STATE PAPERS. 
all rights, human and divine, and 
every thing which is held most sa- 
ered over all the world; who, the 
moment they should become mas- 
ters of one province, would seize, 
as they have in their own country, 
the estates ofthe clergy and the nobi- 
lity, and the property ofthe citizens. 
Once more, having never had 
any inclination to meddle with the 
internal government of any neigh- 
bouring state, we should not have 
entered on these afiicting details, 
relative to objects which are foreign 
to the government with which we 
are entrusted, were it not that 
French writings and French emis- 
saries, and even the recent acts of 
the new legislature of France, have 
a tendency to render universal a 
system of innovation, whether good 
or bad for the French nation, cer- 
tainly and decidedly ruinous to the 
people under our government; be- 
cause it is subversive of all that po- 
litieal organization delineated by a 
constitution which they love, which 
the sovereign has engaged to main- 
tain, and on which the happiness 
of Belgium has for ages been 
founded. 
‘It was our duty to warn the peo- 
ple of the imminent dangers with 
which they are threatened. We 
have laid before them truths which 
all well-meaning persons will ac- 
knowledge to be striking; and they 
will, of course, use their utmost en- 
deavours to maintain peace and pub- 
lic tranquillity within these pro- 
vinces ; and we shall consider those 
as cnemics to the state, and treat 
_ them as such, who shall attempt to 
disturb them. 
ws (Signed) Marte, ALBERT. 
(Countersigned) Baron ve Fetiz. 
- Done at Brussels, April 29, 1792. 
221 
Counter-Declaration of the Court of 
Vienna against France. 
YY°HE result confirms what the 
+t court of Vienna has foreseen 
and foreboded, that those who ac- 
tually reign in France, being will- 
ing first to provoke the nation to 
arm, and then to a rupture with the 
late Fmperor, atter having availed 
themselves of the assemblies in the 
states of Treves, for pretences for 
the first mentioned, sought preten- 
ces for a war in the answers which 
they compelled his Imperial Majes- 
ty to give. It was in vain that the 
court of Vienna attempted to divert 
the effects of their inimical views, 
by unmasking, through repeated 
elucidations, the unlawfulness of all 
these accounts which successively 
followed one another in proportion 
as their deceitfulness was detected. 
These very pretences, these very 
endeavours of the court of Vienna 
for preventing a rupture, are alleg- 
ed as motives for the war which is 
declared against the King of Hun- 
gary and Bohemia in the name of 
his Most Christian Majesty and the 
French nation. 
The first of these motives is the 
public protection granted to the 
French emigrants. When this pro- 
tection was alleged, in order to 
give an appearance to the prepara- 
tions of France in December last, it 
was only insomuch as it extended 
to some states of the empire, to the 
armed assemblies of the emigrants; 
and far from attributing these grie- 
vances to the court of Vienna, its 
conduct had acquired, in this re- 
spect, public thanks on the part of 
the French government. The pre- 
sent change of a motive for thanks 
into a motive for an attack, offers 
so 
