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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 [French minister] 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 to M. Chauvelin. In answer to this supposition, it is only necessary to remark, that before the example was given, before Austria and Prussia are supposed to have been thus encouraged to combine in a plan for the partition of France, that plan, if it ever existed at all, had existed and been acted upon for above eight months. France and Prussia had been at war eight months before the dismissal of M. Chauvelin. So much for the accuracy of the statement.

I have been hitherto commenting on the arguments contained in the Notes. I come now to those of the learned gentleman. I understand him to say that the dismissal of M. Chauvelin was the real cause, I do not say of the general war, but of the rupture between France and England; and the learned gentleman states particularly that this dismissal rendered all discussion of the points in dispute impossible. Now I desire to meet distinctly every part of this assertion. I maintain, on the

contrary, that an opportunity was given for discussing every matter in dispute between France and Great Britain as fully as if a regular and accredited French minister had been resident here; that the causes of war which existed at the beginning, or arose during the course of this discussion, were such as would have justified, twenty times over, a declaration of war on the part of this country; that all the explanations on the part of France were evidently unsatisfactory and inadmissible, and that M. Chauvelin had given in a peremptory ultimatum, declaring that if these explanations were not received as sufficient, and if we did not immediately disarm, our refusal would be considered. as a declaration of war. After this followed that scene which no man can even now speak of without horror, or think of without indignation; that murder and regicide from which I was sorry to hear the learned gentleman date the beginning of the legal government of France.

Having thus given in their ultimatum, they added, as a further demand (while we were smarting under accumulated injuries, for which. all satisfaction was denied) that we should instantly receive M. Chauvelin as their embassa

dor, with new credentials, representing them in the character which they had just derived from the murder of their sovereign. We replied, "he came here as the representative of a sovereign whom you have put to a cruel and illegal death; we have no satisfaction for the injuries we have received, no security from the danger with which we are threatened. Under these circumstances we will not receive your new credentials. The former credentials you have yourself recalled by the sacrifice of your King."

What, from that moment, was the situation of M. Chauvelin? He was reduced to the situation of a private individual, and was required to quit the kingdom under the provisions of the Alien Act, which, for the purpose of securing domestic tranquillity, had recently invested his Majesty with the power of removing out of this kingdom all foreigners suspected of revolutionary principles. Is it contended that he was then less liable to the provisions of that act than any other individual foreigner, whose conduct afforded to government just ground of objection or suspicion? Did his conduct and connections here afford no such ground? or will it be pretended that the bare act of refusing to receive fresh credentials from an infant repub

lic, not then acknowledged by any one power of Europe, and in the very act of heaping upon us injuries and insults, was of itself a cause of war? So far from it, that even the very nations of Europe whose wisdom and moderation have been repeatedly extolled for maintaining neutrality, and preserving friendship with the French Republic, remained for years subsequent to this period without receiving from it any accredited minister, or doing any one act to acknowledge its political existence.

In answer to a representation from the belligerent powers, in December, 1793, Count Bernstorff, the minister of Denmark, officially declared that "it was well known that the National Convention had appointed M. Grouville Minister Plenipotentiary at Denmark, but that it was also well known that he had neither been received nor acknowledged in that quality." And as late as February, 1796, when the same minister was at length, for the first time, received in his official capacity, Count Bernstorff, in a public note, assigned this reason for that change of conduct: "So long as no other than a revolutionary government existed in France, his Majesty could not acknowledge the minister of that government; but now that the French

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