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integrity and upright intentions of the reprefentatives and rulers being conftantly fupported by a general fimplicity of manners, and a facred regard to the principles of morality and religion. In the newly conftituted government of France both thefe kinds of steadiness were wanting. It was lefs democratical indeed than that of 1793; but ftill the executive power was configned into five hands instead of one only. It was not stayed as all other republics of any extent and durability have hitherto been, by fome individual power, whether under the name of archon, duke, doge, king, ftadtholder, or the prefident of a congrefs. It was impoffible that five directors, and thefe Frenchmen too, fhould, for any length of time, act with harmony. They fplit into parties hoftile and violent, in proportion to the power with which they were invested in order to retain which the preponderating party treated their rivals in the directory, and their opponents in the councils with the moft merciless feverity, and repeatedly violated the conftitution, under the pretence of preferving it. Like their predeceffors in the revolution, in default of fimplicity of manners, and the other requifites to a genuine republic, they had recourte to intrigue and violence. Had their Own manners been more pure than they were, without thofe adventitious fupports in fo great and corrupt a commonwealth, and where all are fo prone to direct, but none to be directed, they could not, for even a fhort time, have held together any femblance of a regular fabric of government.

There was one point, however, n which the directory on their elevation to power unanimoufly agreed.

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The jacobinical party that had f long domineered in the public councils, confident as above related, from victory over the sections of Paris, and treading in the very footsteps of Robespierre, had appointed a commiffion of five, for the fafety of the country; and but for the bold and animated efforts of a few men would certainly have effected the flavery of France in the permanency of the convention. The directors, confcious of the general odium they, in common, with the other leaders of the convention, had incurred on this attempt, and alfo of their malverfation in precipitating the confideration of the new conftitution, and garbling the reports that had been made concerning its acceptance, determined to divert the minds of the nation from their own conduct, and to exhauft the public discontents by a profecution of the war. If this fhould prove fuccessful, of which they entertained not any doubt, the merit would, in a very great degree, be reflected on themfelves, and the enemies of the directory would be regarded, by the nation at large, as enemies to the victories and glory of France. They were undoubtedly fortunate in the choice of their commanders. The fucceffes of their generals occupied and dazzled the public mind for a time; but wifdom, conftancy, and purity of defign, without which no profperity can be lafting, were wanting in the fupreme councils. The armies were neglected; the tide of fuccefs was turned; and finally, to fhew how little that temporary fuccefs was owing to any principles inherent in the conftitution, the vaft and ftupendous genius of one man, to which chiefly the directory were indebted for a

temporary

temporary fplendour, ultimately wrought their ruin, and introduced a new order of affairs into the diftracted and fluctuating commonwealth.

The clofe of the year 1795 was not fo favourable to the French as that of the preceding; they had projected at its commencement to follow up their fucceffes in Holland, by carrying their victorious arms into the heart of Germany; but a variety of obstructions had either prevented or fruftrated their defigns. At home the violence of the many factions, open or concealed, flood perpetually in the way of government, and impaired its propofed energies. Abroad the remaining parts of the coalition against France, though foiled in their repeated attempts, ftill referved their fpirit, and determination to perfift at all hazards in carrying on the war.

The principal fcene of action had been on the banks of the Rhine. Here it had been generally expected, that after the fubjugation of the feven United Provinces, the French would have met with no confiderable oppofition; but though difpirited, as well as weakened, by the fevering of fo material a limb from the great body of the confederacy, it ftill found, fufficient refources to make head against the French, in a country where the generality of the inhabitants, though diffatisfied at their rulers, were not fo imprudent as to prefer a foreign to a domeftic yoke, and would not fail to co-operate in oppofing a French invafion. To this difpofition of an incomparable majority of the inhabitants of Germany was, in a great measure, due the little progrefs of the French in thofe provinces of the empire on the right

fide of the Rhine, into which they had, with much difficulty, found means to penetrate, and from which they had been, after much fruitless toil and unfuccefsful efforts, compelled to retire with very confiderable loffes.

The failure of the French in their expedition into Germany; their expulfion from every poft they had occupied on the eaftern banks of the Rhine; their retreat across that river; the purfuit of their discomfited army into the borders of France; and the feveral defeats they experienced, were circumstances so little hoped for at the commencement of this year's military operations in thofe parts that they proportionably revived the fpirit of their enemies, and infufed a degree of confidence into them, to which they had been ftrangers, fince the difafters of the preceding campaign.

