If we look to the result of the campaign abroad, the prospect is equally favourable. The fishery of Newfoundland, from which the French have been driven, has always been considered as a most valuable object. We know that it has formed one of the most contested articles in most of our negotiations of peace since the commencement of the present century. The acquisition of this fishery in the first campaign of the war must operate as a material check to one source of the naval power of France. In the West Indies, the importance of the island of Tobago, which we have acquired, may be estimated, when we recollect, that it was the only one of all her conquests which France retained at the peace of 1783, after all the calamities of the American war. In the island of St. Domingo we are in possession of Nicola Mole, the most advantageous post with a view to the command of the windward passage, and of Jeremie, the part of the island which has suffered the least from the ravages of Brissot's commissioners. In the East-Indies, the French have been expelled from all their possessions, excepting Pondicherry, the capture of which could not, according to the latest advices, long be delayed. The acquisition of the fort of Mahé on the coast of Malabar, is of the greatest advantage to our new territories on that coast, both with a view to the commerce and good government of those countries. In a political view it is obviously of considerable importance that the French should not continue to hold a possession, which afforded them the means of so direct and easy an intercourse with Tippoo Sultan.

Thus, Sir, I have endeavoured to give a summary view of the events of the campaign. It does not belong to me to enter into any reply to the critical observations which have been made upon the conduct of particular expeditions, or upon the general disposition and application of our naval and military force. That argument will not be declined by those whose situation in his majesty's councils renders them most competent to treat it with effect. But from what lies within the observation of every man we may collect,

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LORD MORNINGTON'S SPEECH

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

1

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 de. tail 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