France at 120 millions; fo that they fpent in one year 196 millions more than their total capital. And how did they support this? By means which could not laft; by affignats, which grind the poor, cheat the rich, foment avarice, and promote fpeculation. By forced loans of the most extraordinary kind. They eftablished one in Auguft of a moft extraordinary kind: on all falaries and places of 401. a year, the tax was 41. and fo on till it rofe to 400l. But when it came to 400l. the tax was 220l. On all places and falaries above that fum, the tax was first 220l. on the first 400l. and on all above that fum, so that no man was to retain above 1801. a year; and all this was to be paid before the month of March; and by this loan they are to get into their hands 40 millions fterJing. What a plan of finance this was! What would we think of the Chancellor of our Exchequer if he fhould come forward, on opening his budget, with a plan for raifing armies without taxing the people; and if he should call for a forced loan on all property, and should reduce every man of fifty, ten, five, two, and 1000l. a year, to 180l.? In the fame manner had they made their attacks upon commerce, they had reduced it to a non-entity; but they had made a kind decree, that any man who fhould prove that he was completely ruined, fhould have an indemnity. Cambon had made a report on the growing indignation againft gold and filver. He had a scheme to bury it again in the bofom of the earth. And what was his fcheme? A decree to arreft all perfons who should be found to have concealed their treasure in the bowels of the earth.

He next came to their attacks upon religion; and he exemplified the connection between religion and moral order by the speech of the Abbé Seyes, when he came to the bar to make a furrender of his indemnity. "In the rigour of my judgment," said he, “I abandoned religion, and then infurrection came in to my heart." It is faid that they have now eftablished a fort of religion; they would fee from Roberipierre's manifefto what their religion was: "What," fays he," accufe France of irreligion! we, who have worshiped God by the murder of kings?"

The Noble Lord next adverted to their criminal juftice, which, he faid, they made an object of revenue, and that 1000 executions had taken place in Paris fince May lait, for pretended State crimes

It was a remarkable fact, that, during the whole reign of the late unfortunate Louis, not one fuch execution had taken place. The Noble Lord entered at great length into all the circumftances at which we have only glanced, and from these he drew the conclufion, that though their power had in this campaign appeared to be formidable by their requifitions, for raifing the people in a mafs by their fyftem of terror, by putting the guillotine into permanent activity, by their guillotine ambulante, and by the ftill

more

more horrid engine of martial law at their armies, they had dif played irrefiftible energy in momentary efforts, yet it was a power which could not endure. That, notwithstanding all this fyftem of terror, the fpirit of revolt was not extinguifhed in France. In no less than forty-three departments the ftandard of Royalty had been raised; and that even now at Lyons, in their dying ago nies, the people ftill expreffed their regard for Louis. He faid, that even if a general fentiment for peace fhould fhew itself, it could not be obtained; they had pronounced it to be treafon to enter into any negociation for peace, till the unity and indivifibility of the Republic fhould be acknowledged; and by this they meant to include all the departments which they had feized upon from our allies; and of courfe we could not make a peace with them without abandoning our honour. And how could we procure any other than a deceitful repofe, until we fhall find a Government in which we can have fecurity? I appeal then, faid the Noble Lord, to thofe who entered into the war laft year, if they will now agree to give up the conteft? I appeal to them, if they do not now feel lefs alarm than they did at the commencement of the laft campaign? To what do they owe this, but to the barrier which we have been able to erect between ourfelves and them? and whether, after the fucceffes we have obtained, it is not better to go on, than to truft to the religion of Roberfpierre, whofe piety confifts in the murder of kings? to the faith of Cambon, whofe fyftem of finance is to be established on the profcription of gold and filver? to the moderation of Danton, who declares it to be treafon to enter into a negociation, without abandoning the caufe of our allies? or to the friendship of Barrere, who has pronounced, in his report upon Toulon, that France never shall stop till England is overthrown?

