HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
loaded them with the most oppro- 
brious aspersions, that had sought 
their utter ruin, and not only to 
deprive them of their bard-earned 
liberty, but to parcel them out 
among the European despots. For- 
tune having declared for the repub- 
licans, it was equally their duty and 
their interest to infliét the severest 
punishment on those who had form- 
ed so iniquitous a design. While 
England subsisted, it would prove 
an everlasting and irreconcileable 
enemy. It would unite with every 
power that harboured malevolent 
intentions to France. It would fo- 
ment and support that rebellious 
and fanatic party among the French 
which thought itself bound, in con- 
Science, to oppose the present go- 
vernment, and to restore the house 
of Bourbon. No medium remained 
between a precarious enistence of 
the republic, and the total reduétion 
of England. Having forced all 
their other enemies to submit, 1t 
were shameful to suffer this, their 
most deadly one, to retain the power 
of compelling them to undergo 
another trial for their indepen- 
dence. ; 
With arguments of this kind did 
the violent among the republicans 
plead for the propriety of making 
an attempt upon England itself ; 
alleging, at the same time, the 
number of partisans and well-wish- 
ers the republic might rely upon, 
among the English malcontents; 
whose numbers were immense, and 
daily augmenting, through the pres- 
sures which the war incessantly ac- 
cumulated upon the nation. 
But that circumstance which most 
irritated all parties in France at 
‘this juncture, and destroyed tbe 
confidence of their government in 
the good faith of that of England, 
[189 
was the mission of Mr. lammond, 
to Berlin, in order to procure, as 
they firmly asserted, the re-union of 
Prussia to the coalition. His failure, 
they said, was the real cause of the 
English ministry’s determination to 
make overtures for a treaty, 
Influenced by this suspicion, 
though the Direétory permitted the 
French ministry for foreign affairs 
to grant a passport for an agent from 
England, at the request of the Eng- 
lish ministry, yet this was done 
much more to obviate the complaints 
that would have arisen upon their 
refusal, than from any expeétaticn 
of a prosperous issue to the nego~ 
ciation. 
Lord Malmsbury, the person com- 
missioned on the part of Great 
Britain, to negociate a peace with 
France, arrived at Paris, on the 
twenty-second of Oétober, and was, 
on his arrival, received by the peo- 
ple of that city with every demon- 
stration of joy: but the government, 
far {rom treating him with cordiality, 
indirectly countenanced a variety of 
surmises, so prejudicial to his errand 
and official chara¢ter, that he was 
necessitated tormally to complain of 
them, before it thought proper to 
silence and disavow them. 
The negociation was opened, on 
the twenty-fourth of Oétober, by 
lord Malmsbury’s proposing to De 
la Croix, the French minister of the 
foreign department, to fix upon 
some principles whereon to found 
the conditions of the treaty, and ree 
commending that of reciprocal re. 
storation of what had been lost and 
taken by each of the Beliigerent 
parties, aS the most usually adopted 
on such occasions. He observed, 
that Great Britain having, in the 
course of this war, made conquests 
upon Irance of the highest value 
and 
