of hostility committed previous to the war with this country, and very
little indeed subsequent to that declaration, which abjured the love
of conquest. The attack upon the Papal State, by the seizure of
Avignon, in 1791, was accompanied by a series of the most atrocious
crimes and outrages that ever disgraced a revolution. Avignon was
separated from its lawful sovereign, with whom not even the pretence
of quarrel existed, and forcibly incorporated in the tyranny of one
and indivisible France. The same system led, in the same year, to
an aggression against the whole German Empire, by the seizure of
Porentrui, part of the dominions of the Bishop of Basle. Afterwards,
in 1792, unpreceded by any declaration of war, or any cause of
hostility, and in direct violation of the solemn pledge to abstain
from conquest, an attack was made upon the King of Sardinia, by the
seizure of Savoy, for the purpose of incorporating it, in like manner,
with France. In the same year, they had proceeded to the declaration
of war against Austria, against Prussia, and against the German
Empire, in which they have been justified only on a ground of rooted
hostility, combination, and league of sovereigns for the dismemberment
of France. I say that some of the documents brought to support this
pretence are spurious and false; I say that even in those that are not
so there is not one word to prove the charge principally relied upon,
that of an intention to effect the dismemberment of France, or to
impose upon it by force any particular constitution. I say that,
as far as we have been able to trace what passed at Pilnitz, the
declaration there signed referred to the imprisonment of Louis XVI;
its immediate view was to effect his deliverance, if a concert
sufficiently extensive could be formed with other sovereigns for that
purpose. It left the internal state of France to be decided by the
King restored to his liberty, with the free consent of the states
of his kingdom, and it did not contain one word relative to the
dismemberment of France.
In the subsequent discussions, which took place in 1792, and which
embraced at the same time all the other points of jealousy which had
arisen between the two countries, the declaration of Pilnitz was
referred to, and explained on the part of Austria in a manner
precisely conformable to what I have now stated; and the amicable
explanations which took place, both on this subject and on all the
matters in dispute, will be found in the official correspondence
between the two Courts, which has been made public; and it will
be found, also, that, as long as the negotiation continued to be
conducted through M. Delessart, the Minister for Foreign Affairs,
there was a great prospect that those discussions would be amicably
terminated; but it is notorious, and has since been clearly proved,
on the authority of Brissot himself, that the violent party in France
considered such an issue of the negotiation as likely to be fatal
to their projects, and thought, to use his own words, that 'war was
necessary to consolidate the revolution'. For the express purpose
of producing the war, they excited a popular tumult in Paris; they
insisted upon and obtained the dismissal of M. Delessart. A new
Minister was appointed in his room, the tone of the negotiation was
immediately changed, and an ultimatum was sent to the Emperor, similar
to that which was afterwards sent to this country, affording him no
satisfaction on his just grounds of complaint, and requiring him,
under those circumstances, to disarm. The first events of the contest
proved how much more France was prepared for war than Austria, and
afford a strong confirmation of the proposition which I maintain--that
no offensive intention was entertained on the part of the latter
Power.
War was then declared against Austria; a war which I state to be a war
of aggression on the part of France. The King of Prussia had declared
that he should consider war against the Emperor or Empire, as war
against himself. He had declared that, as a co-estate of the Empire,
he was determined to defend their rights; that, as an ally of the
Emperor, he would support him to the utmost against any attack; and
that, for the sake of his own dominions, he felt himself called upon
to resist the progress of French principles, and to maintain the
balance of power in Europe. With this notice before them, France
declared war upon the Emperor, and the war with Prussia was the
necessary consequence of this aggression, both against the Emperor and
the Empire. The war against the King of Sardinia follows next. The
declaration of that war was the seizure of Savoy, by an invading army;
and on what ground? On that which has been stated already. They had
found out, by some light of nature, that the Rhine and the Alps were
the natural limits of France. Upon that ground Savoy was seized; and
Savoy was also incorporated with France.
Here finishes the history of the wars in which France was engaged,
antecedent to the war with Great Britain, with Holland, and with
Spain. With respect to Spain, we have seen nothing in any part of its
conduct which leads us to suspect that either attachment to religion,
or the ties of consanguinity, or regard to the ancient system of
Europe, was likely to induce that Court to connect itself in offensive
war against France. The war was evidently and incontestably begun by
France against Spain. The case of Holland is so fresh in every man's
recollection, and so connected with the immediate causes of the war
with this country, that it cannot require one word of observation.