Mr. Sheridan faid, that the Noble Lord who had just fat down, had divided a speech, more remarkable for its ability than its brevity, into two parts; into a detail of the atrocities that had been committed in the course of the Revolution in France, and into a declamation upon them, in which he had thought proper to read a great number of extracts from a pamphlet of Briffot, and had in reality put that gentleman upon his trial. He did not fee any other of the learned gentlemen, connected with Adminiftration, rifing in fupport of the profecution, nor did he think that the Speaker was yet ready to fum up the charge. In that ftate, then, he hoped he might be permitted to fay a few words to the real queftion. He admired the emphasis of the Noble Lord, in reading the extracts from Briffot; he admired too his ingenuity in his obfervations upon thefe extracts; but he could not help ftill further expreffing his admiration that the Noble Lord fhould have thought proper to have taken up fo many hours in quoting paffages

in which not more than one word cut of ten was to the purpose; nay, in which every paffage was truly and moft forcibly against his argument. He fet out with quotations to prove that France had begun the war with Great Britain. Why the Noble Lord thought it neceffary to bring this forward on the prefent occafion, was manifeft from a paffage in the King's Speech, defiring the two Houfes to bear in mind the real grounds on which the war was undertaken, and the caufes that led to it. What the real grounds of the war were he profeffed he did not know, for they never had been explained either to that Houfe or to the nation, nor had he ever been able to divine them; but he knew the means by which we had been brought into this war; we had been brought into it by repeated declamations on all that the frenzy, folly, and rafhnefs of individuals in France, had either faid or written, by which the paffions of the country could be roufed, or their fears excited, in order to fecond the views of thofe who had determined to plunge us into it at all events. The fame fort of recapitulation, the Noble Lord now thinks proper to make upon precifely the same fort of authority, in order to provoke us to the further continuation of it. What was the fum of all that he had told the House? that great and dreadful enormities had been and were still committing in France; enormities at which the heart fhuddered, and which not merely wounded every feeling of humanity, but difgufted and fickened the foul. All this was moft true; but what did this prove, except that we had driven the people to a state of madnefs, and that, furious and defperate, we had deftroyed, or lulled to fleep, thofe fentiments of humanity, which could only be found predominant in a ftate of reafon? We called them monfters, and we hunted them like monfters; we drove them to the extremities that produced the evil; we baited them like mad beafts, until at length we made them fo; we were, in truth, the authors of every one of thefe calamities; for judge of human nature as it is, deprive it of all rational hopes, destroy all fair combat, and treat men as beafts and monfters, and all hiftory will teach you that you make them fo. Such has been your treatment of France. You have made the monsters of which you complain. You cut them off from all the world; you hunted them in their inmost receffes; you treated them with every fpecies of contempt; and now you come forth with declamations on the horror of their turning upon you with the fury which you inspired.

The Noble Lord, in going over the pamphlet of Briffot, tells us rather whimfically, that he paffes over this paffage, and runs over that, when, by the bye, he enters more particularly into the detail of both; and difclaims all idea of entertaining the Houfe on the fubject, when at the fame time he enters into all the most minute particulars, and omits no one of the paflages which he pre

