It might be thought that here, at length, we had touched the bottom of humiliation; our lead was brought up covered with mud. But "in the lowest deep, a lower deep" was to open for us still more profound abysses of disgrace and shame. However, in we leaped. We came forward in our own name. The passport, such a passport and safe-conduct as would be granted to thieves who might come in to betray their accomplices, and no better, was granted to British supplication. To leave no doubt of its spirit, as soon as the rumor of this act of condescension could get abroad, it was formally announced with an explanation from authority, containing an invective against the ministry of Great Britain, their habitual frauds, their proverbial Punic perfidy. No such state-paper, as a preliminary to a negotiation for peace, has ever yet appeared. Very few declarations of war have ever shown so much and so unqualified animosity. I place it below,[26] as a diplomatic curiosity, and in order to be the better understood in the few remarks I have to make upon a peace which, indeed, defies all description. "None but itself can be its parallel."
I pass by all the insolence and contumely of the performance, as it comes from them. The present question is not, how we are to be affected with it in regard to our dignity. That is gone. I shall say no more about it. Light lie the earth on the ashes of English pride! I shall only observe upon it politically, and as furnishing a direction for our own conduct in this low business.
The very idea of a negotiation for peace, whatever the inward sentiments of the parties may be, implies some confidence in their faith, some degree of belief in the professions which are made concerning it. A temporary and occasional credit, at least, is granted. Otherwise men stumble on the very threshold. I therefore wish to ask what hope we can have of their good faith, who, as the very basis of the negotiation, assume the ill faith and treachery of those they have to deal with? The terms, as against us, must be such as imply a full security against a treacherous conduct,—that is, such terms as this Directory stated in its first declaration, to place us "in an utter impossibility of executing our wretched projects." This is the omen, and the sole omen, under which we have consented to open our treaty.
The second observation I have to make upon it (much connected, undoubtedly, with the first) is, that they have informed you of the result they propose from the kind of peace they mean to grant you, —that is to say, the union they propose among nations with the view of rivalling our trade and destroying our naval power; and this they suppose (and with good reason, too) must be the inevitable effect of their peace. It forms one of their principal grounds for suspecting our ministers could not be in good earnest in their proposition. They make no scruple beforehand to tell you the whole of what they intend; and this is what we call, in the modern style, the acceptance of a proposition for peace! In old language it would be called a most haughty, offensive, and insolent rejection of all treaty.
Thirdly, they tell you what they conceive to be the perfidious policy which dictates your delusive offer: that is, the design of cheating not only them, but the people of England, against whose interest and inclination this war is supposed to be carried on.
If we proceed in this business, under this preliminary declaration, it seems to me that we admit, (now for the third time,) by something a great deal stronger than words, the truth of the charges of every kind which they make upon the British ministry, and the grounds of those foul imputations. The language used by us, which in other circumstances would not be exceptionable, in this case tends very strongly to confirm and realize the suspicion of our enemy: I mean the declaration, that, if we do not obtain such terms of peace as suits our opinion of what our interests require, then, and in that case, we shall continue the war with vigor. This offer, so reasoned, plainly implies, that, without it, our leaders themselves entertain great doubts of the opinion and good affections of the British people; otherwise there does not appear any cause why we should proceed, under the scandalous construction of our enemy, upon the former offer made by Mr. Wickham, and on the new offer made directly at Paris. It is not, therefore, from a sense of dignity, but from the danger of radicating that false sentiment in the breasts of the enemy, that I think, under the auspices of this declaration, we cannot, with the least hope of a good event, or, indeed, with any regard to the common safety, proceed in the train of this negotiation. I wish ministry would seriously consider the importance of their seeming to confirm the enemy in an opinion that his frequent use of appeals to the people against their government has not been without its effect. If it puts an end to this war, it will render another impracticable.
Whoever goes to the Directorial presence under this passport, with this offensive comment and foul explanation, goes, in the avowed sense of the court to which he is sent, as the instrument of a government dissociated from the interests and wishes of the nation, for the purpose of cheating both the people of France and the people of England. He goes out the declared emissary of a faithless ministry. He has perfidy for his credentials. He has national weakness for his full powers. I yet doubt whether any one can be found to invest himself with that character. If there should, it would be pleasant to read his instructions on the answer which he is to give to the Directory, in case they should repeat to him the substance of the manifesto which he carries with him in his portfolio.
So much for the first manifesto of the Regicide Court which went along with the passport. Lest this declaration should seem the effect of haste, or a mere sudden effusion of pride and insolence, on full deliberation, about a week after comes out a second. This manifesto is dated the 5th of October, one day before the speech from the throne, on the vigil of the festive day of cordial unanimity so happily celebrated by all parties in the British Parliament. In this piece the Regicides, our worthy friends, (I call them by advance and by courtesy what by law I shall be obliged to call them hereafter,) our worthy friends, I say, renew and enforce the former declaration concerning our faith and sincerity, which they pinned to our passport. On three other points, which run through all their declarations, they are more explicit than ever.
First, they more directly undertake to be the real representatives of the people of this kingdom: and on a supposition, in which they agree with our Parliamentary reformers, that the House of Commons is not that representative, the function being vacant, they, as our true constitutional organ, inform his Majesty and the world of the sense of the nation. They tell us that "the English people see with regret his Majesty's government squandering away the funds which had been granted to him." This astonishing assumption of the public voice of England is but a slight foretaste of the usurpation which, on a peace, we may be assured they will make of all the powers in all the parts of our vassal Constitution. "If they do these things in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?"
Next they tell us, as a condition to our treaty, that "this government must abjure the unjust hatred it bears to them, and at last open its ears to the voice of humanity." Truly, this is, even from them, an extraordinary demand. Hitherto, it seems, we have put wax into our ears, to shut them up against the tender, soothing strains, in the affettuoso of humanity, warbled from the throats of Reubell, Carnot, Tallien, and the whole chorus of confiscators, domiciliary visitors, committee-men of research, jurors and presidents of revolutionary tribunals, regicides, assassins, massacrers, and Septembrisers. It is not difficult to discern what sort of humanity our government is to learn from these Siren singers. Our government also; I admit, with some reason, as a step towards the proposed fraternity, is required to abjure the unjust hatred which it bears to this body of honor and virtue. I thank God I am neither a minister nor a leader of opposition. I protest I cannot do what they desire. I could not do it, if I were under the guillotine,—or, as they ingeniously and pleasantly express it, "looking out of the little national window." Even at that opening I could receive none of their light. I am fortified against all such affections by the declaration of the government, which I must yet consider as lawful, made on the 29th of October, 1793,[27] and still ringing in my ears. This Declaration was transmitted not only to all our commanders by sea and land, but to our ministers in every court of Europe. It is the most eloquent and highly finished in the style, the most judicious in the choice of topics, the most orderly in the arrangement, and the most rich in the coloring, without employing the smallest degree of exaggeration, of any state-paper that has ever yet appeared. An ancient writer (Plutarch, I think it is) quotes some verses on the eloquence of Pericles, who is called "the only orator that left stings in the minds of his hearers." Like his, the eloquence of the Declaration, not contradicting, but enforcing, sentiments of the truest humanity, has left stings that have penetrated more than skin-deep into my mind and never can they be extracted by all the surgery of murder; never can the throbbings they have created be assuaged by all the emollient cataplasms of robbery and confiscation. I cannot love the Republic.