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

by Unknown

Having taken a view of what it was, let us now examine what it is. In the first place, we see, as has been truly stated, a change in the description and form of the sovereign authority. A supreme power is placed at the head of this nominal republic, with a more open avowal of military despotism than at any former period; with a more open and undisguised abandonment of the names and pretences under which that despotism long attempted to conceal itself. The different institutions, republican in their form and appearance, which were before the instruments of that despotism, are now annihilated; they have given way to the absolute power of one man, concentrating in himself all the authority of the state, and differing from other monarchs only in this, that (as my honorable friend [Mr. Canning] truly stated it) he wields a sword instead of a sceptre. What, then, is the confidence we are to derive either from the frame of the government, or from the character and past conduct of the person who is now the absolute ruler of France?

Had we seen a man of whom we had no previous knowledge suddenly invested with the sovereign authority of the country; invested with the power of taxation, with the power of the sword, the power of war and peace, the unlimited power of commanding the resources, of disposing of the lives and fortunes, of every man in France; if we had seen at the same moment all the inferior machinery of the Revolution, which, under the variety of successive shocks, had kept the system in motion, still remaining entire,—all that, by requisition and plunder, had given activity to the revolutionary system of finance, and had furnished the means of creating an army, by converting every man who was of age to bear arms into a soldier, not for the defence of his own country, but for the sake of carrying the war into the country of the enemy; if we had seen all the subordinate instruments of Jacobin power subsisting in their full force, and retaining (to use the French phrase) all their original organization; and had then observed this single change in the conduct of their affairs, that there was now one man, with no rival to thwart his measures, no colleague to divide his powers, no council to control his operations, no liberty of speaking or writing, no expression of public opinion to check or influence his conduct; under such circumstances, should we be wrong to pause, or wait for the evidence of facts and experience, before we consented to trust our safety to the forbearance of a single man, in such a situation, and to relinquish those means of defence which have hitherto carried us safe through all the storms of the Revolution, if we were to ask what are the principles and character of this stranger, to whom fortune has suddenly committed the concerns of a great and powerful nation?

But is this the actual state of the present question? Are we talking of a stranger of whom we have heard nothing? No, sir, we have heard of him; we, and Europe, and the world, have heard both of him and of the satellites by whom he is surrounded, and it is impossible to discuss fairly the propriety of any answer which could be returned to his overtures of negotiation without taking into consideration the inferences to be drawn from his personal character and conduct. I know it is the fashion with some gentlemen to represent any reference to topics of this nature as invidious and irritating; but the truth is, that they rise unavoidably out of the very nature of the question. Would it have been possible for ministers to discharge their duty, in offering their advice to their sovereign, either for accepting or declining negotiation, without taking into their account the reliance to be placed on the disposition and the principles of the person on whose disposition and principles the security to be obtained by treaty must, in the present circumstances, principally depend? Or would they act honestly or candidly toward Parliament and toward the country if, having been guided by these considerations, they forbore to state, publicly and distinctly, the real grounds which have influenced their decision; and if, from a false delicacy and groundless timidity, they purposely declined an examination of a point, the most essential toward enabling Parliament to form a just determination on so important a subject?

What opinion, then, are we led to form of the pretensions of the Consul to those particular qualities for which, in the official note, his personal character is represented to us as the surest pledge of peace? We are told this is his second attempt at general pacification. Let us see, for a moment, how his attempt has been conducted. There is, indeed, as the learned gentleman has said, a word in the first declaration which refers to general peace, and which states this to be the second time in which the Consul has endeavored to accomplish that object. We thought fit, for the reasons which have been assigned, to decline altogether the proposal of treating, under the present circumstances, but we, at the same time, expressly stated that, whenever the moment for treaty should arrive, we would in no case treat but in conjunction with our allies. Our general refusal to negotiate at the present moment does not prevent the Consul from renewing his overtures; but are they renewed for the purpose of general pacification? Though he had hinted at general peace in the terms of his first note; though we had shown by our answer that we deemed negotiation, even for general peace, at this moment inadmissible; though we added that, even at any future period, we would treat only in conjunction with our allies, what was the proposal contained in his last note? To treat for a separate peace between Great Britain and France.

Such was the second attempt to effect general pacification—a proposal for a separate treaty with Great Britain. What had been the first? The conclusion of a separate treaty with Austria; and there are two anecdotes connected with the conclusion of this treaty, which are sufficient to illustrate the disposition of this pacificator of Europe. This very treaty of Campo Formio was ostentatiously professed to be concluded with the Emperor for the purpose of enabling Bonaparte to take the command of the army of England, and to dictate a separate peace with this country on the banks of the Thames. But there is this additional circumstance, singular beyond all conception, considering that we are now referred to the treaty of Campo Formio as a proof of the personal disposition of the Consul to general peace. He sent his two confidential and chosen friends, Berthier and Monge, charged to communicate to the Directory this treaty of Campo Formio; to announce to them that one enemy was humbled, that the war with Austria was terminated, and, therefore, that now was the moment to prosecute their operations against this country; they used on this occasion the memorable words: “The kingdom of Great Britain and the French Republic can not exist together.”[14] This, I say, was the solemn declaration of the deputies and embassadors of Bonaparte himself, offering to the Directory the first-fruits of this first attempt at general pacification.

