piness to France. It was faid in the note in reply to the first communication from the French Government, that the moft natural pledge they could give of founder principles, was the restoration of that family which had maintained France in " prosperity at home, and in refpect and confideration abroad." It was, indeed, rather a fingular circumftance, to observe so much anxiety in Minifters for the profperity of France. But what refpect and confideration was here alluded to? Was it the refpect of justice, of moderation, of wisdom, fidelity, and uprightness? No; it was the respect arifing from the power of France, and was founded on no better claims. -To promote the internal profperity, and the external refpect and renown of the French Monarchs, furely would not be confidered as British objects; and to purfue them, would be to do that which Minifters had fo often imputed to the Jacobins-feel an intereft for France without any regard to the fecurity of our own country, and its fuperior title to our fupport. We complained in the note of the recency of the Revolution as precluding immediate negotiation; and we recommended to France, in the fame breath, to make another, as the speedieft means of reftoring peace. We talked of the ambition and infincerity of the Republic as objections, and then mentioned as a remedy a government and family proverbially infincere and ambitious. We apprehended instability, and then expreffed a hope that, for the fake of peace, they would adopt a form of government which, in the prefent circumftances, must be unftable and precarious. France, however, by the decifion of Minifters, was to be put in a state of probation, if the refufcd the alternative of the reftoration of Royalty, till. fhe had renounced. all the principles complained of, or till he was ready to acknowledge the guilt of original aggreffion; that is, till M. Talleyrand was convinced by the noble Lord's eloquent harangues in this Houfe. But how were we to be fatisfied that these changes had taken place, unless we agreed to negotiate? The noble Lord had ftated with much pomp and folemnity, that the second letter of Talleyrand contained a principle more deteftable than any of the very worst periods of the Revolution. On hearing this affertion, he had perused the letter with additional attention; but he could difcover in it nothing of this dreadful defcription. The French Minifter did not defend every act of every preceding Government. He flated, that the perfeverance of this country had driven France into exceffes; but if the avowal of this principle was atrocious, what was the practice of it? And, unfortunately, it was too true that the example of this country might give to France an apology for fome part of her violence. What had been our conduct to neutral powers? Had we not violated the neutrality of the Grand Duke of 1 Tuscany, in fpite of the moft folemn treaties? Had we not violated the neutrality of Genoa? What was the conduct of our allies? Did not the Ruffians violate the neutrality of other States? Did it not prescribe to the King of Denmark that no clubs should be permitted in his dominions? He was aware, that to prove that we, or our allies, were guilty of the fame crime, did not exculpate the French; but when we faw fuch unjuftifiable proceedings on the fide of thofe who made the crimes of France the caufe of the war, it proved that this was nothing but a pretext. Ambition was objected to France; but was France the only ambitious power in Europe? He did not say that we ought never to have an ally that was ambitious; but furely when we heard it afferted that we muft continue war because France was ambitious, that we could not make peace with an ambitious power, we are warranted in dwelling on the ambition of our allies, in order to prove that we are not at war merely because the French are ambitious. But it would be remarked by their Lordships with furprife, that the noble Secretary, in juftifying the conduct of Minifters in rejecting all negotiation, drew many of his arguments from the fecond letter of Talleyrand. Whatever principles that letter displayed, whatever expreffions it contained, could not be the least palliation of the refusal to negotiate; because the decifion of Minifters was pronounced before they could know or fufpect that a fecond meffenger would be received. It was objected to, that the French had-faid nothing of a general peace, to which we alone could agree. The letter of the Chief Conful to His Majefty, however, alluded to the miseries of war every where, and the neceffity of putting a ftop to the effufion of blood. It evidently pointed to the miseries of war every where, and a defire to co-operate in putting an end to them; at any rate, we might have fuggefted the propriety of an explicit avowal. The noble Secretary enumerated the evils that would arife from nego tiation; but these fentiments were new with him; not a word was faid of that matter after the failure of the negotiations at Paris and Lifle. We had negotiated formerly, in circumstances that might have given rife to the charge of timidity-at the time of the mutiny; after the breaking of the Bank; fuch were the circumftances in which negotiation formerly took place. The refult furely was not of that dangerous tendency which had been described. Whatever might be his opinion of the views of our Government in the nego tiation at Lifle, he was ready to allow that the French had evidently fhewn a determination to continue the war; that they had outraged and infulted our country on that occafion; and what was the con fequence? The people had felt, and had refented it as fuch; and never, in the courfe of the war, had they exerted themselves with more spirit in its fupport. If then the French were still actuated by that hoftile fpirit, from negotiation it would appear; and by the notoriety of their infincerity alone could the continuance of the war be juftified, and the opinions of the country reconciled to the profecution of it. It was faid, that intereft alone induced France to keep well with Pruffia; but might not the fame intereft prompt France to obferve faithfully the engagements of treaties? The interests of the two countries were not fo divided as to be irreconcileable. Bonaparte had given every proof of his fincerity, and every thing tended to confirm that teftimony. Much was faid of the character of Bonaparte; the noble Secretary had, indeed, prefaced his obfervations by attempting to defend fuch attacks; but all his argument went to justify an attack on a Government, to which, if those who made it felt that it was founded, he faw no great objection; but nothing the noble Secretary had faid juftified abuse and Philippic against an individual; and he could not perceive that any advantage could arife to us from blackening the character of an individual. It was not dignified; it was not politic. We had now taken up the principle fo much objected to the Jacobins, of diftinguishing between a People and their Government. What, on the contrary, was the conduct of the French? In the letter