CHAP.

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And of Mr

Pitt and the

same proneness to aggression, the same disregard to justice, still actuated the conduct of the men who rule in France. Peace with a nation whose war was made against all order, religion, and morality, would rather be a cessation of resistance to wrong than a Government suspension of arms in the nature of an ordinary war- to treat. for refusing fare. To negotiate with established governments was formerly not merely easy, but in most circumstances safe; but to negotiate with the Government of France now would be to incur all the risks of an uncertain truce, without attaining the benefits even of a temporary peace. France still retains the sentiments, and is constant to the views which characterised the dawn of her Revolution. She was innovating, she is so still; she was Jacobin, she is so still; she declared war against all kings, and she continues to this hour to seek their destruction. Even the distant Republic of America could not escape that ravaging power, and next to a state of active and inveterate war were the relations of those two commonwealths for a long time. The Republic, indeed, has frequently published her disinclination to conquest; but has she followed up that declaration by any acts indicating a similar disposition? Have we not seen her armies march to the Rhine, seize the Netherlands, and annex them to her dominions? Have we not witnessed her progress in Italy? Are not the wrongs of Switzerland recent and marked? Even into Asia she has carried her lust for dominion, severed from the Porte, during a period of profound peace, a vast portion of its empire, and stimulated Citizen Tippoo' to engage in that contest which ultimately proved his ruin?

"The Republic has proclaimed her respect for the independence of all governments. How have her

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CHAP. actions corresponded with this profession? Did not Jacobin France attempt the overthrow of every government? Did she not, whenever it suited her purpose, arm the governors against the governed, or the governed against the governors? How completely has she succeeded, during a period of profound peace which had been unbroken for centuries, in convulsing the population, and so subduing the independence of Switzerland? In Italy the whole fabric of civil society has been changed, and the independence of every government violated. The Netherlands, too, exhibit to mankind monuments of the awful veneration with which the Republic has regarded the independence of other states. The memorable decree of November, 1792, has not slept a dead letter in their statute-book. No, it has ever since been the active energetic principle of their whole conduct, and every nation is interested in the extinction of that principle for ever.

"Every power with whom the Republic has treated, whether for the purpose of armistice or peace, could furnish melancholy instances of the perfidy of France, and of the ambition, injustice, and cruelty of her rulers. Switzerland concluded a truce with the Republic; her rulers immediately excited insurrections among her cantons, overthrew her institutions, seized her fortresses, robbed her treasures, the accumulation of ages, and, to give permanence to her usurpations, imposed on her a government new alike in form and substance. The Grand Duke of Tuscany was among the earliest sufferers by a treaty of peace with the Republic. In every thing he strove to conform to the views of France; her rulers repeated to him her assurances of attachment and disinclination to conquest;, but at

the very time that the honour of the Republic was pledged for the security of his states, he saw the troops of his ally enter his capital, and he himself was deposed and a democracy given to the Florentines. The King of Sardinia opened the gates of his capital to the Republican arms, and, confiding in the integrity of the French government, expected to be secured in his dominions by the treaty which guaranteed his title and his rights, and communicated to France equal advantages. He was, however, in a state of peace, invaded in his dominions, forced to fly to his insular possessions, and Turin treacherously taken possession of by the Republican troops. The change in the Papal government was another part of the same system. It was planned by Joseph Bonaparte in his palace. He excited the populace to an insurrection; and effected the revolution in the capital at the head of the Roman mob. To Venice their conduct was still more atrocious. After concluding an armistice with the Archduke Charles, Bonaparte declared that he took the Venetians under his protection, and overturned the old government by the movements excited among the people; but no sooner was the national independence in this way destroyed, than he sold them to the very Imperial government against whose alleged oppression he had prompted them to take up arms. Genoa received the French as friends; and the debt of gratitude was repaid by the government being revolutionized, and, under the authority of a mock constitution, the people plundered, and the public independence subverted.

"It is in vain to allege that these atrocities are the work of former governments, and that Bonaparte had no hand in them. The worst of these

СНАР.

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XXIX. 1800.

CHAP. acts of perfidy have been perpetrated by himself. If a treaty was concluded and broken with Sardinia, it was concluded and broken by Bonaparte. If peace was entered into and violated with Tuscany, it was entered into and violated by Bonaparte. If Venice was first seduced into revolutionary revolt and then betrayed and sold to Austria, it was by Bonaparte that the treachery was consummated. If the Papal government was first terrified into submission and then overturned by rebellion, it was Bonaparte who accomplished the work. If Genoa was convulsed, in a state of profound peace, and then sacrificed, it was by Bonaparte that the perfidious invasion was committed. If Switzerland was first seduced into revolution and then invaded and plundered, it was by the deceitful promises and arts of Bonaparte that the train was laid. Even the affiliated republics and his own country have not escaped the same perfidious ability. The constitution which he forced on his countrymen, at the cannon's mouth, on the 13th Vendémiaire, he delivered up to the bayonets of Augereau on the 18th Fructidor, and overturned with his grenadiers on the 18th Brumaire. The constitution of the Cisalpine republic, which he himself had established, was overthrown by his lieutenant Berthier. He gained possession of Malta by deceitful promises, and immediately handed it over to the Republic. He declared to the Porte that he had no intention to take possession of Egypt, and yet he avowed to his army that he conquered it for France, and instantly roused the Copts into rebellion against the Mamelukes. He declared to the Mussulmans that he was a believer in Mahomet,* thus de

*This was strictly true. They will say I am a Papist," said Napo"I am no such thing. I was a Mahommedan in Egypt. I

leon.

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monstrating that, even on the most sacred subjects, CHAP. truth was set at nought when any object was to be gained by its violation. Nay, he has, in his official instructions, openly avowed this system; for, in his instructions to Kleber, he declares, 'You may sign a treaty to evacuate Egypt, but do not execute the articles, and you may find a plausible excuse for the delay in the observation, that they must be sent home to be submitted to the Directory.' What reliance can be placed on a power which thus uniformly makes peace or truce a stepping-stone to farther aggressions; and systematically uses perfidy as an allowable weapon for circumventing its enemies? And, what is especially worthy of observation, this system is not that of any one man; it has been the principle of all the statesmen, without exception, who have governed France during the Revolution; a clear proof that it arises from the force of the circumstances in which they are placed, and the ruinous ascendency of irreligious principles in the people; and that the intentions of the present ruler of the country, even if they were widely different from what they are, could afford no sort of security against its continuance.

"France would now derive great advantages from a general peace. Her commerce would revive; her seamen be renewed, her sailors acquire experience, and the power which hitherto has been so victorious at land would speedily become formidable on another element. What benefit could it bring to Great Britain? Are our harbours blockaded, our

would become a Catholic here for the good of the people. I am no believer in any particular religion; but as to the idea of a God, look up to the Heavens, and say who made that?"-See THIBAUDEAU Sur le Consulat, 153.