Unwilling, sir, as I am to go into much detail on ground which has been so often trodden before; yet, when I find the learned gentleman, after all the information which he must have received, if he has read any of the answers to his work (however ignorant he might be when he wrote it), still giving the sanction of his authority to the supposition that the order to M. Chauvelin [French minister] to depart from this kingdom was the cause of the war between this country and France, I do feel it necessary to say a few words on that part of the subject.
Inaccuracy in dates seems to be a sort of fatality common to all who have written on that side of the question; for even the writer of the note to his Majesty is not more correct, in this respect, than if he had taken his information only from the pamphlet of the learned gentleman. The House will recollect the first professions of the French Republic, which are enumerated, and enumerated truly, in that note. They are tests of every thing which would best recommend a government to the esteem and confidence of foreign powers, and the reverse of every thing which has been the system and practice of France now for near ten years. It is there stated that their first principles were love of peace, aversion to conquest, and respect for the independence of other countries. In the same note it seems, indeed, admitted that they since have violated all those principles; but it is alleged that they have done so only in consequence of the provocation of other powers. One of the first of those provocations is stated to have consisted in the various outrages offered to their ministers, of which the example is said to have been set by the King of Great Britain in his conduct to M. Chauvelin. In answer to this supposition, it is only necessary to remark, that before the example was given, before Austria and Prussia are supposed to have been thus encouraged to combine in a plan for the partition of France, that plan, if it ever existed at all, had existed and been acted upon for above eight months. France and Prussia had been at war eight months before the dismissal of M. Chauvelin. So much for the accuracy of the statement.
I have been hitherto commenting on the arguments contained in the Notes. I come now to those of the learned gentleman. I understand him to say that the dismissal of M. Chauvelin was the real cause, I do not say of the general war, but of the rupture between France and England; and the learned gentleman states particularly that this dismissal rendered all discussion of the points in dispute impossible. Now I desire to meet distinctly every part of this assertion. I maintain, on the contrary, that an opportunity was given for discussing every matter in dispute between France and Great Britain as fully as if a regular and accredited French minister had been resident here; that the causes of war which existed at the beginning, or arose during the course of this discussion, were such as would have justified, twenty times over, a declaration of war on the part of this country; that all the explanations on the part of France were evidently unsatisfactory and inadmissible, and that M. Chauvelin had given in a peremptory ultimatum, declaring that if these explanations were not received as sufficient, and if we did not immediately disarm, our refusal would be considered as a declaration of war. After this followed that scene which no man can even now speak of without horror, or think of without indignation; that murder and regicide from which I was sorry to hear the learned gentleman date the beginning of the legal government of France.
Having thus given in their ultimatum, they added, as a further demand (while we were smarting under accumulated injuries, for which all satisfaction was denied) that we should instantly receive M. Chauvelin as their embassador, with new credentials, representing them in the character which they had just derived from the murder of their sovereign. We replied, “he came here as the representative of a sovereign whom you have put to a cruel and illegal death; we have no satisfaction for the injuries we have received, no security from the danger with which we are threatened. Under these circumstances we will not receive your new credentials. The former credentials you have yourself recalled by the sacrifice of your King.”
What, from that moment, was the situation of M. Chauvelin? He was reduced to the situation of a private individual, and was required to quit the kingdom under the provisions of the Alien Act, which, for the purpose of securing domestic tranquillity, had recently invested his Majesty with the power of removing out of this kingdom all foreigners suspected of revolutionary principles. Is it contended that he was then less liable to the provisions of that act than any other individual foreigner, whose conduct afforded to government just ground of objection or suspicion? Did his conduct and connections here afford no such ground? or will it be pretended that the bare act of refusing to receive fresh credentials from an infant republic, not then acknowledged by any one power of Europe, and in the very act of heaping upon us injuries and insults, was of itself a cause of war? So far from it, that even the very nations of Europe whose wisdom and moderation have been repeatedly extolled for maintaining neutrality, and preserving friendship with the French Republic, remained for years subsequent to this period without receiving from it any accredited minister, or doing any one act to acknowledge its political existence.
In answer to a representation from the belligerent powers, in December, 1793, Count Bernstorff, the minister of Denmark, officially declared that “it was well known that the National Convention had appointed M. Grouville Minister Plenipotentiary at Denmark, but that it was also well known that he had neither been received nor acknowledged in that quality.” And as late as February, 1796, when the same minister was at length, for the first time, received in his official capacity, Count Bernstorff, in a public note, assigned this reason for that change of conduct: “So long as no other than a revolutionary government existed in France, his Majesty could not acknowledge the minister of that government; but now that the French Constitution is completely organized, and a regular government established in France, his Majesty’s obligation ceases in that respect, and M. Grouville will therefore be acknowledged in the usual form.” How far the Court of Denmark was justified in the opinion that a revolutionary government then no longer existed in France it is not now necessary to inquire; but whatever may have been the fact in that respect, the principle on which they acted is clear and intelligible, and is a decisive instance in favor of the proposition which I have maintained.
