in this idea. It is the character of every such convulsion as that which has ravaged France, that an infinite and indescribable load of misery is inflicted upon private families. The heart sickens at the recital of the sorrows which it engenders. No revolution implied, though it may have occasioned, a total change of property. The restoration of the Bourbons does imply it; and there is the difference. There is no doubt but that if the noble families had foreseen the duration and the extent of the evils which were to fall upon their heads, they would have taken a very different line of conduct. But they unfortunately flew from their country. The king and his advisers sought foreign aid. A confederacy was formed to restore them by military force; and as a means of resisting this combination, the estates of the fugitives were confiscated and sold. However compassion may deplore the case, it cannot be said that the thing is unprecedented. The people have always resorted to such means of defence. Now the question is, how this property is to be got out of their hands? If it be true, as I have heard, that the purchasers of national and forfeited estates amount to 1,500,000 persons, I see no hopes of their being forced to deliver up their property; nor do I even know that they ought. I question the policy, even if the thing were practicable; but I assert, that such a body of new proprietors forms an insurmountable barrier to the restoration of the antient order of things. Never was a revolution consolidated by a pledge so strong. But, as if this were not of itself sufficient, Louis XVIII. from his retirement at Mittau puts forth a manifesto, in which he assures the friends of his house, that he is about to come back with all the powers that formerly belonged to his family. He does not promise to the people a constitution which may tend to conciliate; but, stating that he is to come with all the ancien régime, they would naturally attach to it its proper appendages of bastiles, lettres de cachet, gabelle, &c. And the noblesse, for whom this proclamation was peculiarly conceived, would also naturally feel, that if the monarch was to be restored to all his privileges, they surely were to be reinstated in their estates without a compensation to the purchasers. Is this likely to make the people wish for the restoration of royalty? I have no doubt but there may be a number of Chouans in France, though I am persuaded that little dependence is to be placed on their efforts. There may be a number of people dispersed over France, and particularly in certain provinces, who may retain a degree of attachment to royalty: and how the government will contrive to compromise with that spirit, I know not. I suspect, however, that Bonaparte will try: his efforts have been turned to that object; and, if we may believe report, he has succeeded to a considerable degree. He will naturally call to his recollection the precedent which the history of France itself will furnish. The once formidable insurrection of the Hugonots was completely stifled, and the party conciliated, by the policy of Henry IV., who gave them such privileges and raised them so high in the government, as to make some persons apprehend danger therefrom to the unity of the empire. Nor will the French be likely to forget the revocation of the edict -one of the memorable acts of the house of Bourbon -an act which was never surpassed in atrocity, injustice, and impolicy, by any thing that has disgraced jacobinism. If Bonaparte shall attempt some similar arrangement to that of Henry IV. with the Chouans, who will say that he is likely to fail? He will meet with no great obstacle to success from the influence which our ministers have established with the chiefs, or in the attachment and dependence which they have on our protection; for what has the right honourable gentleman told him, in stating the contingencies in which he will treat with Bonaparte? He will excite a rebellion in France — he will give support to the Chouans, if they can stand their ground; but he will not make common cause with them: for unless they can depose Bonaparte, send him into banishment, or execute him, he will abandon the Chouans, and treat with this very man, whom, at the same time, he describes as holding the reins and wielding the powers of France for purposes of unexampled barbarity. Sir, I wish the atrocities of which we hear so much, and which I abhor as much as any man, were, indeed, unexampled. I fear that they do not belong exclusively to the French. When the right honourable gentleman speaks of the extraordinary successes of the last campaign, he does not mention the horrors by which some of those successes were accompanied. Naples, for instance, has been, among others, what is called "delivered;" and yet, if I am rightly informed, it has been stained and polluted by murders so ferocious, and by cruelties of every kind so abhorrent, that the heart shudders at the recital. It has been said, not only that the miserable victims of the rage and brutality of the fanatics were savagely murdered, but that, in many instances, their flesh was eaten and devoured by the cannibals, who are the advocates and the instruments of social order! Nay, England is not totally excempt from reproach, if the rumours which are circulated be true. I will mention a fact, to give ministers the opportunity, if it be false, of wiping away the stain that it must otherwise fix on the British name. It is said, that a party of the republican inhabitants of Naples took shelter in the fortress of the Castel de Uova. They were besieged by a detachment from the royal army, to whom they refused to surrender; but demanded that a British officer should be brought forward, and to him they capitulated. They made terms with him under the sanction of the British name. It was agreed, that their persons and property should be safe, and that they should be conveyed to Toulon. They were accordingly put on board a vessel; but before they sailed, their property was confiscated, numbers of them taken out, thrown into dungeons, and some of them, I understand, notwithstanding the British guarantee, actually executed. Where then, Sir, is this war, which on every side is pregnant with such horrors, to be carried? Where is it to stop? Not till you establish the house of Bourbon! And this you cherish the hope of doing, because you have had a successful campaign. Why, Sir, before this you have had a successful campaign. The situation of the allies, with all they have gained, is surely not to be compared now