82] ANNUAL REGISTER, 1800. 



the suliject; for he entertained no 

 doubt that they would retract all 

 they had said if it should be ne- 

 cessary to do so. They had abused 

 every ruling power in France; but, 

 whenever they had been driven by 

 the general voice of the people to 

 negociate, their former ill language 

 had never been any impediment. 

 Ministers had tried negociation, 

 and had failed, and, because they 

 had failed, it was to be a reason 

 why they should not persevere. 

 Let the people tell them to make 

 peace, and they would make it. 

 Without the voice of the people 

 they never would: for they were 

 sensible, that in the calm moments 

 of peace, the people would inquire 

 of themselves for what they had 

 been spending their best blood and 

 treasure. Tliey would find, that 

 they had obtained nothing to justify 

 such expenditure and heavy cala- 

 mities as war had produced. Such 

 would be their reflections ; and 

 ministers, kno^ving this, wished to 

 procrastinate the war. Nothing 

 but the courage and magnanimity 

 of the people themselves could re- 

 lieve the country. The people 

 were bending, the duke observed, 

 under the accumulated weight of 

 taxes, and it was for the rulers to 

 take care that they did not sink. 

 A continuance of that oppression, 

 which they had endured, would 

 either make them torpid slaves, or 

 prepare them for revolution. If 

 the people were driven to despair, 

 by griping tax-gatherers, like the 

 French, they would look up to them- 

 selves, and redress their own grie- 

 vances. If he failed in stemming 

 the torrent, and checking that sys- 

 tem which involved the people's 

 liberties, and threatened to plunge 

 tlie country into all the horrors of 



a devastative revolution, he should 

 in future refrain from troubling the 

 house. He would now only ob- 

 serve, that they could not regard 

 the address proposed by ministers, 

 as containing the sentiments of their 

 sovereign, but their own; and, as 

 such they should freely and vigor- 

 ously discuss and examine it. He 

 then submitted to their lordships 

 consideration a counter address ; 

 which, after enumerating the re- 

 peated declarations, of a pacific 

 disposition, and overtures for peace 

 on the part of his majesty, ex- 

 pressed the " Regrets of the lords 

 spiritual and temporal at perceiving 

 that his majesty had been advised 

 to reject the first overtures for a 

 general pacification on the part of 

 the enemy ; and humbly implored 

 his majesty to give directions for 

 the immediate renewal, if possible, 

 of a negociation for peace with 

 the French republic, most fervently 

 beseeching his majesty to recur to 

 those principles of moderation and 

 equity, so solemnly and so repeatedly 

 avowed, and which, if strictly ad- 

 hered to, must ensure the speedy 

 restoration of all the blessings of 

 peace, or render our enemies alone 

 accountable for all the calamities 

 too certainly attendant on a con- 

 tinuance of hostilities." 



Lord Borringdon said, that a 

 revolution, perhaps the most im- 

 portant that even France, herself, 

 had yet witnessed, had lately placed 

 on the throne of power, in that 

 country— he would give him no 

 epithets — he was certainly a most 

 celebrated and extraordinary man. 

 Without considering his personal 

 character,it was sufficient for his pur- 

 pose, if he stated that he was very 

 recently arrived at the post which 

 he occupied; that it was utterly 



