No

that the general result of the last campaign has not only exceeded our first expectations, but, including all the advantages which the combined armies have obtained on the continent of Europe, including the blow which has been struck against the naval power of France, and the acquisitions which we have made both in the East and West Indies, and at Newfoundland; the general result of the last campaign has not been surpassed in effective advantage either with a view to indemnity, to ultimate security, or to the intermediate means of distressing the enemy during the continuance of the war, by any campaign in which this country has been engaged since the revolution. And in this part of the argument it must never be forgotten, that this is the first campaign of the war. man would attempt to deny, that such a success as we have obtained in the course of this year against France, would have been deemed of decisive importance in the most brilliant periods of the French monarchy. If therefore our success is now to be undervalued, it must be from an opinion, that under the present circumstances and situation of France, her resources are so inexhaustible, her strength is so absolutely unconquerable, that what would have been esteemed a promising impression against any other state that ever existed, and against herself in other times, must now be considered as wholly nugatory and ineffectual. Let us examine whether we have any reasonable ground to apprehend that this enemy, whom we know to be so formidable, is really invincible; let us not be deterred by the magnitude of her temporary exertions from looking closely into the means by which they have been supported; let us search the real foundations of her apparent strength, and comparing them with the nature and sources of our own power, let us decide upon the true and solid principles of political economy, and upon the established maxims of all human government, whether both the probability of our ultimate success, and the necessity of our present exertions are not greatly increased by the extraordinary and unprecedented character of that

system under which the powers of government are now exercised in France.

At the entrance of this arduous and extensive argument I feel myself embarrassed by two difficulties of a very opposite kind: to apply to the government now prevailing in France the epithets which such a scene would naturally suggest; to call it a system of rapine, extortion, and fraud, under the colour of a lawful revenue; of arbitrary imprisonment under the false pretence of liberty; of murder under the name of justice; a system, which unites despotism with anarchy, and atheism with persecution, and to adduce no particular facts and proofs in support of such a charge, might well be deemed idle declamation and empty invective. On the other hand, to attempt to bring before you all the shocking and disgusting scenes by which every part of this charge might be confirmed, would lead to a detail wholly unfit for the ears of a British house of commons. I shall endeavour with the utmost care to avoid both these extremes but if from the very nature of the dreadful transactions on which it is my duty to comment, I should sometimes fall into either, the indulgence of the house will not be refused either to the natural sentiment of indignation which the view of such crimes must excite, or to my anxiety to draw from them conclusions which may be justly and usefully applied to the subject of our present deliberation. It is my intention to advert only to such of the fundamental principles, and of the leading branches of this monstrous system of government, as will furnish the most certain grounds for any possible estimate of its real force, and of its probable duration. But although every fact which I shall adduce will be directed to this particular point of the argument in the first instance, from the same facts, other considerations will arise, and other conclusions will be drawn not less applicable in my opinion to the general question of this day.

The same circumstances which explain the nature of that power with which we have to contend, will also explain the causes of whatever difficulties we may

have encountered in the contest, and enable us to judge whether they are to be surmounted by perseverance. The same circumstances will also serve to show whether the further extension of the system now prevalent in France is to be considered as a matter of indifference, or as an object of terrour by the other powers of Europe, and particularly by Great Britain; and whether it be, or be not an essential and inherent quality of that system, to extend itself abroad, as the only security for its existence at home. These and other inferences will be made from whatever detail I may be permitted to lay before you, in endeavouring to give you a faithful picture of the true state and condition of France at the present moment.

On the 31st of May, a revolution took place in the government of France, as extraordinary in its circumstances, and as sudden and violent in its effects as any of those convulsions by which that unhappy country has been afflicted at any period of the late disturbances. By a repetition of precisely the same violences which had been used to bring about all the former revolutions, through the terrour which the jacobin club inspired, and by the absolute dominion which the municipality of Paris has invariably exercised over the pretended national assemblies, a few individuals of no distinguished talents, of the most desperate and profligate characters, despised until that moment even in France for the wild extravagance of their principles, and detested even there for their sanguinary and vindictive spirit, drove from the government a powerful majority of the convention, consisting of men who, although equally guilty of the crimes and calamities of their country, were at least supported by whatever remained of landed or commercial interest in the nation, by a great majority of the departments, and by all the principal cities and manufacturing towns. Above an hundred and forty members of the convention were expelled by force from their seats in one day; many of them were immediately imprisoned; and since that time those who have not perished on the scaffold, have either fled the

country, or destroyed themselves from the terrour of suffering the same indignities and cruelties which they had already exercised on others, and which they would have exercised on their present antagonists, if the victory in this desperate contest had taken a different inclination.

I shall not dwell in this place upon the instability of any engagement which could have been entered into with a government subject from its nature to such sudden, total, and repeated changes, both of men and of measures. I will only request you to bear this general observation in mind, and to apply it to a subsequent part of the argument.

The party, which had triumphed by such means, recollecting that the convention had been chosen for the express purpose of new-modelling the constitution, although little or no progress had been hitherto made in that work, hastily, in the course of three weeks after their accession to power put forth a most extraordinary production, under the title of a new constitution.

This new version of the natural rights of man contains a digest of every visionary notion of political liberty which has appeared in the speculations of the most wild of all the French philosophers, mixed with some principles and regulations which bear the appearance of regard for the lives, liberties, and properties of the people. Whatever may be the absurdities of this system, it at least serves to show what were the principles of government which the present rulers of France asserted to be not only indispensably necessary to the happiness of the people, but founded in strict right; and in this view it may be a matter of curiosity to compare this constitution with the subsequent measures of those who framed it. Not only the extravagant principle of individual suffrage, but its natural consequence the principle of individual legislation were enacted in the fullest extent; the laws were to be submitted to the sanction of the primary assemblies, and to derive their validity and binding force from the individual assent of above

twenty millions of men. It was particularly enacted, that all regulations affecting civil and criminal justice, the nature, amount, and collection of publick contributions, and all alterations in the current coin, or circulating medium should require the previous sanction of the whole collective body of the people; certain objects of inferiour importance were to be determined by the decrees of the representative body without any reference to their constituents; the representative body was to be changed annually; the executive council, in which was solely vested whatever executive authority was suffered to remain in the state, was to be selected by the convention from a list framed by the electoral assemblies of the people, one half of which list was to be renewed every six months; the municipal officers were to be chosen absolutely by the people in the departments. In order to render the administration of criminal justice independent of the executive or legislative authority it was enacted, that the judges in all the ordinary courts of justice should be annually chosen by the electoral assemblies; and that there should be a court of general appeal, the judges of which should be elected in the same manner. Certain leading principles were solemnly recognised both in the declaration of rights and in the concluding part of the constitution, which is entitled the guarantee of the rights of man-these principles were, "that no man should be judged and punished, until he had been heard. That punishments should bear a due proportion to crimes; that the right of property was that right which belongs to every citizen, of enjoying and desposing of, according to his pleasure, his goods, his income, the fruits of his labour and of his industry. That no person could be deprived of the least portion of his property, without his own consent, unless under the pressure of a publick necessity legally proved, and under the condition of a just and previous indemnity; that the right of petitioning ought in no case to be interdicted, suspended, or limited. That the people have always the right to review, reform, and change the constitu