204 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1800. 



and the happiness of families? How 

 is it that they do not feel that 

 peace is of the first necessity as 

 well as the first glory? These senti- 

 ments cannot be foreign to the 

 heart of your majesty, who reigns 

 over a free nation, and with the 

 sole view of rendering it happy. — 

 Your majesty will only see, in this 

 overture, my sincere desire to con- 

 tribute efficaciously, for the second 

 time, to a general pacification, by 

 a step, speedy, entirely of confi- 

 dence, and disengaged from those 

 forms which, necessary perhaps to 

 disguise the dependence of weak 

 states, prove only in those which are 

 stronix the mutual desire of deceiv- 

 ing each other. France and Eng- 

 land, by the abuse of their strength, 

 may still, for a long time, for the 

 misfortune of all nations, retard the 

 period of their being exhausted. — 

 But I will venture to say, the fate of 

 all civilized nations is attached to 

 the termination of a war which 

 involves the whole world. 



Buonaparte. 



Downing-street, Jan. 4, 1800. 

 Sir, 

 I have received and laid before 

 the king the two letters which you 

 have transmitted to me ; and his 

 majesty, seeing no reason to depart 

 from those forms which have long 

 been established in Europe, for 

 transacting business with foreign 

 states, has commanded me, to re- 

 turn, in his name, the official 

 answer which I send you herewith 

 inclosed. I have the honour to be, 

 with high consideration, sir, your 

 most obedient, humble servant, 



Grenville. 

 To the minister for foreign 

 affairs, &c. at Paris. 



NOTE. 



The kinghas given frerpient proofs 

 of his sincere desire for the re-esta- 

 blishment of secure and permanent 

 tranquillity in Europe. He neither 

 is, nor has been, engaged in any 

 contest for a vain and false glory. — 

 He has had no other view than that 

 of maintaining, against all aggres- 

 sion, the rights and happiness of 

 his subjects. For these he has con- 

 tended against an unprovoked at- 

 tack ; and for the same objects he 

 is still obliged to contend ; nor can 

 he hope that this necessity could be 

 removed by entering, at the pre- 

 sent moment, into negociation with 

 those whom a fresh revolution has 

 so recently placed in the exercise of 

 power in France ; since no real ad- 

 vantage can arise from such negoci- 

 ation to the great and desirable ob- 

 ject of general peace, until it shall 

 distinctly appear that those causes 

 have ceased to operate, which ori- 

 ginally produced the war, and by 

 which it has since been protracted, 

 and, in more than one instance, re- 

 newed. The same system, to tlie 

 prevalence of which France justly 

 ascribes all her present miseries, is 

 that which has also involved therest 

 of Europe in a long and destructive 

 warfare, of a nature long since un- 

 known to the practice of civilized 

 nations. For the extension of this 

 system, and for the extermination of 

 all established governments, the re- 

 sources of France have from year to 

 year, and in the midst of the most 

 unparalleled distress, been lavished 

 and exhausted. To this indiscrimi- 

 nate spirit of destruction, the Ne- 

 therlands, the United Provinces, 

 the Swiss Cantons, (his majesty's 

 ancient friends and allies), have 

 successively been sacrificed. Ger- 



