Representative British Orations Volume 2 (of 4) / With Introductions and Explanatory Notes

by Unknown

Nearly at the same period, in violation of the rights of neutrality and of the treaty which had been concluded between the French Republic and the Grand Duke of Tuscany in the preceding year, and in breach of a positive promise given only a few days before, the French army forcibly took possession of Leghorn, for the purpose of seizing the British property which was deposited there and confiscating it as a prize; and shortly after, when Bonaparte agreed to evacuate Leghorn, in return for the evacuation of the island of Elba, which was in possession of the British troops, he insisted upon a separate article, by which, in addition to the plunder before obtained, by the infraction of the law of nations, it was stipulated that the Grand Duke should pay the expense which the French had incurred by this invasion of his territory.

In the proceedings toward Genoa we shall find not only a continuance of the same system of extortion and plunder, in violation of the solemn pledge contained in the proclamations already referred to, but a striking instance of the revolutionary means employed for the destruction of independent governments. A French minister was at that time resident at Genoa, which was acknowledged by France to be in a state of neutrality and friendship; in breach of this neutrality Bonaparte began, in the year 1796, with the demand of a loan. He afterward, from the month of September, required and enforced the payment of a monthly subsidy, to the amount which he thought proper to stipulate. These exactions were accompanied by repeated assurances and protestations of friendship; they were followed, in May, 1797, by a conspiracy against the government, fomented by the emissaries of the French embassy, and conducted by the partisans of France, encouraged and afterward protected by the French minister. The conspirators failed in their first attempt. Overpowered by the courage and voluntary exertions of the inhabitants, their force was dispersed, and many of their number were arrested. Bonaparte instantly considered the defeat of the conspirators as an act of aggression against the French Republic; he despatched an aid-de-camp with an order to the Senate of this independent State; first, to release all the French who were detained; secondly, to punish those who had arrested them; thirdly, to declare that they had no share in the insurrection; and fourthly, to disarm the people. Several French prisoners were immediately released, and a proclamation was preparing to disarm the inhabitants, when, by a second note, Bonaparte required the arrest of the three inquisitors of state, and immediate alterations in the Constitution. He accompanied this with an order to the French minister to quit Genoa, if his commands were not immediately carried into execution; at the same moment his troops entered the territory of the Republic; and shortly after, the councils, intimidated and overpowered, abdicated their functions. Three deputies were then sent to Bonaparte to receive from him a new Constitution. On the 6th of June, after the conferences at Montebello, he signed a convention, or rather issued a decree, by which he fixed the new form of their government; he himself named provisionally all the members who were to compose it, and he required the payment of seven millions of livres as the price of the subversion of their Constitution and their independence. These transactions require but one short comment. It is to be found in the official account given of them at Paris; which is in these memorable words: “General Bonaparte has pursued the only line of conduct which could be allowed in the representative of a nation which has supported the war only to procure the solemn acknowledgment of the right of nations to change the form of their government. He contributed nothing toward the revolution of Genoa, but he seized the first moment to acknowledge the new government, as soon as he saw that it was the result of the wishes of the people.”

It is unnecessary to dwell on the wanton attacks against Rome, under the direction of Bonaparte himself, in the year 1796, and in the beginning of 1797, which terminated first by the treaty of Tolentino concluded by Bonaparte, in which, by enormous sacrifices, the Pope was allowed to purchase the acknowledgment of his authority as a sovereign prince; and secondly, by the violation of that very treaty, and the subversion of the papal authority by Joseph Bonaparte, the brother and the agent of the general, and the minister of the French Republic to the Holy See. A transaction accompanied by outrages and insults toward the pious and venerable Pontiff, in spite of the sanctity of his age and the unsullied purity of his character, which even to a Protestant seem hardly short of the guilt of sacrilege.

But of all the disgusting and tragical scenes which took place in Italy in the course of the period I am describing, those which passed at Venice are perhaps the most striking and the most characteristic. In May, 1796, the French army, under Bonaparte, in the full tide of its success against the Austrians, first approached the territories of this Republic, which from the commencement of the war had observed a rigid neutrality. Their entrance on these territories was, as usual, accompanied by a solemn proclamation in the name of their general:

BONAPARTE TO THE REPUBLIC OF VENICE.

