tricity, there is, at least, much in it to be admired.' Whilst these principles were confined in that way, and had not yet bounded over the common sense and reason of mankind, we saw nothing in them to alarmı, nothing to terrify; but their appearance in arms changed their character. We will not leave the monster to prowl the world unopposed. He must cease to annoy the abode of peaceful men. If he retire into the cell, whether of solitude or repentance, thither we will not pursue him; but we cannot leave him on the throne of power.

I shall now give some farther instances of the confusion of the honourable gentleman's ideas. He says, that the French republic and liberty cannot exist together; therefore, as a friend to liberty, he cannot be a friend to France. Yet he tells us almost in the same breath, that he will not vote for any thing that does not tend to secure the liberties of that country, though, to give him the benefit of his own proposition, not to wish the overthrow of France is not to wish for the preservation of English liberty. Indeed, he says he will vote nothing for the purpose of overthrowing that tyranny, or, as he very strangely adds, the rights and liberties of others—the rights and liberties of France! But how will the gentleman maintain his character for consistency, while he will not vote for any measure that seeks to overthrow the power of a government, in the contemplation of which he has discovered a gulph in his mind between the ideas of its existence and the existence of liberty! It never, however, entered his mind to say that he made the overthrow of the French republic the sine quá non.

Here another example arises of that confusion of ideas into which, contrary to his usual custom, the honourable gentleman has fallen this evening: he says he is one of those who think, that a republic in France is not contrary to the safety of other countries, and not incongruous to the state of France itself. How strange is this! whilst we have it from the honourable gentleman, that liberty and the French republic cannot exist together. I am ready to say, that if the republican regimen was characterized by the sobriety of reason, affording nourishment,

strength, and health to the members of the community; if the government was just and unambitious, as wisdom and sound policy dictate; if order reigned in her senates, morals in the private walk of life, and in their public places there were to be found the temples of their God, supported in dignity, and re. sorted to with pious awe, and strengthening veneration by the people, there would be in France the reality of a well-regulated state, under whatever denomination, but obruit male partum, male retentum, male gestum imperium. Whilst republican France continues what it is, then I make war against republican France; but if I should see any chance of the return of a government that did not threaten to endanger the, existence of other governments, far be it from me to breathe hostility to it. I must first see this change of fortune to France and to Europe make its progress with rapid and certain steps, before I relax in the assertion of those rights, which, dearer to Britons than all the world, because by them better understood and more fully enjoyed, are the common property, the links of union of the regular governments of Europe. I must regard as an enemy, and treat as such, a government which is founded on those principles of universal anarchy, and frightful injustice, which, sometimes awkwardly dissembled, and sometimes insolently avowed, but always destructive, distinguish it from every other government of Europe.

The motion passed without a division.

February 3, 1800.

THE order of the day being read for taking his Majesty's message into consideration, Mr. Dundas moved an address to the throne, approving of the answers that had been returned to the late communications from France, relative to a negociation for peace.

After Mr. Whitbread and Mr. Erskine had delivered their sentiments against the address, and Mr. Canning in support of it, Mr. PITT rose, and spoke as follows:

Sir, I am induced at this period of the debate, to offer my sentiments to the house, both from an apprehension that, at a

later hour, the attention of the house must necessarily be exhausted, and because the sentiment with which the honourable and learned gentleman began his speech, and with which he has thought proper to conclude it, places the question precisely on that ground on which I am most desirous of discussing it. The learned gentleman seems to assume, as the foundation of his reasoning, and as the great argument for immediate treaty, that every effort to overturn the system of the French revolution must be unavailing; and that it would be not only imprudent, but almost impious, to struggle longer against that order of things, which, on I know not what principle of predestination, he appears to consider as immortal. Little as I am inclined to accede to this opinion, I am not sorry that the honourable gentleman has contemplated the subject in this serious view. I do, indeed, consider the French revolution as the severest trial which the visitation of Providence has ever yet inflicted upon the nations of the earth; but I cannot help reflecting, with satisfaction, that this country, even under such a trial, has not only been exempted from those calamities which have covered almost every other part of Europe, appears to have been reserved as a refuge and asylum to those who fled from its persecution, as a barrier to oppose its progress, and, perhaps, ultimately as an instrument to deliver the world from the crimes and miseries which have attended it.

but

Under this impression, I trust, the house will forgive me, if I endeavour, as far as I am able, to take a large and comprehensive view of this important question. In doing so, I agree with my honourable friend, that it would, in any case, be impossible to separate the present discussion from the former crimes and atrocities of the French revolution; because both the papers now on the table, and the whole of the learned gentleman's argument, force upon our consideration the origin of the war, and all the material facts which have occurred during its continuance. The learned gentleman has revived and retailed all those arguments from his own pamphlet, which had before passed through thirty-seven or thirty-eight editions in print; and now gives them to the house, * Mr. Erskine.

embellished by the graces of his personal delivery. The First Consul has also thought fit to revive and retail the chief arguments used by all the opposition speakers, and all the opposition publishers, in this country during the last seven years. And (what is still more material) the question itself, which is now immediately at issue-the question, whether, under the present cir cumstances, there is such a prospect of security from any treaty with France as ought to induce us to negociate, cannot be properly decided upon, without retracing, both from our own experience, and from that of other nations, the nature, the causes and the magnitude of the danger against which we have to guard, in order to judge of the security which we ought to accept.

I say, then, that before any man can concur in opinion with that learned gentleman; before any man can think that the substance of his Majesty's answer is any other than the safety of the country required; before any man can be of opinion, that to the overtures made by the enemy, at such a time, and under such circumstances, it would have been safe to have returned an answer concurring in the negociation-he must come within one of the three following descriptions: He must either believe, that the French revolution neither does now exhibit, nor has at any time exhibited, such circumstances of danger, arising out of the very nature of the system and the internal state and condition of France, as to leave to foreign powers no adequate ground of security in negociation; or, secondly, he must be of opinion, that the change which has recently taken place, has given that security, which, in the former stages of the revolution, was wanting; or thirdly, he must be one who, believing that the danger existed, not undervaluing its extent, nor mistaking its nature, nevertheless thinks, from his view of the present pressure on the country, from his view of its situation and its prospects, compared with the situation and prospects of its enemies, that we are, with our eyes open, bound to accept of inadequate security for every thing that is valuable and sacred, rather than endure the pressure, or incur the risk, which would result from a farther prolongation of the contest.

In discussing the last of these questions, we shall be led to consider, what inference is to be drawn from the circumstances and the result of our own negociations in former periods of the war ;whether, in the comparative state of this country and France, we now see the same reason for repeating our then unsuccessful experiments;- -or whether we have not thence derived the lessons of experience, added to the deductions of reason, marking the inefficacy and danger of the very measures which are quoted to us as precedents for our adoption.

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 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