have had no pretence for expecting aid from French emigrants, or from, insurgents in any part of France, except, as far as they may be supposed to facilitate our operations abroad, by embarrassing the ruling powers at home. We should have had no right to look for the cooperation of those powers whose object was the restoration of monarchy in France. But we should have had one advantage, more than sufficient to compensate all these disadvantages; we should have been at war with the French on known principles of war; the people of France could never have been persuaded, that their existence as an independent nation, and even their lives were attacked; and consequently they could never have been brought to make the same exertions. Does any man believe, that, for the navigation of the Scheldt, for a fortress on their frontier, or an island in the West Indies, they would have endured the system of terror,—that they would have suffered persons and property to be put in requisition, and that they would have been converted into what has been emphatically called, and emphatically felt, an armed nation? Would the Convention have been able to persuade them, that they were fighting for their liberties and their lives, when they were clearly told by us, that the whole contest was about the navigation of the Scheldt, and the security of the United Provinces ? If the aid of the French emigrants and insurgents in France was thought to be an advantage superior to this, we should have taken the other part, and said, "We make war, not against France, but for France; we wish neither to dismember her territory, nor to weaken her power; but to reStore to her the blessings of regular government, and to good citizens the enjoyments of their rights and property. The inconvenience here would have been, that we should have united against us every republican in France, with many

of

of those who, although friends to a limited monarchy, dreaded the re-establishment of the ancient system. But we should have produced this good effect, that all the emigrants, all the Frenchmen attached to the old system, and all who disliked the system of terror more than they disliked monarchy, would have exerted themselves in our favor. Through a childish hope of gaining the advantages of both plans, ministers have gained the advantages of neither. How could it be otherwise? When Condé and Valenciennes surrendered, they were taken possession of in the name of the emperor. The garrison of Mentz was sent to fight against the royalists of La Vendée. When we took the French islands in the West Indies, did we take possession of them for Louis the XVII? We took possession of them for ourselves, to be retained as conquests, if the chance of war should leave them in our hands. When such was our conduct, could it be imagined that any French emigrant, whose situation was not desperate, would join us? or that all who loved their country more than they loved royalty, would not be against us? In all cases to attend to justice is particularly important; and the love of country is a motive so powerful as to be used as a pretext even by those who feel it not. The royalists held out long and bravely; but what could they say to the people of France-what could they put in their manifestoes of equal weight with the addresses from the Convention? They might say, If WE conquer, the French monarchy will be restored, but curtailed and difmembered; and the first steps towards peace will be the surrender of one third of its former territory. The Convention could say, If we conquer, France will remain entire, a great and independent nation, triumphant over all the powers which have leagued against her liberties. With such discouragements on the one hand, and such flatter

VOL. II.

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ing prospects on the other, was it to be expected that any considerable number of Frenchmen would connect their own cause with that of the allies? We have so shuffled and trimmed in our professions, that no party will flock to our standard. It will be said, that we could not be certain, in the first instance, how far it would be expedient to interfere in the internal affairs of France; that we must watch events, and act accordingly. By this indecision by this want of clearness with respect to our ultimate intentions, we have lost more than any contingency could ever promise. Toulon was taken possession of by Lord HooD, on condition, as those who surrendered it understood, of restoring the constitution of 1789. Whether minifters intended to observe that condition, I know not; but in their subsequent publications they gave reason to hope that they did. They offered peace and protection to all well-disposed Frenchmen, who should join in restoring monarchy, without specifying what kind of monarchy; and what protection have they given to those who endeavoured to restore it? Have not the royalists, for want of assistance or encouragement, been obliged, however reluctantly, to submit to the laws of the republic? If the allies were fighting either for France or against France, what should have been their conduct towards FAYETTE and DUMOURIER? The treatment of FAYETTE by the Austrians will damn their name to eternal infamy. They found him, and the companions of his misfortunes, not at the head of an army, nor in arms, and took them, against all the laws of nations and of war, not as prisoners of war, but as prisoners to be consigned to a dungeon. If the allies were fighting against France, surely they ought not to treat as criminals generals quitting the enemy. DUMOURIER came over when he thought he had some power with his army, less, indeed,

than

than he supposed, although it was impossible that a man, who had served his country with such ability and success, should not have had a considerable party in it. How was he treated? After extolling his virtue, at a moment when he had rendered his virtue doubtful, when it was found that he could not bring his army with him, the ailies acted as if they had passed a decree, forbidding any French general to come over to them in future. It has been said, that no religious sect is so bigotted as to exclude converts; but the political bigotry of the allies is more austere than religious bigotry. If they were fighting for France, against the Convention, they ought to have praised DUMOURIER as a convert, and held him up as an example for the conversion of others. If they were fighting against France, they should have considered all Frenchmen as enemies, in the common acceptation of the term; and not by denouncing vengeance for crimes committed in France, as lord AUCKLAND had done, in a paper published at the Hague, given ground for that enthusiasm of resistance, which arose in the minds of men who conceived their lives, as well as liberties, to be in danger-an enthusiasm, which has united men for common defence, who, in every moment of respite, were tearing one another to pieces, and sending their opponents to the scaffold when they had the power. If the allies were fighting for France, for the restoration of monarchy and regular government, I do not mean to say that those who were immediately the cause of the murder of the king should be overlooked; but the allies ought not to have, begun with thundering forth a manifesto, threatening destruction to Paris and all its inhabitants-a manifesto, which one cannot now bear even to read, but by contrasting the insensate fury of the menace with the impotence of the attempt to put it in execution. If we were fighting

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fighting for France, we ought to have published to the people of France, that we had no views of aggrandizement, much less of difmembering the kingdom, or taking vengeance of the inhabitants. It was well said by the excellent man whom I have already alluded to, [Mr. BURKE] that he knew not how to draw up an indictment against a whole nation. Some exceptions might have been necessary; but these should have been mentioned by name, that other persons might have nothing to fear. By this mode of proceeding, I own that many persons, deserving of punishment, might have escaped; but this would not have been so bad as the terrifying all France by indiscriminate threats. This I conceive to be a fundamental error. The House ought to inquire whether it is so, or not; and if it is, to take a new and intelligible line of proceeding, either for France as a nation, or against it. To be convinced of the propriety of doing this, it is only necessary for every man, who hears me, to ask himself, whether it is possible, that, if the French Convention were to refuse any thing like reasonable terms of peace, they could call forth such extraordinary exertions on the part of the people, as the idea, that there is no alternative but victory or subjugation, has enabled them to do?

"After dwelling so long on the great errors," continued Mr. Fox, "it is almost sufficient to name the less. If we took possession of Toulon, with a view not of conquest, but of supporting the royalists in France, it was the most important advantage to which our attention could have been directed. Yet we left it with a small garrison of British troops, trusting to the aid of allies, who were either unable or unwilling to defend it. This was said to be done for the sake of an expedition against the French West India islands: and that expedition was