“It is to deliver the finest country in Europe from the iron yoke of the proud house of Austria, that the French army has braved obstacles the most difficult to surmount. Victory in union with justice has crowned its efforts. The wreck of the enemy’s army has retired behind the Mincio. The French army, in order to follow them, passes over the territory of the Republic of Venice; but it will never forget that ancient friendship unites the two republics. Religion, government, customs, and property shall be respected. That the people may be without apprehension, the most severe discipline shall be maintained. All that may be provided for the army shall be faithfully paid for in money. The general-in-chief engages the officers of the Republic of Venice, the magistrates, and the priests, to make known these sentiments to the people, in order that confidence may cement that friendship which has so long united the two nations. Faithful in the path of honor as in that of victory, the French soldier is terrible only to the enemies of his liberty and his government.

“Bonaparte.”

This proclamation was followed by exactions similar to those which were practised against Genoa, by the renewal of similar professions of friendship, and the use of similar means to excite insurrection. At length, in the spring of 1797, occasion was taken, from disturbances thus excited, to forge in the name of the Venetian Government, a proclamation hostile to France, and this proceeding was made the ground for military execution against the country, and for effecting by force the subversion of its ancient government and the establishment of the democratic forms of the French Revolution. This revolution was sealed by a treaty, signed in May, 1797, between Bonaparte and commissioners appointed on the part of the new and revolutionary government of Venice. By the second and third secret articles of this treaty, Venice agreed to give as a ransom, to secure itself against all further exactions or demands, the sum of three millions of livres in money, the value of three millions more in articles of naval supply, and three ships of the line; and it received in return the assurances of the friendship and support of the French Republic. Immediately after the signature of this treaty, the arsenal, the library, and the palace of St. Marc were ransacked and plundered, and heavy additional contributions were imposed upon its inhabitants. And, in not more than four months afterward, this very Republic of Venice, united by alliance to France, the creature of Bonaparte himself, from whom it had received the present of French liberty, was by the same Bonaparte transferred, under the treaty of Campo Formio, to “that iron yoke of the proud house of Austria,” to deliver it from which he had represented in his first proclamation to be the great object of all his operations.

Sir, all this is followed by the memorable expedition into Egypt, which I mention, not merely because it forms a principal article in the catalogue of those acts of violence and perfidy in which Bonaparte has been engaged; not merely because it was an enterprise peculiarly his own, of which he was himself the planner, the executor, and the betrayer; but chiefly because when from thence he retires to a different scene, to take possession of a new throne, from which he is to speak upon an equality with the kings and governors of Europe, he leaves behind him, at the moment of his departure, a specimen, which cannot be mistaken, of his principles of negotiation. The intercepted correspondence which has been alluded to in this debate, seems to afford the strongest ground to believe that his offers to the Turkish Government to evacuate Egypt were made solely with a view to gain time; that the ratification of any treaty on this subject was to be delayed with the view of finally eluding its performance, if any change of circumstances favorable to the French should occur in the interval. But whatever gentlemen may think of the intention with which these offers were made, there will at least be no question with respect to the credit due to those professions by which he endeavored to prove in Egypt his pacific dispositions. He expressly enjoins his successor strongly and steadily to insist, in all his intercourse with the Turks, that he came to Egypt with no hostile design, and that he never meant to keep possession of the country; while, on the opposite page of the same instructions, he states in the most unequivocal manner his regret at the discomfiture of his favorite project of colonizing Egypt, and of maintaining it as a territorial acquisition. Now, sir, if in any note addressed to the Grand Vizier or the Sultan, Bonaparte had claimed credit for the sincerity of his professions, that he came to Egypt with no view hostile to Turkey, and solely for the purpose of molesting the British interests, is there any one argument now used to induce us to believe his present professions to us, which might not have been equally urged on that occasion? Would not those professions have been equally supported by solemn asseveration, by the same reference which is now made to personal character, with this single difference, that they would have then had one instance less of hypocrisy and falsehood, which we have since had occasion to trace in this very transaction?