But, notwithstanding their ill fuccefs on the Rhine, the French maintained a decided fuperiority in every other quarter. Europe feemed to ftand at bay, and to wait with anxiety the termination of a quarrel that had produced fo many ftupendous events. The diflolution of the confederacy, by the feceffion of Prutha and Spain, was far from being confidered as complete: the principal members, Great Britain and Auftria were held fully competent, though not to the purpose of fubduing, yet ftill to that of repreffing the French; and this was now viewed as the only object, at which they ought, in prudence, in the prefent fituation of their affairs, to aim.

During the course of the campaign, the government in France had entertained fome ideas tending to a general pacification; but the [B2]

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loftinefs of their pretenfions, dictated by the pride of their nation, was fo apparent, that Europe was not furprised that they were only mentioned tranfiently in their occafional difcourfes on that fubject. The inveteracy of the ruling party to England fubfified almoft as violently as ever. The French beheld, with that rancour which attends an unfuccefsful rivalship, the improbability of their ever attaining to an equality with the English at fea. It greatly mortified their pride, that all the European nations fhould unaimoufly afcribe a decided fuperiority in naval tactics to the English, and reprefent thofe as no less invincible on the ocean, than the French had hitherto been at land; with this difference, however, to the difadvantage of the latter, that it would prove a much easier talk to overcome them at land than the others at fea.

Other caufes of diffatisfaction militated against the ruling party in France. The royalifts, however depreffed, were not difpirited: their numbers, though inferior to those of the republicans, were immenfe; they maintained a close correfpondence with each other, and cemented their reciprocal connections with all thofe acts of friendfhip and kindnefs that bind men fo ftrongly together, when fuffering from the fame caufes, and acting from the fame

motives.

The vigilance of the republican government found conftant employment in obviating the dangers that threatened it from the indefatigable activity of thofe irreconcilable antagonifs, who, though furrounded with continual obfervers of all their motions, neglected no opportunity

to further their defigns, and boldly encountered every risk of being detected in their profecution.

Enraged at these domestic enemies, the predominant party was perpetually occupied in holding out every fpecies of menace and terror to reprefs and difcourage them; but neither threats nor invitations availed. Actuated by hatred and refentment the royalifts confidered themfelves as equally juftified, by confcience and intereft, in their determination to feize every occafion of refifting the established powers, holding them as ufurpers, with whom no measures ought to be kept, and whom they were bound to oppofe, whenever there appeared the least likelihood of doing it to any effect.

Such was the fituation of France at this period, deeply convulfed at home, and though in poffeffion of many extenfive countries, yet, fearful that having acquired, and retaining them only by the right of the fword, they might lose them through the fame means: an event, which, confidering the viciffitudes of war, was not more improbable than the aftonishing fucceffes that had attended their arms against all likelihood and expectation.

While the people in France were diftracted with thefe internal divifions, thofe of England were agitated little lefs with inceflant differences and difputes on the propriety of continuing a war, which had occafioned fuch loffes of men and expence of treafure, without producing thofe effects which had fo repeatedly been reprefented as infallible. Nothing had been omitted to procure fuccefs: every minifterial demand had been granted, every measure acceeded to; but the object proposed

remained

remained unaccomplished, and as far out of the reach of all reafon able expectation, as at the first moment of its being attempted All parties feemed, at this period, to unite in the like ftrain of reafoning. Numbers of those who had warmly efpoufed the caufe of the minifter, thought that a fufficient trial had been made of the various fchemes he had brought forward, in order to compel the French to revert to their former fituation; and that, having failed, prudence enjoined him to defift, and to leave the re-cftablifhment of the French monarchy to a future period, and more aufpicious opportunities.

That party, which had oppofed the war from its very commencement, were loud in their reprobation of its continuance, and reproached minifters with a total want of forefight, in not feeming to have apprehended the difficulties they would have to contend with, and, with equal inability, to encounter them. As the events of the war countenanced these reproaches, the public joined in them, and the government was thought very reprehenfible in perfifting againft reiterated experience, in a conteft that threatened to wafte the ftrength of the nation ineffectually, and the aim of which, were it attained, would not prove an indemnification for its eoft.

