no circumstance which more entitles minifters to the thanks of the country than their having allowed no forms to impede the negociations at Paris and Lifle. I will not, therefore, argue upon any diftinction of form refpecting making offers of peace and receiving them. I conceive it in fubftance to be the fame thing, because if circumftances ought to induce you to receive the offer, they would juftify you in making it. What then is the object of this motion? It feems to invite you, not indeed to speak to the French directly, but to speak at them. It is as it were holding a dialogue with yourselves, in which you fay to France, loud enough to be heard, "We with France would make an offer to us." In this fubterfuge, however, there would be no real diftin&tfon from a direct offer. If then it be proper to offer peace, let the hon. Gentleman fairly propofe to do fo; let us have an opportunity of fairly difcuffing the fubject. I will frankly confefs, however, that to me it does not appear to be a fit moment for making or receiving fuch an offer. If the hon. Gentleman entertains a contrary opinion, let him bring the matter forward, but let it not be in the equivocal fhape of the present motion. Let us not by a declaration like that which he calls on us to make, announce to France that he has no oppofi tion to dread; and to the rest of Europe that they must refign themselves to their fate, and renounce the hope of affiftance. Yet proud as every man muft feel of the fplendid victory obtained by our fleet, confcious of the high pre-eminence which it entitles us to affume, we must not impute the station we now occupy folely to that great and glorious. event. Previous to that victory, our confidence in our ftrength was as high as it could ftand. The feelings we had in expectation of news from the Mediterranean, were thofe of impatience, not thofe of apprehenfion. Our fituation is not the fruit of that victory; it has been confirmed by it. The question then is, whether we fhall allow that wealth, which the country has accumulated, to remain ufelefs to be hoarded without advantage, or by a judicious loan to have it returned with intereft? It is not our own fafety which we are immediately called upon to eftablish and to fecure. It is the fafety of others that now calls upon us for a generous effort. It may be faid, indeed, that the other powers of Europe. fave us, engaged fingle handed, and refufed us their aid, and that we might refufe that afliftance which they could have no claim to demand. I hope, however, that we thall take a nobler vengeance on thofe who left us alone. We

fhall

fhall fay to them, "You left us to encounter the danger, and we now offer you our fecurity; you left us to fight the battle, and we are now willing to fhare with you the benefits of the victory." Were any man to tell me (what no human authority could induce me to believe) fuch a paradox as that, in proportion as the enemy plundered and amalled the property of other ftates; in proportion as they extended their territories, the more tranquil, the more fecure, the lefs expofed to danger and difturbance of any kind, from fuch neighbours, it would be the only argument, which could induce us to abandon the rest of Europe to its fate, and those interefts, with which the cause of Britain has even been fuppofed to be connected. If, however, directly the reverse be the fact; if the exactions, the ufurpations, the violence, the ambition of France, of which fo great a part of Europe is the victim, be confiftent with the exiftence of those interests which involve our own fafety; we must feel ourselves bound to oppofe a motion, the principle of which contradicts the policy upon which our ancestors glo: ioufly acted, which degrades our national honour, endangers our national safety, which muft fpread difmay over Europe, and communicate exultation and joy to France.

Mr. Jekyl. I expected, Sir, that the motion which has been this night propofed by my hon. Friend in fo plain, but in fo able a manner, would have been attended with at least this advantage, that it would have procured to the House the fatisfaction of knowing the precife object of the war. My hon. Friend over the way, (if he will permit me to call him by that name), however did not, in the courfe of his fpeech, afford us any certain grounds of judgment upon this point. From fome parts of his argument we thould have been led to imagine that we were now to wage a war of vengeance against the atrocities which the French have committed; fometimes it was to be for the deliverance of Europe; but after all, we are ftill left in the dark whether it has any definite object at all. The fubject was indeed handled by my hon. Friend oppofite to me in a speech of no lefs ability than of preparation, and to the talent which it difplayed I am ready to pay a jul tribute of applaufe; but I must take the liberty to animadvert upon fome of the arguments which he employed. My hon. Friend alluded to the apathy with which the motion has been received by this fide of the Houfe on the prefent occafion. Where he difcovered this apathy I am · fut I cannot tell. It is true, indeed, that our organ is rather

thin;

thin; we are but few performers, and we are not very confident in the support of our audience. We have not indeed. the well difciplined phalanx by which the hon. Gentleman is fupported. In the prefent military difpofition of the country, it is no wonder that the Gentlemen oppofite fhould be correct in their evolutions, and that they thould be fo trained, that the whole of the front ranks fhould move together. As to the principle of a defenfive war, upon which the hon. Gentleman was fo facetious, and the fentiments of an eminent statesman, I fhall perhaps fay a few words by and by. The hon. Gentleman thought proper to ftate that my hon. Friend, in making his motion, had no reference to peace. On the contrary, the motion had fo far peace in its contemplation as it was the direct purpose of it; to avoid all engagements which could tend to impede a peace on fecure and honourable terms. The hon. Gentleman alluded to the victory of the Nile-a fubject upon which every Englishman must have but one opinion. He afks, what was the fenfation which this glorious atchievement produced? I will tell the hon. Gentleman then, that the fenfation of joy which it occafioned was combined with the hope that it might tend to the restoration of peace between this country and France. Now, however, it is thrown out that not peace but war was the great confequence to which it led, and we are called upon to rejoice, not in its pacific effects, but in its tendency to give new vigour, and extenfion to fchemes of warfare and coalition. If the moment in which we ftand on the proud eminence of fuch a triumph be not the moment to think of peace, in what ftate of our affairs can we turn our thought to this great object with propriety? I do not speak of offering terms of peace in the way of folicitation, which the hon. Gentleman ridicules; I would not recommend any fuch compromife, because the occafion does not require fo fhallow a device. I fee no ill confequence that could refult from making offers peace frankly and directly. This country, however, is again to be embarked upon the ocean of continental politics; we are again to enter the lifts without knowing the purposes for which we are engaged, or the extent to which we may be involved. The hon. Gentleman thinks that no man can sleep with roses on his pillow, unless he can fay that he has taken a fhare in refcuing Switzerland from the tyranny of France, What, then, are we to engage in a continental war to revenge the wrongs of the Swifs, and to punish the perfidies of France? What does the hon. Gentleman fay of the pra VOL. I. 1798. cability