It is unnecessary to say more with respect to the credit due to his professions, or the reliance to be placed on his general character. But it will, perhaps, be argued that whatever may be his character, or whatever has been his past conduct, he has now an interest in making and observing peace. That he has an interest in making peace is at best but a doubtful proposition, and that he has an interest in preserving it is still more uncertain. That it is his interest to negotiate, I do not indeed deny. It is his interest, above all, to engage this country in separate negotiation, in order to loosen and dissolve the whole system of the confederacy on the continent, to palsy at once the arms of Russia, or of Austria, or of any other country that might look to you for support; and then either to break off his separate treaty, or, if he should have concluded it, to apply the lesson which is taught in his school of policy in Egypt, and to revive at his pleasure those claims of indemnification which may have been reserved to some happier period.

This is precisely the interest which he has in negotiation. But on what grounds are we to be convinced that he has an interest in concluding and observing a solid and permanent pacification? Under all the circumstances of his personal character, and his newly acquired power, what other security has he for retaining that power but the sword? His hold upon France is the sword, and he has no other. Is he connected with the soil, or with the habits, the affections, or the prejudices of the country? He is a stranger, a foreigner, and a usurper. He unites in his own person every thing that a pure republican must detest; every thing that an enraged Jacobin has abjured; every thing that a sincere and faithful royalist must feel as an insult. If he is opposed at any time in his career, what is his appeal? He appeals to his fortune; in other words, to his army and his sword. Placing, then, his whole reliance upon military support, can he afford to let his military renown pass away, to let his laurels wither, to let the memory of his trophies sink in obscurity? Is it certain that with his army confined within France, and restrained from inroads upon her neighbors, that he can maintain, at his devotion, a force sufficiently numerous to support his power? Having no object but the possession of absolute dominion, no passion but military glory, is it to be reckoned as certain that he can feel such an interest in permanent peace as would justify us in laying down our arms, reducing our expense, and relinquishing our means of security, on the faith of his engagements? Do we believe that, after the conclusion of peace, he would not still sigh over the lost trophies of Egypt, wrested from him by the celebrated victory of Aboukir, and the brilliant exertions of that heroic band of British seamen, whose influence and example rendered the Turkish troops invincible at Acre? Can he forget that the effect of these exploits enabled Austria and Russia, in one campaign, to recover from France all which she had acquired by his victories, to dissolve the charm which for a time fascinated Europe, and to show that their generals, contending in a just cause, could efface, even by their success and their military glory, the most dazzling triumphs of his victorious and desolating ambition?

Can we believe, with these impressions on his mind, that if, after a year, eighteen months, or two years of peace had elapsed, he should be tempted by the appearance of fresh insurrection in Ireland, encouraged by renewed and unrestrained communication with France, and fomented by the fresh infusion of Jacobin principles; if we were at such a moment without a fleet to watch the ports of France, or to guard the coasts of Ireland, without a disposable army, or an embodied militia, capable of supplying a speedy and adequate re-enforcement, and that he had suddenly the means of transporting thither a body of twenty or thirty thousand French troops; can we believe that, at such a moment, his ambition and vindictive spirit would be restrained by the recollection of engagements or the obligation of treaty? Or if, in some new crisis of difficulty and danger to the Ottoman Empire, with no British navy in the Mediterranean, no confederacy formed, no force collected to support it, an opportunity should present itself for resuming the abandoned expedition to Egypt, for renewing the avowed and favorite project of conquering and colonizing that rich and fertile country, and of opening the way to wound some of the vital interests of England, and to plunder the treasures of the East, in order to fill the bankrupt coffers of France,—would it be the interest of Bonaparte, under such circumstances, or his principles, his moderation, his love of peace, his aversion to conquest, and his regard for the independence of other nations—would it be all or any of these that would secure us against an attempt which would leave us only the option of submitting without a struggle to certain loss and disgrace, or of renewing the contest which we had prematurely terminated, without allies, without preparation, with diminished means, and with increased difficulty and hazard?