STATE PAPERS. 



6S3 



witiiin Us own frontiers, and respect 

 the rights and independence of other 

 states, whether strong or weak. 

 That tranquillity is troubled, when 

 any power appropriates to herself a 

 right of occupation, protection, or 

 influence, when that right is neither 

 founded on the laws of nations, nor 

 on treaties ; when she speaks after 

 peace of the right of conquest; when 

 she employs force and menaces to 

 prescribe laws to her neighbours, 

 and compels them to sign treaties of 

 alliance, concession, subjugation, or 

 incorporation at her will ; when 

 she, above all, in her own journals, 

 attacks every sovereign, one after 

 another, with language oti'ensive to 

 their dignity; when, finally, she sets 

 herself up as an arbitrcss to regulate 

 the common interests of nations, 

 and wishes to exclude every other 

 state from taking any part in the 

 maintenance of tranquillity and the 

 balance of power. One she would 

 exclude, because it is too distant; 

 -another, because it is separated by an 

 arm of the sea from the continent ; 

 and evading an answer to the re- 

 monstrances of the powers nearest 

 the danger, assembles troops on their 

 frontiers, and threatens them with a 

 rupture if they place themselves in a 

 state of defence. — Under such cir- 

 cumstances, it becomes necessary 

 for other powers to arm, to support 

 each other, and to join in maintain- 

 ing their own, and thcgent^ral secu- 

 rity. Thus the military preparations 

 of the court of V^ienna arc provoked 

 by the preparations of France, as 

 well as by her neglect of ail means 

 of securing and maintaining a true 



peace and future tranquillity. 



All Europe knows the sincerity of 

 the wish for peace whicli his impe- 

 rial majesty has displayed, and the 

 punctuality wherewith he has ful- 

 fijlifd the obligations of the treaty 

 Vol. XLVII. 



of Luneville ; that sincerity cannot 

 fail to be recognized in the great 

 concessions made in consequence of 

 the injurious extension given to that 

 treaty in Germany, and in the not 

 less great moderation with which his 

 imperial majesty has conducted hiib- 

 self on the first departure of the 

 French republic from that treaty, in 

 respect to the concerns of the other 

 republics. AA'hile these changes were 

 ascribed to the necessity of securing 

 from all danger the disclosure of the 

 plans for the restoration of monat- 

 chical government in France, his ma- 

 jesty made no difficulty to recognize 

 the state of things which, towards 

 the end of the year 1802, was estab- 

 lished in Italy. His majesty's con- 

 fidence in the views of the first con- 

 sul was confirmed by the obligations 

 which the latter owed to the Italian 

 republic in his character of presi- 

 dent, by hi* frequent and solemn as- 

 surances, before and after his eleva- 

 tion to the imperial dignity, that he 

 was far from entertaining any plans 

 of farther aggrandisement or of en- 

 croachment on the independence of 

 the Italian states, la fine, by the 

 pledges which he had given to the 

 emperor of Russia, particularly with 

 respect to the indemnification of the 

 king of Sardinia, and the general 

 arrangement of the affairs of Italy. 

 — All these considerations concurred 

 in exciting and cherishing in his ma- 

 jesty's bosom, the hope that the con- 

 solidation of the new empire of the 

 French, would speedily bring back - 

 the policy and proceedings of its 

 government to a system of deport- 

 ment compatible M'ith the balance 

 of power and the safety of Europe; 

 and some time after, when the first 

 reports of new meditated changes in 

 the states of Lombardy, induced the 

 ambassador from the court of Vien- 

 na, at Paris, to demand explanations 

 y y upon 



