? Could his reason have long continued to cherish the hopes suggested by his benevolence? Had he forgotton how, and upon what perfidious grounds, the most sacred compacts had been violated? Had he forgotten, that when the leopards were tearing the Treaty of Ami

in reaching a descent, since, after all, we must utter that formidable word, three of them have already decided in our favour. The ships are built; they are collected together; and ports have been prepared to receive them. The whole advantage of the war has therefore been in our favour; since, without having experienced any check in the face of a superior enemy, we have employed two years in assembling together immense means. The whole advantage of the war has been in our favour, since, in spite of the numerous ships that cover the seas with the British flag, we have been able to provision and to place in a state of security our most important and most remote colonies.- Martinique, Guadaloupe, Cayenne, the cities of France, &c. &c. are furnished with every thing in abundance. Their garri ons have been more than tripled; all the stores and provisions intended for them have reached their destination. No reinforcement has failed to

arrive at its intended place. A great

expedition would fail before Martinique | and the Isle of France. And while our colonial territory remains entire and sheltered from every fear, the dominions of the King of England, (Hanover), is entirely in our power. We have lost nothing of our possessions, and we occupy an important province of the enemy.-What advantage have the English acquired to compensate for those advantages; what has availed these masters of the seas, the immense superiority of their naval strength. They have lost 15 ships or frigates, that have either ran on shore, or have been dashed upon the rocks. They have squandered away immense treasures in cruizes dictated by fear, interrupted by the power of the winds, and punished by storms and other mishaps. At home the English have seen the merchant forced from his counting house, the manufacturer from his loom, and for want of muskets, compelled to consume the time destined for their com merce and their work, in handling clumsy and unavailing pikes, hastily forged, by the dread of an invasion. Under the pressure of that fear, ever present to their minds, the English Government has had recourse to every possible means of defence; they have prepared inundations and batteries; they have barricaded their ports, and fortified their coasts; they have contrived flying carriages to transport their troops, and put into requisition the carriages and horses of the three kingdoms; they have purchased the arming of the English nation at the price of disorganization, the derangement of its habits, and the counteraction of its manners.

The

traveller who, for these two years past, goes from Paris to London, and returns from London to Paris, is astonished to behold in the capital of the French Empire profound peace and security established and maintained, and in the capital of England uncertainty and terror; the agitation that prevails at the head quarters of a threatened camp, defended by an incoherent, unorganiżed mass, novices in the trade of war, struck with the conviction of their own inability to make war against the veteran troops of Cesar. If we compare the state of opinion in some parts of the two countries, we shall B-hold in the Eastern departments of France that were in a state of insurrection, enlightened Prelates restoring peace to the public mind by re-establishing tran quillity in their conscience; vigilant Prefects founding a new and wholesome administration, arresting, disarming, and punishing the remnant of those brigands who were cast upon our coasts, concealed in our cities, or wandering in our forests. In those coun

tries where not long since British gold was employed to kindle up civil war, agriculture is re-established, tranquillity is maintained, the taxes are raised without constraint, paid with punctuality. New cities are seen to rise; canals are dug; public roads are completed. The conscripts summoned to our armies, flock to them at the same call which so lately excited them to a sacrilegious war, but which now only collects them to invoke the blessings of Heaven in favour of the man that governs them. Nor do we see any extraordinary reasures, any suspension of the ordinary protecting laws; no longer are there any dissensions between the Morbihan and the Côte d'Or, between La Vendee and the Meurthe.-In the mean time, at the other side of the ocean, Ireland presents to us the spectacle of never-ending conspiracies, instigated by oppression as 'constantly renewed; an army of soldiers restraining with difficulty an army of citizens, by the aid of those vio leat measures, of which the revolution, scarcely furnishes an example; and to concentrate all in one word, we behold in that unfortunate country a war of religion, per secutions unknown at this moment in the bosom of Europe, that it is indignant to observe, the only spot upon the earth where the most sacred rights are unacknowledged, and where government arms itself against the uncontrolable power, and the sacred freedom of conscience.-If, on the other hand, you draw a parallel between the finances of the two states, you will find on the op-' posite shore new expenses accumulating upon the expenses already immense; of a nation to whom a million and a half was yearly necessary in an ordinary war, and who, in the present war, stands in need for the first time, of a levy in mass; of a levy that costs it hundreds of millions. It provides for that sum, it is true: but by goading the present, and by swallowing up the future, by resolving to fund its debt, instead of being extinguished by the operation of its sinking fund, swelled by the abuse of its only re source, loans.-On our side, our numerous armies have been always the cause of our greatest expense; and their maintenance brings with it but an inconsiderable addition, that is not made to bear upon a foreign country. The budget which will be shortly laid before you, will apprise you, that our terri torial resources have provided for every thing; and that, instead of adding to our debt, during these two years of war, our sinking fund has begun efficaciously to ope rate for its extniction.-What France has done, she may continue to do for 30 years,

