* * * * *
It is impossible to deny the facts, which were so glaring at the time.
It is a painful thing to me, sir, to be obliged to go back to these
unfortunate periods of the history of this war and of the conduct of
this country; but I am forced to the task by the use which has been made
of the atrocities of the French as an argument against negotiation. I
think I have said enough to prove that if the French have been guilty we
have not been innocent. Nothing but determined incredulity can make us
deaf and blind to our own acts, when we are so ready to yield an assent
to all the reproaches which are thrown out on the enemy, and upon which
reproaches we are gravely told to continue the war. CHARLES JAMES FOX.