tends

tends to pass over; and all this is done to fhew the Houfe, that the fyftem now adopted by the government of that country is fo abhorrent to the feelings of human nature, fo contrary to all the natural love of harmony and of focial order implanted in the heart of man, fo ruinous to external force, as well as to internal peace, profperity, and happiness, that it cannot ftand. Is this the conclufion that the Noble Lord wifhes to draw from all the details that he has taken from Briffot? I clofe with him on the subject. Admit his facts, grant that the fyftem now prevalent in France is all that he has called it, and what ought to be the confequence to us? that we ought to leave to the natural workings of the difcords which it is calculated to engender, the task of its overthrow. That if it will not ftand of itfelt, it is not neceflary for us to attack it. That if it be an oppofition to all the feelings that God hath planted in the heart of man, it is an outrage on the Deity, feebly to interpofe our weapons where he has already erected the certain caufes of its fall. Why dare to take the thunderbolts out of his hand, and ftrive, by the petty force of human oppofition, to accomplish that which is in the fettled order of eternal Providence? The Noble Lord quotes a number of paffages from Briffot, to prove that a fyftem of fraternization, which was one of the pretexts on which we went to war, is ftill, in reality, maintained by the party in power, though the one party differed from the other about the means. The Noble Lord has not been very fortunate in proving what he is fo eager to make out. Are the principles of fraternization now avowed? The Noble Lord fhews us that they all accufe each other on the fubject.. The Federalifts throw it on the Anarchifts, the Anarchifts on the Federalifts, the Valley on the Mountain, and the Mountain on the Valley: they all feem to have repented of their having provoked this country to war; and the confequence of this remark which the Noble Lord has brought into review, is, that they have abandoned the fentiment and principle of fraternization completely and for ever. It is a lamentable thing, Mr. Speaker, that Great Britain feems to have taken it up. They have declared that they will not interfere in the government of any other country than their own; they have declared that they will dictate to no nation, nor to no people, what fyftem they fhall pursue. What have we done? view our conduct to Genoa! behold the fyftem of British fraternization! With every petty and unfortunate ftate of Europe have we prefumed to fraternize: wherever we durft be prefumptious enough to dictate, we have committed the outrage. There is no magnanimity in our fraternity, for what is the fort of brotherhood that we profefs to the poor defenceless States of Genoa and others? We have faid, you fhall not govern yourselves; you fhall not promote your own hap pinefs; you fhall not be guided by your own councils; you fhall

not preferve the bleffings of peace, neutrality, and commerce; we choose to fraternize with you, and to communicate to you in bro therhood the calamities of the war in which we are involved. Such is the glorious character of British fraternization.

The Noble Lord's next remark was, that the French had fent their Citizen Genet to America; and here again he enumerates all the outrages that he committed, the infults which he gave to General Washington, and others; his erection of clubs, of a confular tribunal for the judgment of prizes, &c. &c. And what is the refult of all this enumeration? The Noble Lord is affuredly most unfortunate in his arguments! America remains neutral and at peace! America, with the wisdom, prudence, and policy that we difdained, preferves at this moment perfect tranquillity, and has opened the road to unbounded opulence: America has preserved to herself the commerce which we abandoned, and she is at this moment enjoying all the fruits of industry, manufacture, and trade increafed by the demolition of every rival, and which, but for our infanity, would have been exclufively our own. And who will fay that America is degraded by this conduct? Who will fay that even the infolence of Citizen Genet, even as stated by the Noble Lord, would have been a good and genuine caufe of war? No man will affert that America has not, by the wife policy which fhe has purfued, diftinguished herself above the nations of Europe, and has fhewn the happy refult of an administration actuated only by a regard to general happiness.

The next thing the Noble Lord remarks from Briffot's pamphlet, feemingly as a juftification for our going to war, is, that Monge had, in the month of October, 1792, promised the government of France, to have thirty fhips of the line at fea in April. And this, fays the Noble Lord, with boastful exclamation, was happily prevented by the vigorous meafures of the British Minifter. And what was the vigorous meafure purfued? Two corn fhips were ftopped in the river Thames! "If they knew of fuch a promife on the part of the Marine Minifter of France," fays the Noble Lord, and had not taken steps to prevent its execution, they would have deferved to be whipped like fchool-boys." Then, Sir, let us examine what steps they did take. Was the equipment of this fleet prevented by the ftoppage of a couple of corn fhips? Had they a fleet ready to meet fuch a fleet in the month of April, or even for a confiderable time afterwards? Minifters would "deferve to be whipped like fchool-boys," if knowing, in the month of October, that fuch a defign was really taken up by France, they neglected every meafure that common fenfe, forefight, and their duty fhould have dictated to preferve us against the confequences.

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