What shall I say, then, on the case of Portugal? I cannot indeed say
that France ever declared war against that country; I can hardly say
even that she ever made war, but she required them to make a treaty of
peace, as if they had been at war; she obliged them to purchase
that treaty; she broke it as soon as it was purchased, and she had
originally no other ground of complaint than this: that Portugal
had performed, though inadequately, the engagements of its ancient
defensive alliance with this country, in the character of an
auxiliary--a conduct which cannot of itself make any Power a principal
in a war.
I have now enumerated all the nations at war at that period, with the
exception only of Naples. It can hardly be necessary to call to the
recollection of the House the characteristic feature of revolutionary
principles which was shown, even at this early period, in the personal
insult offered to the King of Naples by the commander of a French
squadron, riding uncontrolled in the Mediterranean, and (while our
fleets were yet unarmed) threatening destruction to all the coast of
Italy.
It was not till a considerably later period that almost all the
other nations of Europe found themselves equally involved in actual
hostility: but it is not a little material to the whole of my
argument, compared with the statement of the learned gentleman, and
with that contained in the French note, to examine at what period this
hostility extended itself. It extended itself, in the course of 1796,
to the states of Italy which had hitherto been exempted from it. In
1797 it had ended in the destruction of most of them; it had ended in
the virtual deposition of the King of Sardinia, it had ended in the
conversion of Genoa and Tuscany into democratic republics; it had
ended in the revolution of Venice, in the violation of treaties with
the new Venetian republic; and finally, in transferring that very
republic, the creature and vassal of France, to the dominion of
Austria.
I observe from the gestures of some honourable gentlemen that they
think we are precluded from the use of any argument founded on this
last transaction. I already hear them saying, that it was as criminal
in Austria to receive, as it was in France to give. I am far from
defending or palliating the conduct of Austria upon this occasion: but
because Austria, unable at last to contend with the arms of France,
was forced to accept an unjust and insufficient indemnification from
the conquests France had made from it, are we to be debarred from
stating what, on the part of France, was not merely an unjust
acquisition, but an act of the grossest and most aggravated perfidy
and cruelty, and one of the most striking specimens of that system
which has been uniformly and indiscriminately applied to all the
countries which France has had within its grasp? This can only be
said in vindication of France (and it is still more a vindication of
Austria), that, practically speaking, if there is any part of this
transaction for which Venice itself has reason to be grateful, it
can only be for the permission to exchange the embraces of French
fraternity for what is called the despotism of Vienna.
Let these facts, and these dates, be compared with what we have heard.
The honourable gentleman has told us, and the author of the note from
France has told us also, that all the French conquests were produced
by the operations of the allies. It was when they were pressed on
all sides, when their own territory was in danger, when their own
independence was in question, when the confederacy appeared too
strong; it was then they used the means with which their power and
their courage furnished them; and, 'attacked upon all sides, they
carried everywhere their defensive arms' (vide M. Talleyrand's note).
I do not wish to misrepresent the learned gentleman, but I understood
him to speak of this sentiment with approbation: the sentiment itself
is this, that if a nation is unjustly attacked in any one quarter by
others, she cannot stop to consider by whom, but must find means of
strength in other quarters, no matter where; and is justified in
attacking, in her turn, those with whom she is at peace, and from whom
she has received no species of provocation.
Sir, I hope I have already proved, in a great measure, that no such
attack was made upon France; but, if it was made, I maintain, that the
whole ground on which that argument is founded cannot be tolerated. In
the name of the laws of nature and nations, in the name of everything
that is sacred and honourable, I demur to that plea, and I tell that
honourable and learned gentleman that he would do well to look again
into the law of nations, before he ventures to come to this House,
to give the sanction of his authority to so dreadful and execrable a
system.
[Mr. Erskine here said across the House, that he had never maintained
such a proposition.]