of

A a

cability of the attempt, and how will he reconcile his warm and generous feeling for the unfortunate with any practical policy, or justify it by a reafonable chance of fuccefs? He tells us too, that the allies of France are hollow, that they are ready to defert her. This argument, however, perhaps will be found, if it proves any thing, to prove too much. Spain is diffatisfied with her haughty ally-Holland is weary of her oppreffor! What, however, has been our fortune with our allies? Have we mifufed our allies, have we oppreffed, plundered, or infulted them? They, too, have left us. We find that allies who have been treated with generofity, are as little to be relied upon as those who are the victims of injuftice. On a fubject like this, perhaps, the hon. Gentleman might have directed us to a fafer guide than even his own powerful reafoning. Experience has diftinctly and recently taught us what we have to expect: Prullia, after receiving 1,200,000l. of our money, deferted us; the Emperor, after fo many loans and advances, likewife abandoned the common cause; the King of Sardinia, after receiving 200,000l. for feveral years, withdrew from the contest. After thefe proofs of the temper of our allies, had we any reason, as ftatefmen, to place any more dependance on their fidelity to a new coalition? Shall we defert our experience, and cherish the hope that new fentiments will actuate fo many powers by whom we have already been deceived? The hon. Gentleman fays, however, that the faith of treaties with France is not to be trufted. If there be any thing in fuch an objection, it must be an objection to all peace; it reduces us again to the bellum internecinum. He fays, that although the negociations of Paris or Lifle had concluded in a treaty, the expedition to Egypt would nevertheless have taken place. On this principle then we are never to make peace, because treaties may be broken. On this principle the wars which have been waged between this country and France must have been eternal, because certainly we could not be fure that treaties would not be violated. Thus we are again brought back to the war of extermination, which I thought had now been exploded on both fides of the Houfe. But it feems, as the phrafe is, we are to roufe Auftria and Pruffia to fecond the magnanimity of Ruffia, and the vigour of the Porte on this occafion. Is there any man, however, who understands even the grammar of politics, that can look for any thing of efficient cooperation towards any great object of general concernment to Europe? Who does not know the fchemes of aggran difement

dlifement which Ruffia meditates at the expence of Turkey? Who did not apprehend that when a Ruffian fleet was allowed to pafs the Dardanelles, the Ottomans had, as it were, confented to their own deftruction? Of the Ottoman Porte, I am fure, I wish to fay nothing offenfive, and I am fure my honourable Friend behind me, in alluding to it, spoke of the Turks with as much gravity as any man could dif-, play on fuch a fubject. I was indeed furprised to obferve the tone of ridicule which, in allufion to the Turks, pervaded the honourable Gentleman's fpeech. He alone confidered the Turkish aid as matter for merriment. He told us of their gowns and beards, and their smoking their pipes, and in his defence expofed them to a ridicule with which they had not been affailed. Indeed, if I may employ a vulgar expreffion, he feemed to be in a humour to quiz the Turks. Surely the embaffy of a noble perfon, who is faid to be going to Conftantinople, is not intended to quiz the Grand Seignior. We have heard of converfations between Buonaparte and the Imans and Muftis of Egypt in the Pyramids, but furely we are not to expect that the noble perfon to whom I have alluded is to perform any farce of a fimilar nature, or to quiz. the gowns, turbans, beards, and tobacco pipes of the Muffulmen; circumstances which must have truck the hon. Gentleman as very likely to produce divifion. But feriously, what kind of vigour do we expect to be difplayed by the Ottoman Porte in this new fcheme of coalition? Does not every body know, that however grave and refpectable perfonages the Turks, nay individuals, be in pite of their gowns and beards, as a nation the Turks are the most inert, the most ignorant, the most fluggish people on the face of God's earth? Have we not proofs before our eyes of their debility and impotence? Do we not see that they have been baffled and defeated by one of their own rebel Pachas? How then can men of common obfervation and understanding talk to us of the importance of the Turkish cooperation for any efficient attack upon the power of France? They may make a fhew with a dashing manifefto, drawn up in the ftyle and Ipirit of more lettered cabinets and ftatefmen; they may be mighty civil with their prefents of Pellices and Aigrettes, and perfectly refpectable in fpite of their gowns and beards, but as important and efficient allies how can they be confidered? What part can they perform in the great fchemes which are to be attempted for the deliverance of Aurope?