STATE PAPERS. 
convincing manner, that it merely 
depended on those who at present 
reign over France, to make this 
concert cease immediately, by re- 
specting the tranquillity and the 
rght of other powers, and to gua- 
rantee the essential basis of the 
French monarchical form of go- 
vernment against the infringements 
of violence and anarchy. Every 
cause of uneasiness would have 
ceased, if such dispositions had pre- 
vailed in France; and the whole 
conduct of the court of Vienna, far 
from justifying any blame of its 
views, would have evinced its in- 
genuousness and moderation. 
Upor the invitation of the French 
ministry, it had entirely withdrawn 
from the said declaration the claims 
of the German princes having do- 
minions in Alsace. And if the de- 
ceased sovereign of Austria was un- 
able to avoid fulfilling his duties as 
Emperor in this respect, nothing 
in the world shewed that he should 
prevent any conciliatory method 
which was indeed sufficient and 
compatible with the constitution 
of the empire, on objects in which 
Austria never was concerned itself 
in a direct manner, and for which 
reason it is the more unjust actually 
to draw from this a particular mo- 
tive for a war against her; whereas 
her present sovereign has no great- 
er concern in it thanthe other mem- 
bers of the German body. 
On the other hand, the court of 
Vienna has given the clearest proofs 
of the good faith of its dispositions, 
by refraining from accompanying 
its declarations by armaments ade- 
uate to the greatness of those that 
rance supported her questions 
withal. Whilst the latter assembled 
130,000 men on the frontiers of the 
Low Countries and Germany, the 
223 
court of Vienna did not send a bat- 
talion more to its Belgian troops, 
whose reinforcements ever since 
1790, have generally not exceeded 
3 or 4000 men. All its measures 
were confined to augment its ante- 
rior Austrian troops with4000 men, 
who, by this reinforcement, were 
carried to 10,000 men; and it was 
not till after the 14th of April that 
dispositions were made for sending 
more troops, when the offensive in- 
terpretation which the well-mean- 
ing declarations of the court of Vi- 
enna met with, and the events which 
soon after happened in France, left 
no more doubt of the speedy explo- 
sion of an attack. 
The proposal reciprocally to dis- 
arm, delivered on the {1th of March 
by the French ambassador at Vien- 
na, at a time when France alone had 
armed for a war, accompanied with 
a demand of quitting the concert 
of powers in a moment when the 
position of that kingdom daily gave 
more and more uneasiness, could 
not in any respect be considered 
otherwise than as an ultimate pre- 
tence for engaging the French na- 
tion in this attack, to which all the 
preceding steps had led, and theex- - 
ecution of which happened almost 
at the same period when the am- 
bassador delivered the declaration 
of war. 
Thus none of the grievances ac- 
cumulated in the French declara- 
tion of war, without a single proof, 
has the least appearance of founda- 
tion and good faith, and of which 
the nullity was not already proved, 
except, indeed, the new grievance 
which is added to it as an overplus 
of injustice, by upbraiding the court 
of Vienna with the hopes it had en- 
tertained that the reason, the ho. 
nour, and equity of the more es 
anc 
