184 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1794. 



vas it m her option to abandon 

 them without degrading herself in 

 the eyes of Europe. 



Lord Mornington, in a long and 

 elaborate speech, exeited himself 

 to prove tliat the principles adopt- 

 ed by the French, rendered it in- 

 dispensably necessary to continue 

 the war till they had relinquished 

 them. They had, at the seia of 

 the Constituent Assembly, declared 

 to the woild.that they would never 

 engage in a war of ambition and 

 conquest: but in contempt of this 

 declaration, which had been rnadp 

 in the most formal arid solemn 

 manner, they had acted precisely 

 as if they had declared the very re- 

 verse. Tliey had seized and -an- 

 ntxed to France the King of Sar- 

 dinia's ancient patrimony of Savoy • 

 they had torn the Austrian pro- 

 vinces, in the Low Countries, from 

 their lawful possessor ; they had ar- 

 rogantly assumed the rights ofopen- 

 _ ing the navigation of the Scheldt, 

 in defiance of all the preceding 

 treaties that assllgned it exclusively 

 to Holland. Their system of po^ 

 1-tics tended manifestly to embroil 

 the whole world in disputes. Their 

 intrigues had thrown into confu- 

 sion the United States of America, 

 and had tilled the Turkish Divan 

 with .suspicions and discord : they 

 had, in the rage of tlieir revolu- 

 fioni^iing spirit, subveited tlie fun- 

 damentalsof European colonization 

 io the West Indies, by instigating 

 the negroes to insurrection against 

 the planters. A faction in Great 

 Britain, unaccountably wedded to 

 the French, dclighfd in represent- 

 ing them as invincible ; but the 

 preceding campaign had proved the 

 contraiy ; the towns and territory 

 \vrestcd fi-om them in the Nether- 

 lands, \Vtre equally important in 



their value, and the credit result* 

 ing from their acquisition, tt> 

 the arms of the confederacy. 

 France itself was become the scene 

 of every species of tyranny and 

 atrocity ; the people were reduced 

 to such povcity and distress, that 

 they wtie utterly unable to pay 

 the taxes requisite for the support 

 of the state ; the consequence was, 

 the emission of paper-money to an 

 amount thnt had totally ruined the 

 finance? of that country. But, not 

 content witit loadiug the French 

 with eveiy sort of burthen and op- 

 pression, thtir infatuated rulers had 

 deprived them of the chief conso- 

 lation to which mankind had been 

 used to have recourse in the ex-, 

 tremes of human misery ; they 

 had robbed them of their religioUj, 

 hoping to enrich their exhausted 

 treasure with its spoils :* but this 

 had proved a very inadequate rci 

 source. Could tlie inhabitants of 

 Britain compare the situation of 

 the French with their own, and 

 not feel a determination to pre- 

 serve their country from the causes 

 that had produced so much misery, 

 whatever might be the cost, and ' 

 how great soever the hazards they 

 might encounter? It was, there- 

 fore, manifestly the interest of 

 Gieat Britain to continue a war 

 which alone could keep those mi- 

 series gt a distance; and it was no 

 less the interest of all Europe to 

 j&in in a common opposition to the 

 French. Rviined themselves, they 

 -sought to ii.volve all other nations 

 in the sqme ruin. Actuated by 

 this detestable motive, they were "^ 

 become a nation of plunderers, and 

 were row fighting for the* booty 

 by which they expected tq supply 

 themselvts with the means of corn 

 pelling their neighbours to ac- ' 



' quie^cQ H 