to what it was when you had taken Valenciennes, Quesnoy, Condé, &c. which induced some gentlemen in this House to prepare themselves for a march to Paris. With all that you have gained, you surely will not say that the prospect is brighter now than it was then. What have you gained but the recovery of a part of what you before lost? One campaign is successful to you another to them; and in this way, animated by the vindictive passions of revenge, hatred, and rancour, which are infinitely more flagitious, even, than those of ambition and the thirst of power, you may go on for ever; as, with such black incentives, I see no end to human misery. And all this without an intelligible motive-all this because you may gain a better peace a year or two hence! So that we are called upon to go on merely as a speculation - We must keep Bo naparte for some time longer at war, as a state of probation. Gracious God, Sir! is war a state of probation? Is peace a rash system? Is it dangerous for nations to live in amity with each other? Is your vigilance, your policy, your common powers of observation, to be extinguished by putting an end to the horrors of war? Cannot this state of probation be as well undergone without adding to the catalogue of human sufferings?" But we must pause" What! must the bowels of Great Britain be torn out-her best blood be spilt-her treasure wasted-that you may make an experiment? Put yourselves-oh! that you would put yourselves-in the field of battle, and learn to judge of the sort of horrors that you excite. In former wars a man might, at least, have some feeling, some interest, that served to balance in his mind the impressions which a scene of carnage and of death must inflict. If a man had been present at the battle of Blenheim, 66 -- for instance, and had inquired the motive of the battle, there was not a soldier engaged who could not have satisfied his curiosity, and even, perhaps, allayed his feelings they were fighting to repress the uncontrouled ambition of the grand monarque. But, if a man were present now at a field of slaughter, and were to inquire for what they were fighting Fighting!" would be the answer; "they are not fighting, they are pausing." Why is that man expiring? Why is that other writhing with agony? What means this implacable fury?" The answer must be, "You are quite wrong, Sir, you deceive yourself— They are not fighting are not fighting-Do not disturb them they are merely pausing! this man is not expiring with agony - that man is not dead he is only pausing! Lord help you, Sir! they are not angry with one another; they have now no cause of quarrel — but their country thinks that there should be a pause. All that you see, Sir, is nothing like fighting- there is no harm, nor cruelty, nor bloodshed in it whatever it is nothing more than a political pause! - it is merely to try an experiment — to see whether Bonaparte will not behave himself better than heretofore; and in the mean time we have agreed to a pause, in pure friendship!" And is this the way, Sir, that you are to shew yourselves the advocates of order? You take up a system calculated to uncivilize the world, to detroy order, to trample on religion, to stifle in the heart, not merely the generosity of noble sentiment, but the affections of social nature; and in the prosecution of this system, you spread terror and devastation all around you. Sir, I have done. I have told you my opinion. I think you ought to have given a civil, clear, and explicit answer to the overture which was fairly and handsomely made you. If you were desirous that the negociation should have included all your allies, as the means of bringing about a general peace, you should have told Bonaparte so; but I believe you were afraid of his agreeing to the proposal. You took that method before. "Aye, but," you say, "the people were anxious for peace in 1797." I say they are friends to peace now; and I am confident that you will one day own it. Believe me, they are friends to peace; although, by the laws which you have made, restraining the expression of the sense of the people, public opinion cannot now be heard as loudly and unequivocally as heretofore. But I will not go into the internal state of this country. It is too afflicting to the heart to see the strides which have been made, by means of, and under the miserable pretext of this war, against liberty of every kind, both of speech and of writing; and to observe in another kingdom the rapid approaches to that military despotism which we af fect to make an argument against peace. I know, Sir, that public opinion, if it could be collected, would be for peace, as much now as in 1797, and I know that it is only by public opinion-not by a sense of their duty-not by the inclination of their minds that ministers will be brought, if ever, to give us peace. I conclude, Sir, with repeating what I said before: I ask for no gentleman's vote who would have reprobated the compliance of ministers with the proposition of the French government; I ask for no gentleman's support to-night who would have voted against ministers, if they had come down and proposed to enter into a negociation with the French: but I have a right to ask - I know, that in honour, in consistency, in conscience, I have a right to expect, the vote of every gentleman who would have voted with ministers in an address to his majesty, diametrically opposite to the motion of this night. The House divided on the address: YEAS Tellers. Tellers. SLd. Hawkesbury 265.- NOES Mr. Whitbread Mr. Sheridan 64. MR. GREY'S MOTION ON THE STATE OF THE NATION. ΤΗ March 25. 1801.* HIS day Mr. Grey moved, "That the House will resolve itself into a committee to take into consideration the state of the nation." The motion was seconded by Mr. Whitbread, and supported by Earl Temple, Sir William Young, and Mr. Fox. It was opposed by Mr. May, Mr. Pitt, Mr. Addington, the new chancellor of the exchequer, and Mr. Dundas. As soon as Mr. Pitt had concluded his speech, *On the 14th of March 1801, Mr. Pitt resigned the offices of first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer; upon which a complete change of adininistration took place. The New Administration consisted of, First Lord of the Treasury, and Chancellor of the Exchequer - Right Hon. Henry Addington. President of the Council - Duke of Portland. Lord Chancellor Lord Eldon. Lord Privy Seal - Earl of Westmoreland. First Lord of the Admiralty- Earl St. Vincent. Master-General of the Ordnance- Earl of Chatham. Secretary of State for the Home Department-Lord Pelham. |