So much for his disposition toward general pacification. Let us look next at the part he has taken in the different stages of the French Revolution, and let us then judge whether we are to look to him as the security against revolutionary principles. Let us determine what reliance we can place on his engagements with other countries, when we see how he has observed his engagements to his own. When the Constitution of the third year was established under Barras, that Constitution was imposed by the arms of Bonaparte, then commanding the army of the triumvirate in Paris. To that Constitution he then swore fidelity. How often he has repeated the same oath, I know not, but twice, at least, we know that he has not only repeated it himself, but tendered it to others, under circumstances too striking not to be stated.

Sir, the House cannot have forgotten the Revolution of the 4th of September, which produced the dismissal of Lord Malmesbury from Lisle. How was that revolution procured? It was procured chiefly by the promise of Bonaparte, in the name of his army, decidedly to support the Directory in those measures which led to the infringement and violation of every thing that the authors of the Constitution of 1795, or its adherents, could consider as fundamental, and which established a system of despotism inferior only to that now realized in his own person. Immediately before this event, in the midst of the desolation and bloodshed of Italy he had received the sacred present of new banners from the Directory; he delivered them to his army with this exhortation: “Let us swear, fellow-soldiers, by the names of the patriots who have died by our side, eternal hatred to the enemies of the Constitution of the third year,”—that very Constitution which he soon after enabled the Directory to violate, and which at the head of his grenadiers he has now finally destroyed. Sir, that oath was again renewed, in the midst of that very scene to which I have last referred; the oath of fidelity to the Constitution of the third year was administered to all the members of the Assembly then sitting, under the terror of the bayonet, as the solemn preparation for the business of the day; and the morning was ushered in with swearing attachment to the Constitution, that the evening might close with its destruction.

If we carry our views out of France, and look at the dreadful catalogue of all the breaches of treaty, all the acts of perfidy at which I have only glanced, and which are precisely commensurate with the number of treaties which the Republic has made (for I have sought in vain for any one which it has made and which it has not broken); if we trace the history of them all from the beginning of the Revolution to the present time, or if we select those which have been accompanied by the most atrocious cruelty, and marked the most strongly with the characteristic features of the Revolution, the name of Bonaparte will be found allied to more of them than that of any other that can be handed down in the history of the crimes and miseries of the last ten years. His name will be recorded with the horrors committed in Italy, in the memorable campaign of 1796 and 1797, in the Milanese, in Genoa, in Modena, in Tuscany, in Rome, and in Venice.

His entrance into Lombardy was announced by a solemn proclamation, issued on the 27th of April, 1796, which terminated with these words: “Nations of Italy! the French Army is come to break your chains; the French are the friends of the people in every country; your religion, your property, your customs shall be respected.” This was followed by a second proclamation, dated from Milan, 20th of May, and signed “Bonaparte,” in these terms: “Respect for property and personal security; respect for the religion of countries—these are the sentiments of the government of the French Republic and of the army of Italy. The French, victorious, consider the nations of Lombardy as their brothers.” In testimony of this fraternity, and to fulfil the solemn pledge of respecting property, this very proclamation imposed on the Milanese a provisional contribution to the amount of twenty millions of livres, or near one million sterling, and successive exactions were afterward levied on that single state to the amount, in the whole, of near six millions sterling. The regard to religion and to the customs of the country was manifested with the same scrupulous fidelity. The churches were given up to indiscriminate plunder. Every religious and charitable fund, every public treasure, was confiscated. The country was made the scene of every species of disorder and rapine. The priests, the established form of worship, all the objects of religious reverence, were openly insulted by the French troops; at Pavia, particularly, the tomb of St. Augustin, which the inhabitants were accustomed to view with peculiar veneration, was mutilated and defaced; this last provocation having roused the resentment of the people they flew to arms, surrounded the French garrison and took them prisoners, but carefully abstained from offering any violence to a single soldier. In revenge for this conduct, Bonaparte, then on his march to the Mincio, suddenly returned, collected his troops, and carried the extremity of military execution over the country. He burned the town of Benasco, and massacred eight hundred of its inhabitants; he marched to Pavia, took it by storm, and delivered it over to general plunder, and published, at the same moment, a proclamation of the 26th of May, ordering his troops to shoot all those who had not laid down their arms and taken an oath of obedience, and to burn every village where the tocsin should be sounded, and to put its inhabitants to death.

The transactions with Modena were on a smaller scale, but in the same character. Bonaparte began by signing a treaty, by which the Duke of Modena was to pay twelve millions of livres, and neutrality was promised him in return; this was soon followed by the personal arrest of the Duke, and by a fresh extortion of two hundred thousand sequins. After this he was permitted, on the payment of a farther sum, to sign another treaty, called a convention de sureté, which of course was only the prelude to the repetition of similar exactions.