to the King, Bonaparte diftinctly renounces this principle, and acknowledges the title and character of His Majefty's Government. On our part, the note of Ministers was a manifefto to the Royalifts, and framed for that purpofe. It fpoke of the miseries of France; but the miseries of France were not the caufe of the war. They might interest our humanity, but they were not fit to be noticed in diplomatic papers. As little had we to do with the internal miseries of the Republic, as Talleyrand would have to retaliate, by reproaching us with the Teft Acts, the want of Parliamentary Reform, the Income or Affeffed Tax Acts, or any other public measure that might be confidered as a grievance. There was, indeed, one argument against a negotiation, which he had heard, and which was the only one that had made any impreffion at all on his mind, the only one that looked to him like common fenfe, or common humanity. This was the apprehenfion of facrificing the Chouans, with whom we might have engagements, and whom he feared we had incited to their present imprudence by our money and intrigues. This argument the noble Secretary had not urged; and he did not blame him for fuppreffing it, as it was a delicate fubject, under all circumftances, for a Minister to talk of; but there could be no impropriety in his faying a few words on the fubject. He would then be as averse as any man to facrifice those who we had incited, or to abandon those we had engaged to fupport; but he would afk, Was it not poffible, if a negotiation was fincerely carried on on both fides, if peace, in a fpirit of conciliation, was concluded, that we might, in fact, render thefe Chouans a fervice greater than our furnishing them with arms, fupplies, or even affiftance? He would ask, if it was not poffible, if it was not probable, he had almost faid, if it was not certain, that, by continuing the war, we were dooming them to deftruction? It was a dreadful thing to reflect, that by the obstinacy of Minifters, we might be condemned to carry on the war for years, without gaining any advantage which we might not receive from negotiation at the prefent moment. He differed from his noble relation when he faid, that the people of this country acquiefced in the conduct of Minifters. He was convinced that the people at large difapproved of their abrupt refufal to liften to any overtures; and if it should afterwards clearly appear that Bonaparte had been fincere, how would their Lordships reconcile it to their confciences to have given their implicit fanction to measures that prolong the calamities of war for fo long a period, without any motive of honour, intereft, or fecurity? He therefore gave his decided support to the amendment. The Earl of CAERNARVON rofe, and said, he would detain their Lordships a very short time only, as many of the obfervations that had occurred to his mind had been anticipated in the courfe of the debate. He should offer a few remarks, but certainly not an objection to the addrefs moved by the noble Secretary of State, in the fupport of which he cordially joined; and when he faid this, he meant to speak from his judgment, ignorant as he was, of many grounds and reafons that might make the answers of His Majesty's Minifters to be what, uninformed as he then stood, he verily believed them to be, proper and fuitable anfwers to the letters of Bonaparte, the First Conful of the French Republic, and M. Talleyrand, the Minifter for Foreign Affairs in France. At the fame time (he faid) that he, in his prefent ftate of ignorance, believed Minifters had given the proper anfwers; he begged leave not to have it. understood that he had pledged himself, at any future time, when he was able to judge from fuller information and better knowledge, not to fupport a motion for highly criminating thofe very Minifters for the answer that he now declared to be, in his opinion, the proper anfwer to have been returned. His Lordship declared, he could not concur with the noble Duke (Bedford) in confidering that anfwer as a refufal to treat for peace, or a declaration of eternal war. It was, as the Secretary of State had aptly termed it in his speech that, evening, a call upon the House and the Country, to paufe before they fuffered themfelves rafhly to enter into a negotiation with a Government, of the principles and probable ftability of which it was abfolutely neceffary that they should be enabled to decide, "from experience and the evidence of facts." He should not, at a proper time, be unwilling to enter into a negotiation with the present Government of the French Republic; not, that he did not think as little of the candour and fincerity of Bonaparte, and as much of his treachery, and other objections to his perfonal moral character, evinced by a variety of undeniable facts, as the noble Secretary of State did. In almost every thing that had been said of that diftinguished General, he fully agreed. He did not expect any extraordinary faith to be manifefted by Bonaparte, more than by any other Chief or Chiefs of a Government; but although he fhould be beft pleafed if à Monarchical Government were restored to France, it ought to be recollected, that in all times, in Monarchies, as well as in Republics, Ariftocracies, and every other fpecies of Government, good faith refpecting treaties, and a due and religious obfervance of them, were preferved and exemplified only fo long as it was the intereft of the parties refpectively to maintain them. So little good faith in treaties had the hiftory of them afforded, that at the very time that they were figned, a fecret refolution and intention was often made to violate them at a particular period. A remarkable inftance of fuch treachery was one, of which he was himfelf told by the French Minister to the Court of Spain fome years fince, viz. that at the peace of 1763, between this country, France, and Spain, when the treaty was ratified at Madrid, and figned, an order had been given the fame day to make an attack, at a given and flated time, on Falkland's ifland, and it took place accordingly. The Court of Spain, when applied to, and remonftrated with by this country, had actually forgot the order, and fo had Monfieur de Choifeul. This fhowed that it was not the permanency of the good faith of this or that Court, or this or that Minifter, refpecting a treaty of peace, that was to be relied on, in one cafe more than another. But certainly, under the peculiar circumftances of the late recent Revolution in the Government of France, it would have been injudicious in His Majesty's Ministers not to have paused, in order to have fome experience of the defigns and principles of the new shaped Government before they entered into a negotiation, which could, for the prefent, have been attended with no advantage to us, but, on the contrary, must have been at once highly prejudicial to British interefts, and obvioudly beneficial to France. With regard to the prefent addrefs, he should certainly give it his fupport, referving to himself full freedom hereafter, whenever occafion ap |