of January 1793, in the name of the committee of general safety, a report intended to prepare them for the approaching war, and professing to contain a full and candid discussion of all the complaints of Great Britain, uses these words, "The unanimous wish of all the communities of Savoy legitimates the union with that country." Thus writes Brissot before the commencement of the war. Observe how frankly and honestly he has since confessed the truth. "Cam

bon wanted to unite every thing, that he might sell every thing; thus he FORCED the union of Savoy and of Nice."

With regard to the Netherlands, Brissot tells us in his confessions, that Cambon, the French minister of finance forced that measure also with two views; the compulsory introduction of assignats into that opulent country, and the universal plunder of property. He introduces Cambon and his party reasoning with the convention upon the manner of negotiating a union with the free and soveriegn people of Belgium, in the following words: "The mortgage of our assignats draws near its end. What must be done? Sell the church property of Brabant. There is a mortgage of two thousand millions (eighty millions sterling.) How shall we get possession of them? By an immediate union! Men's minds are not disposed to it. What does that signify? Let us make them vote by means of money. Without delay, therefore, they secretly order the minister of foreign affairs to dispose of four or five hundred thousand livres, (20,000l. sterling) to make the mob of Brussels drunk, and to buy proselytes to the principle of union in all

states.

"But even these means, it was said, will obtain but a weak minority in our favour. What does that signify? Revolutions, said they, are made only by minorities? It is the minority which has made the revolution of France."

Thus you see, that the union of these vast territories, with all their immense population, wealth, and commerce, was considered by the French minister of

finance, as nothing more than a mere financial operation, for the purpose of supporting the sinking credit of his assignats. The sacred regard paid to the general will of the people in the doctrines respecting minorities, cannot have escaped the observation of the house. Something has been said already of the means employed to obtain the free consent of the people to these unions. On this subject we have full information from Brissot. "Do you believe the Belgians were ever imposed upon by those votes and resolutions made by what is called acclamation for their union, for which corruption paid in part, and fear forced the remainder? Who at this time of day is unacquainted with the springs and wires of their miserable puppet-show? Who does not know the farces of primary assemblies, composed of a president, of a secretary, and of some assistants, whose day's work was paid for? How could they believe themselves free and sovereign when we made them take such an oath as we thought fit, as a test to give them the right of voting?"

"What could the disarmed Belgians object to all this, surrounded as they were by seventy thousand men? They had only to hold their tongues, and to bow down their heads before their masters! They did hold their tongues, and their silence is received as a sincere and free assent."

Brissot states, with equal force of language, the ruinous effects of all these measures. He says, "despotism and anarchy are the benefits which we have transplanted into this soil. We suppressed at once all their ancient usages, all their prejudices, all the ranks and orders of their society; we proscribed their priests; we treated their religious worship with open marks of contempt; we seized their revenues, their domains, and their riches for the profit of the nation; we carried to the very altar those hands, which they regarded as profane."

Doubtless, these operations were founded on* "true principles, but those principles ought to have

Sur les Principes.

had the consent of the Belgians, before they were carried into practice."

Have then the "true principles" of France been misrepresented, or exaggerated in this house? Is it possible for the most honest and enthusiastick indignation, which the scenes exhibited in France have raised in any British heart, to vent itself in terms of more severity, than those which Brissot has used in expounding, what he justly calls the true principles of the French Republick? Now let us again confront Brissot's confessions with his report in the name of the committee of general defence, on the 12th of January, 1793. "Shall I recall the accusation of having invaded the Netherlands, of having dictated laws, and made a constitution for that country? We make a constitution there! Read the instructions given to our generals, to assemble the people, to consult their wish, to enable them to express it freely, to respect it when expressed: such was our tyranny! The Belgians themselves form, and alone will form their constitution; but in order to lead them to that point, it is necessary to tie up the hands of the malevolent, of Austrian emissaries, who would excite sedition, and this is the cause of some necessary acts of authority; this is the foundation of the revolutionary power, which is nothing more than the guardian of liberty in her infancy, and which ceases to exist as soon as she has attained the age of maturity. We pillage Belgium! when we only desire to be voluntarily reimbursed for the expenses of a war, where the blood of our brothers is counted for nothing." So far Brissot, and the committee of general safety. I now entreat the house to hear the language of the executive council. "France calls back to freedom a people, which the court of Vienna had devoted to slavery. Her occupation of the Low Countries shall only continue during the war, and the time necessary to the Belgians to ensure and consolidate their liberty, after which, let them be independent and happy. France will find her recompense in their felicity. When that nation shall be found in the full enjoyment of liberty, when

its general will can lawfully declare itself without shackles; then if England and Holland still attach some importance to the opening of the Scheldt, they may put the affair into a direct negotiation with Belgia. If the Belgians, by any motive whatever, consent to deprive themselves of the navigation of the Scheldt, France will not oppose it, she will know how to respect their independence, even in their errours. After so frank a declaration, which manifests such a sincere desire of peace, his Britannick majesty's ministers ought not to have any doubts with regard to the intention of France."

It is difficult to determine whether the prevarications of Brissot the reporter from the committee of the general safety, or the subterfuges of the executive council are most worthy of animadversion. Both are so gross and flagrant, that I cannot aggravate by any comments the impression which they have already made, but when we recollect that the audacious violation of the law of nations, and of the acknowledged rights of our allies by the opening of the Scheldt, was justified upon no other ground than the maintenance of the natural rights of the free people of Belgium; when we recollect, that the final adjustment of that important question was postponed by France, until the time when the liberty of the Belgians should be secured and consolidated, and when the general will of the people, could lawfully declare itself without shackles, the tyranny exercised by France over the Netherlands, and the violence and corruption employed to procure the union, cannot fail to excite the general indignation of this house. Most of us indeed were not deceived by the frank declaration of the executive council of France: but those few amongst us who seemed to be deceived by it at that time, and who under that deception maintained the justice of the pretences of France, must find additional motives of resentment and indignation in the recollection of the imposture, which was so successfully practised at least upon them. If they had been possessed of the information which I have detailed

to the house, I am persuaded that they would never have proposed to us to carry to the foot of the throne an address, containing the paragraph, which I shall now read to you, relative to the navigation of the Scheldt.

"We must further remark, that the point in dispute seems to us to have been relieved from a most material difficulty, by a declaration of the minister of foreign affairs in France, that the French nation gave up all pretensions to determine the question of the future navigation of the Scheldt."

The insult and mockery of that declaration is now so evident, that I cannot suppose it possible that any person should retain the opinion, that the executive council ever had a sincere intention of relinquishing at any time the pretensions of France to determine the question of the navigation of the Scheldt, or any other question which might affect her operations in the Netherlands. The object of a declaration so inconsistent with the whole system pursued by France in the Netherlands could only be to delude this country with false pretences of moderation, until it might be convenient to discover in the face of day, and to enforce by the sword against every nation of Europe the inordinate scheme of ambition, of which the reunion of Belgium and the opening of the Scheldt formed but an inconsiderable part.

The designs of France against Holland might be inferred from her general views of aggrandizement, and particularly from the established maxim of her policy, that France ought to know no other barrier to the eastward than the Rhine; a maxim, avowed by Brissot, by Dumourier, and at different periods by almost every person who has acted a leading part in the government of France since the massacre of the 10th of August. But the correspondence between Dumourier and Pache the minister of war, which has been published, and of the authenticity of which no doubt can be entertained, has placed the hostile views of France against Holland in so strong and so clear a light, that it would be injustice to the argument to rest