mony of this production, from the evidence of the principal actor in these transactions, I propose to examine the truth of our complaints, the justice of the conduct of France, and the validity of the arguments which have been used on either side.

The views which we attributed to France previous to the war, were views of aggrandizement and ambition, connected with the propagation of principles, incompatible with the existence of any regular government.

The particular acts by which those views had been manifested, were, 1st, the decree of the 19th of November, in which France made (according to her own language) a grant of universal fraternity and assistance, and ordered her generals every where to aid and abet those citizens who had suffered, or might suffer hereafter in the cause of (what she called) liberty. Her sense of liberty, as applied to England, was shown by the reception of seditious and treasonable addresses, and by the speeches of the president of the national convention, expressing his wish for the auspicious institution of a British convention, founded, as such an institution must have been, upon the destruction of every branch of our happy constitution.

2d. The conduct of France, in incorporating the territories of other powers with her own, under colour of voluntary acts of union, pretended to have been freely voted by the people; particularly in the cases of Savoy, and of the Netherlands, of both which countries France had assumed the sove reignty.

3d. The opening of the Scheldt, in direct violation of the most solemn treaties guarantied by France herself. And lastly, her general designs of hostility against Holland.

When the decree of the 19th of November was complained of here, the executive council replied, that, "It would be injurious to the national convention, to charge them with the project of protecting insurrections."

Brissot, in his confessions, is pleased to admit, that, "the decree of the 19th of November was absurd and impolitick, and justly excited uneasiness in foreign cabinets." You shall now hear the wise, politick, and conciliatory exposition of the principles of France, which he opposes to that decree. "What was the opinion of enlightened men, of men who were republicans before the 10th of August, who desired liberty, not only for their own country, but for all Europe? They thought that liberty might be established every where, by exciting those for whom government is administered against those who administer it, and by proving to the people the facility and advantages of such insurrections." This theory of universal liberty founded upon universal insurrection, this system of exciting the people against all regular government of whatever form, against all authority of whatever description, this plan for the instruction of the mob in the advantages of disorder, and in the facility of outrage and plunder, is deliberately applauded by Brissot, as the established doctrine of the most moderate men in France, to which no one could object on account of its absurdity or impolicy, or of its tendency to excite uneasiness in foreign cabinets.

You may perceive that the authors of the decree of the 19th of November, and the enlightened republicans of whom Brissot speaks, were equally animated by the great principle of desiring liberty (as they are pleased to style it) for all Europe; their only difference consisted in the mode of carrying their common views into speedy and effectual execution. This will appear more clearly in the passages which I shall now read to the house : " but how can the people be led to that point? By zealous efforts to spread the spirit of liberty among them. This system was pursued at first. Excellent pamphlets from the pen of Condorcet had prepared all people for liberty. The understandings of the Belgians ought to have been enlightened by good writings, we ought to have sent missionaries among them." The house will find no difficulty in understanding what is meant by good

writings (I say nothing of missionaries) when the letters of Condorcet are quoted as models of perfection. We are not unacquainted with the style of those “ excellent pamphlets from the pen of Condorcet, by which all people were to be prepared for liberty." We cannot be so ungrateful as to have forgotten the delicacy with which he suggested to the people of England, "that the French revolution was an object both of their fears and desires, that a parliamentary reform would be proposed in this house, and that from thence the passage to the complete establishment of a republick would be short and easy." Such are the means so reconcileable with the faith of nations, so compatible with the amicable intercourse to be maintained with foreign powers, which Brissot, the reporter of the diplomatick committee, proposed to employ for the introduction of the principles of universal confusion into the bosom of every independent state. The disappointment of these benevolent views, and the failure of this great design, are lamented by him in terms so forcible, and so pathetick, as to display at once the stupendous magnitude of this scheme of destruction, and the frantick zeal with which it was pursued. "Oh! how grievous it is, for a man who has seen the revolution advanced to a degree to which, four years ago, it would, perhaps, have been madness to have thought of carrying it; how grievous it is, to see that revolution falling back, while every thing was contending in its favour! Shall then all the benefit of our experience be lost to the general cause of liberty, to other nations, and to future revolutions? Tears of blood should flow from the eyes of all republicans. Liberty, which might so easily have been extended, until it should have known no other bounds than those of the world, must now submit to a doleful confinement within the limits of France."

Some doubt might, perhaps, have been thrown upon the authority of the evidence which I have produced to the house, if it had appeared to attribute to the government of France principles incompatible with their general system, and not conformable to the

conduct of their agents and ministers in the different foreign countries: but when we find, that the publick acts and language of all the agents of France correspond with the designs here ascribed to their employers, this circumstance at once corroborates the testimony to which I have alluded, and exhibits in itself a striking instance of the uniformity and consistency of the system in all its parts.

In America (a government which I am persuaded the noble earl* who has spoken in this debate will concur with me in thinking does not require to be improved by any infusion of French principles) citizen Genet was appointed resident by Brissot and Le Brun: he there commenced his operations by the institution of a Jacobin club; he publickly insulted the magistrates; disputed the acts of government; opened what he was pleased to call a consular tribunal, under the authority of the French republick, for the condemnation of prizes within the territory of America; enforced the execution of its sentences by acts of open violence; and at length, the powers and privileges of the consul acting under his orders having been annulled by the president of the United States, and his proceedings having been checked, as being contrary to the law of nations, and to the rules by which the relations of independent states are governed, citizen Genet presents a remonstrance to the secretary of state, in which he gravely says, " that he does not recollect what the worm-eaten writings of Grotius, Puffendorff, and Vatell say on these subjects; he thanks God he has forgotten what those hireling civilians have written on the rights of nations, in times of universal slavery: but he knows that his conduct has been agreeable to the spirit of the French constitution, of the American constitution, and of the rights of man, which are forever engraven on his heart, and from which he learns, that an appeal must lie from the president, who is a mere ministerial officer, to the sovereign people of America."

Thus this disciple of Brissot takes upon himself to supersede every maxim of the law of nations by doctrines drawn from the constitution of France; and not content with that outrage, he arrogates to himself the right of interpreting the constitution of America by reference to the same polluted source, and affects to depose the president of the United States from his constitutional authority, under colour of the sacred rights of man, and of the undefeasible sovereignty of the people.

Citizen Descorches employed by the same party at Constantinople, proceeded in the same spirit; he established jacobin clubs, and held primary assemblies for the propagation of the true faith of liberty among the janizaries at the Porte. Thus from Mr. Jefferson to the Reis Effendi; from the president of the United States of America to the grand seignior; from the congress to the divan; from the popular form of a republick to the most unmixt military despotism, every mode and gradation of lawful authority, or of established power was the object of deliberate, systematick and uniform attack. There is another feature of this project which I cannot omit, because it so nearly concerns the security of some of the most valuable possessions of the British empire. We are told by Robespierre, that a part of the general scheme of Brissot and his associates was to free and arm all the negroes in the French colonies in the West Indies. Brissot, instead of attempting to refute this charge, takes merit to himself for the ingenuity and simplicity of the invention. He says, that "by the simple operation of purifying the colonial system of the French islands, he would have accomplished the destruction of all the British colonies in the West Indies." He adds, "That this is a secret of which few have any idea." Those who have given their attention more particularly to the case of the African negroes, will be the first to feel the complicated horrour of this detestable project of massacre and desolation. An abrupt emancipation of the slaves in the West Indies, accompanied with the circumstances of putting arms