Is it, then, necessary to examine what were the terms of that ultimatum with which we refused to comply? Acts of hostility had been openly threatened against our allies; a hostility founded upon the assumption of a right which would at once supersede the whole law of nations. The pretended right to open the Scheldt we discussed at the time, not so much on account of its immediate importance (though it was important both in a maritime and commercial view) as on account of the general principle on which it was founded.[2] On the same arbitrary notion they soon afterward discovered that sacred law of nature which made the Rhine and the Alps the legitimate boundaries of France, and assumed the power, which they have affected to exercise through the whole of the Revolution, of superseding, by a new code of their own, all the recognized principles of the law of nations. They were, in fact, actually advancing toward the republic of Holland, by rapid strides, after the victory of Jemappes and they had ordered their generals to pursue the Austrian troops into any neutral country, thereby explicitly avowing an intention of invading Holland. They had already shown their moderation and self-denial by incorporating Belgium with the French Republic. These lovers of peace, who set out with a sworn aversion to conquest, and professions of respect for the independence of other nations; who pretend that they departed from this system only in consequence of your aggression, themselves, in time of peace, while you were still confessedly neutral, without the pretence or shadow of provocation, wrested Savoy from the King of Sardinia, and had proceeded to incorporate it likewise with France.[3] These were their aggressions at this period, and more than these. They had issued a universal declaration of war against all the thrones of Europe, and they had, by their conduct, applied it particularly and specifically to you. They had passed the decree of the 19th of November, 1792, proclaiming the promise of French succor to all nations who should manifest a wish to become free; they had, by all their language as well as their example, shown what they understood to be freedom; they had sealed their principles by the deposition of their sovereign; they had applied them to England by inviting and encouraging the addresses of those seditious and traitorous societies, who, from the beginning, favored their views, and who, encouraged by your forbearance, were even then publicly avowing French doctrines, and anticipating their success in this country—who were hailing the progress of those proceedings in France which led to the murder of its king; they were even then looking to the day when they should behold a National Convention in England formed upon similar principles.[4]
And what were the explanations they offered on these different grounds of offence? As to Holland: they told you the Scheldt was too insignificant for you to trouble yourselves about, and therefore it was to be decided as they chose, in breach of positive treaty, which they had themselves guaranteed, and which we, by our alliance, were bound to support. If, however, after the war was over, Belgium should have consolidated its liberty (a term of which we now know the meaning, from the fate of every nation into which the arms of France have penetrated) then Belgium and Holland might, if they pleased, settle the question of the Scheldt by separate negotiation between themselves. With respect to aggrandizement, they assured us that they would retain possession of Belgium by arms no longer than they should find it necessary to the purpose already stated, of consolidating its liberty. And with respect to the decree of the 19th of November, 1792, applied as it was pointedly to you, by all the intercourse I have stated with all the seditious and traitorous part of this country, and particularly by the speeches of every leading man among them, they contented themselves with asserting that the declaration conveyed no such meaning as was imputed to it, and that, so far from encouraging sedition, it could apply only to countries where a great majority of the people should have already declared itself in favor of a revolution: a supposition which, as they asserted, necessarily implied a total absence of all sedition.
What would have been the effect of admitting this explanation? to suffer a nation, and an armed nation, to preach to the inhabitants of all the countries in the world that they themselves were slaves and their rulers tyrants; to encourage and invite them to revolution by a previous promise of French support to whatever might call itself a majority, or to whatever France might declare to be so. This was their explanation; and this, they told you, was their ultimatum.
But was this all? Even at that very moment, when they were endeavoring to induce you to admit these explanations, to be contented with the avowal that France offered herself as a general guaranty for every successful revolution, and would interfere only to sanction and confirm whatever the free and uninfluenced choice of the people might have decided, what were their orders to their generals on the same subject? In the midst of these amicable explanations with you came forth a decree which I really believe must be effaced from the minds of gentlemen opposite to me, if they can prevail upon themselves for a moment to hint even a doubt upon the origin of this quarrel, not only as to this country, but as to all the nations of Europe with whom France has been subsequently engaged in hostility. I speak of the decree of the 15th of December, 1792. This decree, more even than all the previous transactions, amounted to a universal declaration of war against all thrones, and against all civilized governments. It said, wherever the armies of France shall come (whether within countries then at war or at peace is not distinguished) in all those countries it shall be the first care of their generals to introduce the principles and the practice of the French Revolution; to demolish all privileged orders, and every thing which obstructs the establishment of their new system.[5]