MR. FOX'S SPEECH,

DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, FEBRUARY 3, 1800,

ON A MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS TO THE THRONE APPROVING OF THE ANSWERS RETURNED TO THE COMMUNICATIONS FROM FRANCE, RELATIVE TO A NEGOTIATION FOR PEACE.

THE chancellor of the exchequer having concluded the preceding masterly defence of the administration, Mr. Fox next arose and delivered in reply the following speech, which may safely challenge a comparison with that of his illustrious competitor, whether we consider the profundity of the political knowledge it displays, the dexterity of its statements, or the force and plausibility of its reasonings. But, it produced, no disaffection in the ministerial ranks. The address approving of the refusal of ministers to negotiate with Buonaparte was voted by the usual majority of the house.

MR. SPEAKER,

SPEECH, &.

AT so late an hour of the night, I am sure you will do me the justice to believe that I do not mean to go at length into the discussion of this great question. Exhausted as the attention of the house must be, and unaccustomed as I have been of late to attend in my place, nothing but a deep sense of my duty could have induced me to trouble you at all, and particularly to request your indulgence at such an hour.

Sir, my honourable and learned friend* has truly said, that the present is a new era in the war, and the right honourable gentleman opposite to me,† feels the justice of the remark. For by travelling back to the commencement of the war, and referring again to all the topicks and arguments which he has so often and so successfully urged to the house, and by which he has drawn them on to the support of his measures, he is forced to acknowledge, that, at the end of a seven year's conflict, we are come but to a new era in the war, at which he thinks it necessary only to press all his former arguments to induce us to persevere. All the topicks which have so often misled us-all the reasoning which has so invariably failed-all the lofty predictions which have so constantly been falsified by events-all the hopes which have amused the sanguine, and all the assurances of the distress and weakness of the enemy which have satisfied the unthinking, are again enumerated and advanced as arguments for our continuing the war. What! at the end of seven years of the most burthensome and the most calamitous struggle in which this country ever was engaged, are we again to be amused with notions of finance and calculations of the exhausted resources of the enemy, as a ground of confidence and of hope? Gracious God! were we not told, five years ago, that France was not only on the brink and in the jaws of ruin, but that she was actually sunk into the gulph of bankruptcy?-When we were told, as an unanswerable argument against treating, "that she could not hold out another campaign-that nothing but peace could save her that she wanted only time to recruit her exhausted finances-that to grant her repose, was to grant her the means of again molesting this country, and that we had nothing to do but persevere for a short time, in order to save ourselves for ever from the consequences of her ambition and her jacobinism !” What! after having gone on from year to year upon assurances like these, and after having seen the repeated refutations of every prediction, are we again to be † Mr. Pitt.

* Mr. Erskine.

gravely and seriously told, that we have the same prospect of success on the same identical grounds? And without any other argument or security, are we invited, at this new era of the war, to conduct it upon principles which, if adopted and acted upon, may make it eternal ?-If the right honourable gentleman shall succeed in prevailing on parliament, and the country, to adopt the principles which he has advanced this night, I see no possible termination to the contest. No man can see an end to it; and upon the assurances and predictions which have so uniformly failed, we are called upon, not merely to refuse all negotiation, but to countenance principles and views as distant from wisdom and justice, as they are in their nature wild and impracticable.

I must lament, sir, in common with every genuine friend of peace, the harsh and unconciliating language which ministers have held to the French, and which they have even made use of in their answer to a respectful offer of a negotiation. Such language has ever been considered as extremely unwise, and has ever been reprobated by diplomatick men. I remember with pleasure the terms in which lord Malmesbury at Paris, in the year 1796, replied to expressions of this sort, used by M. de la Croix. He justly said, "that offensive and injurious insinuations were only calculated to throw new obstacles in the way of accommodation, and that it was not by revolting reproaches, nor by reciprocal invective, that a sincere wish to accomplish the great work of pacification could be evinced." Nothing could be more proper nor more wise than this language; and such ought ever to be the tone and conduct of men intrusted with the very important task of treating with a hostile nation. Being a sincere friend to peace, I must say with lord Malmesbury, that it is not by reproaches and by invective that we can hope for a reconciliation; and I am convinced, in my own mind, that I speak the sense of this house, and, if not of this house, certainly of a majority of the people of this country, when I lament that any unprovoked and unnecessary recriminations

should be flung out, by which obstacles are put in the way of pacification. I believe that it is the prevailing sentiment of the people, that we ought to abstain from harsh and from insulting language; and in common with them I must lament, that both in the papers of lord Grenville, and this night, such licence has been given to invective and reproach. For the same reason, I must lament, that the right honourable gentleman* has thought proper to go at such length, and with such severity of minute investigation, into all the early circumstances of the war, which, whatever they were, are nothing to the present purpose, and ought not to influence the present feelings of the house. I certainly shall not follow him through the whole of this tedious detail, though I do not agree with him in many of his assertions. I do not know what impression his narrative may make on other gentlemen; but I will tell him fairly and candidly, he has not convinced me. I continue to think, and until I see better grounds for changing my opinion than any that the right honourable gentleman has this night produced, I shall continue to think, and to say, plainly and explicitly, "that this country was the aggressor in the war." But with regard to Austria and Prussia-is there a mán who, for one moment, can dispute that they were the aggressors? It will be vain for the right honourable gentleman to enter into long and plausible reasoning against the evidence of documents so clear, so decisive-so frequently, so thoroughly investigated. The unfortunate monarch, Louis the sixteenth, himself, as well as those who were in his confidence, has born decisive testimony to the fact, that between him and the emperour there was an intimate correspon- dence, and a perfect understanding. Do I mean by this that a positive treaty was entered into for the dismemberment of France? Certainly not. But no man can read the declarations which were made at Mantua, as well as at Pilnitz, as they are given by M. Bertrand de Molville, without acknowledging that this was not merely an intention, but a declaration of

* Mr. Pitt.