STATE PAPERS. 



6i5 



to the lawful creditors, and wliich 

 •it owes to the nation, whose rights 

 it is bound to defend. Peace was in 

 tlie wishes and in the intentions of 

 the government. It had wished for 

 it amidst the yet uncertain cliances 

 of war ; it had wished for it in the 

 mid-it of Victoria's. It was to the 

 prosperity of the republic tiiat it 

 henceforth- attached all its glory. 

 At home it awakened industry, it 

 encouraged the arts, it undertook 

 either useful works, or monuments 

 of nafion:'.! grandeur. Our vessels 

 were scattered over every sea, and 

 reposed on the faith of treaties. 

 They were employed only in re- 

 storing our colonies to France and 

 to happiness ; there w as no arma- 

 ment in our ports, nothing me- 

 nacing on our frontiers. And this 

 was the moment which the British 

 government chose to alarm its na- 

 tion, to cover the channel with 

 ships, to insult our commerce by 

 injurious inspections, and our coasts 

 and- ports, as well as those of our 

 allies, by the prcseacc of its me- 

 nacing forct'S. — If on the 17th 

 Ventose of the 11th year (March 

 8, 1S03), there existed an extraor- 

 dinary armament in the ports of 

 France and Holland ; if a single 

 preparation was made in them to 

 which the most remote suspicion 

 could give a sinister interpretation, 

 then we arc the aggressors ; the 

 message of the king of i^ngland, and 

 his hostile attitude, have been ren- 

 dered necessary, by a legitimate 

 precaution ; and the English peo- 

 ple had a right to believe that we 

 threatened their independence, their 

 religion, their constitution : but if 

 the assertions of the message were 

 false, if they were contradicted by 

 the opinion of Europe, as well as 

 by the conscience of the liritish 



government, then that government 

 have deceived their nation ; they 

 have decL'ived it by precipitating it, 

 without rftilection, into a: war, the 

 terrible effects of which now- begin 

 to be felt in England, and the re- 

 sults of which may be decisive of its 

 future destiny. The aggressor, how- 

 ever, ought alone to answer for 

 the calamities which afflicft humanity. 

 Malta, the cause of this war, was 

 in the power of the English ; it 

 remained with France to arm to 

 effect its independence ; France 

 silence for the justice of 

 and it was England who 

 war, even without a de- 

 -Bj the dispersion of our 



waited in 

 England ; 

 began the 

 claration.- 



ships, and the security of our com- 

 merce, our losses miaht have beea 



immense : we foresaw these circum- 

 stances, and we would have sup- 

 ported them without discourage- 

 ment or weakness, but happily 

 they have been less than we ap- 

 prehended : our ships of war have 

 returned to European ports, one 

 only excepted, which had long been 

 employed merely as a transport, has 

 fallen into the hands of the enemy. 

 Of two hundred millions, which the 

 English cruizcrs might have ravished 

 from our commerce, more than two- 

 thirds have been preserved. Our 

 privateers have avenged these losses 

 by important captures, and they 

 will complete their revenge by othfers 

 more important. Tobago and St. 

 Lucia were defenceless, and were 

 obliged to surrender to the first 

 force which appeared ; but our 

 great colonies arc yet preserved, 

 and the attacks made against them 

 by the enemy have proved fruitless. 

 Ilanover is in our power ; 25,000 

 of the best trooi)s of the enemy 

 have laid down their arms and be- 

 come prisoners of war. Our ca- 

 R r 4 Talry 



