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CHAPTER V.

BEGINNING OF THE WAR BETWEEN ENGLAND AND FRANCE.

FRENCH DESIGN OF INCORPORATING BELGIUM WHICH ENGLAND REGARDS AS A CASUS BELLI.-FRANCE VAINLY ENDEAVOURS TO INTIMIDATE ENGLAND.NEW PLANS AGAINST HOLLAND. - PROCEEDINGS IN BELGIUM.-ENGLAND REMAINS FIRM. THE FRENCH MINISTRY PAUSES.-THE QUESTION DECIDED BY THE VICTORY OF THE JACOBINS IN THE KING'S TRIAL.- - DISSOLUTION OF THE MINISTRY.-DUMOURIEZ ATTEMPTS A FRESH NEGOTIATION.-FRANCE DECLARES WAR AGAINST THE MARITIME POWERS.-PACHE CHOSEN MAYOR OF PARIS. DEMOCRATIC REORGANISATION OF THE ARMY.- -DECLARATION OF WAR AGAINST SPAIN.

THE victory of the Jacobins on the 17th of January, not only settled the question of Louis's execution, but that of the war between France and the Maritime Powers. Not that the King of England felt any great zeal to make a crusade as the blood-avenger of Louis in favour of the inviolability of all thrones; such sentiments were at that time only found in one crowned head, which in practical matters showed little capacity-the King of Prussia. But England had material interests of the highest importance which were greatly endangered by the greediness of the Jacobins, and the defeat of the moderate party of the Convention became, therefore, the signal for a general war.

Since the beginning of December, the French government had contracted their far-reaching schemes within definite limits. They were compelled to give up the hope of revolutionizing the German Empire and establishing a Republic in the British Islands; but they were all the more determined in the resolve to subject the countries which had hitherto been occupied in the name of freedom, to the rule

1

of France. This object was more especially pursued in Belgium by Danton and three other Deputies, who were sent as Commissioners of the Convention to that country on the 30th of November. They were directed to enquire into the condition of the Provinces, and to consider Dumouriez's complaints against Pache and the Committee formed to purchase supplies for the army. Their reports revealed the abuses existing in the administration of the army, the most crying of which were removed by the Convention. 1 Other evils Dumouriez himself, after the pause in the hostilities, attacked and remedied with undiminished vigour; e. g. he succeeded in cashing his assignats at the bank of Amster- . dam at a very fair exchange,2 and in raising 60 millions by several loans from the Belgian clergy; and was thus enabled for the time to secure supplies for his army without oppressing the population. But his political relations with the Commissioners of the Convention, and consequently the position of Belgium itself, grew worse and worse. Danton indeed endeavoured to maintain as much as possible his confidential intimacy with the General, and promised him a speedy deliverance from Pache's troublesome interference, and a gradual improvement in the state of Paris. But as regarded Belgium, he remained inexorable in his determination to plunder, revolutionize, and finally incorporate that country. There was once for all no other course, he said;-the financial necessities of France were already too urgent, and the ambition of the Parisian Sansculottes too much inflamed; whoever wished gradually to lead them back to better order, ought to be particularly careful not to thwart them in this foreign question. We shall not inquire how much Belgian money he and his colleagues put into their own pockets, since there is no proof of theft, and yet no reason for believing in the disinterestedness of Danton; at all events their proceedings in Belgium were of the most hateful kind. They were well aware of the aversion of the Belgians to the pro1 Decree of Dec. 15th. 2 Mémoires, III. 379.

PASSIVE RESISTANCE OF BELGIAN CITIZENS.