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Ideas of this nature were now generally predominant, and became, at laft, fo prevalent, not only among the multitude, which had long been fwayed by them, but among the more reputable claffes, that a variety of affociations were formed, and meetings held, for the avowed purpofe of petitioning the legiflature in favour of peace. The city of Lon

don led the way, and, in a commonhall, the votes, for a petition, were four thousand, and only one hundred against it.

The terms in which it was con ceived were extremely pointed. "None of the ends propofed by the war, (to ufe the words of the petition) had either been, or ap peared likely to be, obtained, although it had been carried on at an unprecedented expence to this country, and had already produced an alarming increafe of the national, debt, augmented by fubfidies, paid to allies, who had notoriously violated their folemn engagements, and rendered no adequate fervice for large fums actually received hy them, and wrung from the credulity of the generous and industrious inhabitants of this ifland." It concluded by expreffing a firm and decided conviction, that the principle on which the war appeared to be carried on, neither was, nor could be, effential to the liberty, the glory, or the profperity, of the British empire.

Other addreffes, in a fimilar ftyle, were refolved on in feveral of the principal cities in the kingdom. The adherents to miniftry endeavoured, on the other hand, to procure counter petitions: but these were faint and languid in comparifon to the former; thofe who framed them, did not venture to speak in juftification of the war; they went no farther than to leave to minifters the choice of their own time for pacific negociations.

A circumftance that had greatly indifpofed the mercantile and trading claffes against miniftry, was, the refufal to permit the Dutch people of property, to depofit their money and effects in England, without pay[B3]

ing

ing the cufiomary duties. Had this permiffion been granted, upwards of twenty millions of fpecie, and other treasure, would, it was faid, have been brought into this country. The reafon alleged, for denying the request of the Dutch mer chants, was, that if they were allowed to tranfport their effects into England, it would operate as a difcouragement to their countrymen, and prevent them from acting with vigour against the French, who, having fubdued the Auftrian Netherlands, were then preparing to carry their victorious arms into the United Provinces: but the reply to this allegation was, that the French party was fo powerful in Holland, that it was easy to forefee that all refiftance would be vain. It would have been good policy, therefore, to have encouraged the moniedmen, in that country, to have lodged their property in England; as moft of them were manifeftly inclined to do, in order to preferve it from the rapacity of the French, whofe wants were fuch as would infallibly induce them to fupercede all confiderations, in order to provide for them as foon as they thould find themfelves in poffeffion of a country, the wealth of which was competent to fupply them with what they needed.

This refufal, on the part of the British adminiftration, was generally deemed a very unfeasonable overfight. It threw into the hands of the French an immenfe quantity of money and wealth of every denomination, which might evidently have centered in England, together with its owners. This would, in a very confiderable measure, have compenfated for the lofs of Holland to the confederacy, and amply indemnified Great Britain, by the prodigi

ous acceffion of real property that muft have been the neceffary confequence of the emigrations of rich individuals from the United Provinces.

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Another overfight, no lefs real, though lefs noticed, was an ticle in a treaty which had been agreed on with the American States, by which their trade to the British iflands in the West Indies was reftricted to veffels of an inferior fize. This, inftead of diminifuing their commerce thither, tended rather to encrease it, by adding to their number of feamen: whether in large, or in fmall veffels, this commerce was fo profitable to them, that whatever obftacles were thrown in their way, would quickly be overcome by their induftry and activity: the profits of trade would be more divided, but the number of hands employed in it would produce the double confequence, both of gradu ally extending it, and of augmenting the number of American feamen.

Thefe various confiderations contributed materially to difplease the generality of people. The burthens of the war were fo heavy, and fuch multitudes felt their weight, that difcontents and murmurs abounded every where.

The different motives affigned, at different epochs of the war, for its continuance, were alfo highly prejudicial to minifters, as they led many to think that the real motive was purposedly kept out of fight, and was of too invidious a nature to be frankly acknowledged.

Ideas of this nature were now univerfally current among the dif approvers of the war, and were afferted and circulated by them with confiderable effect. But that circumftance which was the most unfortunate

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