I certainly understood this to be distinctly the tenor of the learned
gentleman's argument; but as he tells me he did not use it, I take it
for granted he did not intend to use it: I rejoice that he did
not: but, at least, then I have a right to expect that the learned
gentleman should now transfer to the French note some of the
indignation which he has hitherto lavished upon the declarations of
this country. This principle, which the learned gentleman disclaims,
the French note avows: and I contend, without the fear of
contradiction, it is the principle upon which France has uniformly
acted. But while the learned gentleman disclaims this proposition, he
certainly will admit, that he himself asserted, and maintained in the
whole course of his argument, that the pressure of the war upon France
imposed upon her the necessity of those exertions which produced
most of the enormities of the revolution, and most of the enormities
practised against the other countries of Europe. The House will
recollect, that, in the year 1796, when all these horrors in Italy
were beginning, which are the strongest illustrations of the general
character of the French revolution, we had begun that negotiation
to which the learned gentleman has referred. England then possessed
numerous conquests; England, though not having at that time had the
advantage of three of her most splendid victories, England, even
then, appeared undisputed mistress of the sea; England, having then
engrossed the whole wealth of the colonial world; England, having
lost nothing of its original possessions; England then comes forward,
proposing general peace, and offering--what? offering the surrender
of all that it had acquired, in order to obtain--what? not the
dismemberment, not the partition of ancient France, but the return of
a part of those conquests, no one of which could be retained but in
direct contradiction to that original and solemn pledge which is now
referred to as the proof of the just and moderate disposition of the
French Republic. Yet even this offer was not sufficient to procure
peace, or to arrest the progress of France in her defensive operations
against other offending countries. From the pages, however, of the
learned gentleman's pamphlet (which, after all its editions, is now
fresher in his memory than in that of any other person in this House,
or in the country), he is furnished with an argument on the result
of the negotiation, on which he appears confidently to rely. He
maintains, that the single point on which the negotiation was broken
off, was the question of the possession of the Austrian Netherlands;
and that it is, therefore, on that ground only, that the war has,
since that time, been continued. When this subject was before under
discussion, I stated, and I shall state again (notwithstanding the
learned gentleman's accusation of my having endeavoured to shift the
question from its true point), that the question then at issue was not
whether the Netherlands should, in fact, be restored, though even on
that question I am not, like the learned gentleman, unprepared to give
any opinion; I am ready to say, that to leave that territory in the
possession of France, would be obviously dangerous to the interests
of this country, and is inconsistent with the policy which it has
uniformly pursued at every period in which it has concerned itself in
the general system of the Continent; but it was not on the decision
of this question of expediency and policy that the issue of the
negotiation then turned; what was required of us by France was, not
merely that we should acquiesce in her retaining the Netherlands, but
that, as a preliminary to all treaty, and before entering upon the
discussion of terms, we should recognize the principle, that whatever
France, in time of war, had annexed to the Republic must remain
inseparable for ever, and could not become the subject of negotiation.
I say that, in refusing such a preliminary, we were only resisting the
claim of France to arrogate to itself the power of controlling, by its
own separate and municipal acts, the rights and interests of other
countries, and moulding, at its discretion, a new and general code of
the law of nations.
In reviewing the issue of this negotiation, it is important to observe
that France, who began by abjuring a love of conquest, was desired
to give up nothing of her own, not even to give up all that she had
conquered; that it was offered to her to receive back all that had
been conquered from her; and when she rejected the negotiation for
peace upon these grounds, are we then to be told of the unrelenting
hostility of the combined Powers, for which France was to revenge
itself upon other countries, and which is to justify the subversion
of every established government, and the destruction of property,
religion, and domestic comfort, from one end of Italy to the other?
Such was the effect of the war against Modena, against Genoa, against
Tuscany, against Venice, against Rome, and against Naples; all of
which she engaged in, or prosecuted, subsequent to this very period.
After this, in the year 1797, Austria had made peace, England and its
ally, Portugal (from whom we could expect little active assistance,
but whom we felt it our duty to defend), alone remained in the war.
In that situation, under the pressure of necessity, which I shall not
disguise, we made another attempt to negotiate. In 1797, Prussia,
Spain, Austria, and Naples having successively made peace, the princes
of Italy having been destroyed, France having surrounded itself, in
almost every part in which it is not surrounded by the sea, with
revolutionary republics, England made another offer of a different
nature. It was not now a demand that France should restore anything.
Austria having made a peace upon her own terms, England had nothing
to require with regard to her allies; she asked no restitution of the
dominions added to France in Europe. So far from retaining anything
French out of Europe, we freely offered them all, demanding only, as
a poor compensation, to retain a part of what we had acquired by arms
from Holland, then identified with France, and that part useless to
Holland and necessary for the security of our Indian possessions. This
proposal also, Sir, was proudly refused, in a way which the learned
gentleman himself has not attempted to justify, indeed of which he has
spoken with detestation. I wish, since he has not finally abjured his
duty in this House, that that detestation had been stated earlier,
that he had mixed his own voice with the general voice of his country
on the result of that negotiation.