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CH. V.] ject of incorporation, and as the immediate employment of force appeared to them hazardous in Dumouriez's present frame of mind, they systematically set to work to bring about a state of general confusion and dissolution. No authority was left intact, and every effort was made to overthrow the lately elected government, and to bring in the Sansculottes of the purest water as the sole possessors of power. In a popular assembly at Liege, Danton bitterly complained that not a single traitor had been put to death; his agents in Brussels stirred up the mob against the Municipality; and every where union with France was made the watch-word. It was certainly very remarkable with what firmness the entire population resisted these schemes. It was not the small Imperial party which came forward at this crisis; the Noblesse and the Clergy were too much intimidated to express their feelings openly; and even the peasants and the proletaries of the towns-who in Belgium were good Catholics and under the influence of their priests— kept aloof in fear and anger. It was the sentiments of the middle class of citizens which were most openly and strongly expressed. Sturdy artisans, honest guildmasters, and patriotic merchants, who out of hatred to Austria had joined the Jacobin clubs in crowds, made themselves heard at their meetings. And when their opposition was stifled, they left the clubs in a body, and thereby threatened the very existence of those instruments which had become so essential to the French. The Commissioners had no other means of keeping up the appearance of popularity, than filling the empty benches with the scum of the French battalions-the most disorderly of the volunteers,--who in the character of the sovereign Belgian People vied with one another in proposing the union of their cities with France. Such was the state of things when the Decree of the 15th of December was published, which invested the Commissioners with all the attributes of omnipotent despotism. Dumouriez gnashed his teeth in impotent fury, and determined to go to Paris

himself, and get the measure annulled. He once more advised the Belgians to lend the strength of union to their resistance, and—since the Decree spoke only of those countries which had adopted no definite constitution—to elect representatives to a Belgian National Convention. By this means, he said, they might unite the scattered forces of the towns and provinces, and withdraw the country from the operation of the decree by the establishment of a republican form of government. Even this course of proceeding would have been unavailing, in opposition to the will of the French Government; but not even the attempt was made, because the majority of the Belgians adhered to their ancient laws, and rejected the very notion of a Convention. In Brussels, indeed, a meeting of the Sections took place for the purpose of carrying out Dumouriez's suggestion; but no less than 17 out of the 21 elected were decided partisans of the old constitution. The matter, therefore, was carried no further in the other provinces, and the elected of Brussels were summarily imprisoned by the sansculottes, or, as one of the leaders here called his company, the sanschemises. After that nothing more was said about a Belgian Convention. Nor could Dumouriez produce any effect by his personal influence on the Rulers in Paris. It was idle to talk of resigning, for he was not in a position to deal a decisive blow against Pache; and the representations made by him to Cambon in a conversation respecting the Decree of the 13th of December, only drew from the selfconceited and irritable Deputy a sharp rebuff. In short the incorporation of Belgium was a settled matter.

This determination most injuriously affected the good understanding hitherto kept up with England. It may be said, generally speaking, of the 18th century, as of the present day, that the one-sided aggrandizement of one Power was never a matter of indifference to the other Powers of Europe. Attempts of this nature occurred more frequently then than now, because the standard of public morality was a few de

CH. V.]

THE BALANCE OF POWER IN EUROPE.

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grees lower than it has since become. Europe has passed through the rude discipline of affliction in the school of the Revolution. Many of these attempts succeeded, because many States had yet to win their natural and proper position in the European system; but they all of them met with great resistance and were accompanied by violent and widely extended political convulsions. If the first Partition of Poland was not resisted by the Western Powers, it was only because the times were not well adapted for giving a thorough and final check to the encroachments of the Russians, and because the participation of the German Powers in the act of spoliation was felt to be an advantage to all parties. And on the other hand, at what a fearful cost of blood did Frederick the Great obtain possession of Silesia!-and with what decision did Europe hurl back the restless ambition of Joseph II! And so, in the present case, it was a matter of course that England would interpose both by word and deed directly France prepared to take possession of Belgium. The attempt to revolutionize London and Amsterdam, by stirring up the popular masses in those cities, had induced Pitt to take defensive measures, and the decree of the 15th roused England to uphold the balance of power in Europe, even, if necessary, by an offensive war.

Every thing was here combined to produce an impression on the public mind in England, that a flagrant international wrong had been committed. England had guaranteed the possession of Belgium to the Emperor in 1790-and the closing of the Scheldt to the Dutch, and its political position in Holland to the House of Orange in 1788. Under an imperative sense of her own interests, she had struggled for centuries to prevent the French from gaining a footing in Antwerp and Ostend. Prudence, fidelity to treaties, the retrospect of the past and the hopes of the future-all called loudly upon her not to allow the balance of Europe to be disturbed, and least of all in Belgium. A French expedition to Brussels might be borne with, and even the establish