and has only to ask of Heaven that the sun may continue to shine, the rain to fall upon our fields, and the ground fecundize the seed deposited in it. Ten years more of war would make no addition to our debt; ten years more of war would add four milliards to the debt of England. Let her not forget, however, that if public credit be a powerful and formidable weapon, that the bow too strongly bent, snaps in the hand that holds it, and leaves naked and defenceless the man that employs it.-England, it must be owned, has plundered without risk during the first months of hostilities, from our unprotected ships, forty or fifty millions (livres) to the detriment of our commerce. But at Martinique, Guadaloupe, the Isle of France, every day sees our privateers carry in English prizes; and already the balance inclines in our favour in the calculation of our finances as well as in the comparison with our glory. -I may therefore say, and say it confidently, that the advantage is on our side. France is invulnerable in all the points of her immense territory; she has nothing to apprehend in her advanced ports in the West and East Indies. England is every where vulne rable; and without appearing to reach her, we have in reality inflicted wounds upon her, which may perhaps be attended with a progressive atony or violent convulsions. Our fleets at Brest, Toulon, and Rochefort, have annexed to them armies, resolved to pass the ocean with them. Our flotillas are ready to depart with the proud sons of war, who know no impedime: is, because they have surmounted all that, before them, had astonished the most intrepid. Let us continue to keep on our coasts soldiers inhabiting camps instead of barracks, and become intrepid sailors as well as brave warriors. Let the people of England in the mean time, arm, agitate, fatigue, exhaust, and discourage themselves. Let our résources and our revenues suffice for our expenses, and let there be no want but that of some extraordinary resources which the richness of our country insure to us. In England, let the interest paid to loan-holders absorb, and exceed all possible means to pay those levies in mass, which exhaust the nation without defending it; let this state of things prolong itself, and let the English cabinet state the advantages that result from this situation, from which it derives equal danger and shame. Shall I speak to you of these secret expeditions with which the credulity of the English people is every three months abused, and which terminate only in ridiculous and fruitless attempts. Are they embarking some troops for the renewal of the garrison of Gibraltar,

cut off by the pestilence; or do they wish to convey some troops to India, or some reinforcements to Ceylon, where England has had such losses; or do they prepare some millions of men to repair the ravages of the yellow fever at Jamaica, to strengthen the garrisons of the English colonies, threatened by three or four thousand men, which Martinique and Guadaloupe can detach against them. When these ordinary measures are in preparation, the government suffers it to be believed, that formidable armaments menaced France. How long and with how much mystery did they announce those ships loaded with stones, to choak up our ports, and those fireships so courageously, and at such a distance launched against our flotillas. And in fact what other expedition could tempt the English. Would they wish a landing on our western coast, to try how our national guards alone, united with our peace garrisons will receive them on their arrival, and cut off their return. Masters of the sea for two years, their fleets have fatigued the ocean and the Mediterranean, and their soldiers have not dared on any coast; on all our shores their vessels have thrown on them only brigands. In place of these vain phintoms of expedition, suppose gentlemen, that the 25.000 men from Brest, the 6000 from Rochefort, the 12,000 from Toulon, and the 25,000 from the Texel, all or even in part reach Ireland, Jamaica, or India; or even suppose that these 200.000 men the boats of our flotillas can carry and pass over in one night, menaces and reach the opposite coast, on which their impatient courage keeps them for so long a time; suppose, what is still more simple, that the 50 frigates, the sixty ships of the line, of all rates, which two years have seen created, armed, and equipped, should get out in small squadrons and inundate the seas, and dry up in every quarter the channels of prosperity and life; by the aid of which England supports its monstrous existence. With only a part of these suppositions realized, you will see every where; and reason will see also chances terrible, and without counterbalance, against England. It is therefore in the very consciousness of the strength of his people, and of his own power, that the Emperor found an additional motive for speaking the language of peace. It is with so many plans of campaigns, the success of which is probable, almost to certainty, inasmuch as that which is void of all dan ger, produces successes so real; it is with this vast and rapid glance which embraces, the whole extent of his resources, and all the means of drawing them forth, that his Majesty has taken a step which would have