Let us look at the conduct of France immediately subsequent to this
period. She had spurned at the offers of Great Britain; she had
reduced her Continental enemies to the necessity of accepting a
precarious peace: she had (in spite of those pledges repeatedly made
and uniformly violated) surrounded herself by new conquests, on every
part of her frontier but one; that one was Switzerland. The first
effect of being relieved from the war with Austria, of being secured
against all fears of Continental invasion on the ancient territory
of France, was their unprovoked attack against this unoffending and
devoted country. This was one of the scenes which satisfied even those
who were the most incredulous, that France had thrown off the mask,
'_if indeed she had ever worn it_.'[5] It collected, in one view, many
of the characteristic features of that revolutionary system which I
have endeavoured to trace. The perfidy which alone rendered their arms
successful, the pretext of which they availed themselves to produce
division and prepare the entrance of Jacobinism in that country, the
proposal of armistice, one of the known and regular engines of the
revolution, which was, as usual, the immediate prelude to military
execution, attended with cruelty and barbarity, of which there are few
examples: all these are known to the world. The country they attacked
was one which had long been the faithful ally of France, which,
instead of giving cause of jealousy to any other Power, had been, for
ages, proverbial for the simplicity and innocence of its manners, and
which had acquired and preserved the esteem of all the nations of
Europe; which had almost, by the common consent of mankind, been
exempted from the sound of war, and marked out as a land of Goshen,
safe and untouched in the midst of surrounding calamities.
Look, then, at the fate of Switzerland, at the circumstances which led
to its destruction, add this instance to the catalogue of aggression
against all Europe, and then tell me whether the system I have
described has not been prosecuted with an unrelenting spirit,
which cannot be subdued in adversity, which cannot be appeased in
prosperity, which neither solemn professions, nor the general law
of nations, nor the obligation of treaties (whether previous to the
revolution or subsequent to it), could restrain from the subversion
of every state into which, either by force or fraud, their arms could
penetrate. Then tell me whether the disasters of Europe are to be
charged upon the provocation of this country and its allies, or on
the inherent principle of the French revolution, of which the natural
result produced so much misery and carnage in France, and carried
desolation and terror over so large a portion of the world.
Sir, much as I have now stated, I have not finished the catalogue.
America, almost as much as Switzerland, perhaps, contributed to
that change, which has taken place in the minds of those who were
originally partial to the principles of the French Government. The
hostility against America followed a long course of neutrality
adhered to, under the strongest provocations, or rather of
repeated compliances to France, with which we might well have been
dissatisfied. It was, on the face of it, unjust and wanton; and it was
accompanied by those instances of sordid corruption which shocked and
disgusted even the enthusiastic admirers of revolutionary purity, and
threw a new light on the genius of revolutionary government.
After this, it remains only shortly to remind gentlemen of the
aggression against Egypt, not omitting, however, to notice the capture
of Malta, in the way to Egypt. Inconsiderable as that island may
be thought, compared with the scenes we have witnessed, let it be
remembered, that it is an island of which the Government had long been
recognized by every state of Europe, against which France pretended
no cause of war, and whose independence was as dear to itself and
as sacred as that of any country in Europe. It was, in fact, not
unimportant from its local situation to the other Powers of Europe,
but in proportion as any man may diminish its importance the instance
will only serve the more to illustrate and confirm the proposition
which I have maintained. The all-searching eye of the French
revolution looks to every part of Europe, and every quarter of the
world, in which can be found an object either of acquisition or
plunder. Nothing is too great for the temerity of its ambition,
nothing too small or insignificant for the grasp of its rapacity. From
hence Buonaparte and his army proceeded to Egypt. The attack was made,
pretences were held out to the natives of that country in the name of
the French King, whom they had murdered; they pretended to have
the approbation of the grand seignior, whose territories they were
violating; their project was carried on under the profession of a zeal
for Mahometanism; it was carried on by proclaiming that France
had been reconciled to the Mussulman faith, had abjured that of
Christianity, or, as he in his impious language termed it, of '_the
sect of the Messiah_.'
The only plea which they have since held out to colour this atrocious
invasion of a neutral and friendly territory, is, that it was the road
to attack the English power in India. It is most unquestionably true,
that this was one and a principal cause of this unparalleled outrage;
but another, and an equally substantial cause (as appears by their own
statements), was the division and partition of the territories of what
they thought a falling Power. It is impossible to dismiss this subject
without observing that this attack against Egypt was accompanied by
an attack upon the British possessions in India, made on true
revolutionary principles. In Europe, the propagation of the principles
of France had uniformly prepared the way for the progress of its arms.
To India, the lovers of peace had sent the messengers of Jacobinism,
for the purpose of inculcating war in those distant regions, on
Jacobin principles, and of forming Jacobin clubs, which they actually
succeeded in establishing, and which in most respects resembled the
European model, but which were distinguished by this peculiarity, that
they were required to swear in one breath, _hatred to tyranny,
the love of liberty, and the destruction of all kings and
sovereigns--except the good and faithful ally of the French Republic_,
CITIZEN TIPPOO.