6 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1903 . 
weight with the country at large. If 
he supposed however, that the lan- 
guage of the address arose merely 
from a hope of the co-operation of 
continental powers against France, 
he should disapprove of it. He 
looked to the innate strength, cou- 
rage and public spirit of the country, 
as the foundation of its security ; 
and on that foundation alone, he 
trusted that we should rise superior 
to every difficulty which presented 
itself. With this qualification then 
which he had prescribed to himself, 
the address met his hearty con- 
currence. 
Lord Grenville agreed that the 
present was a very serious aspect 
of affairs. The new parliament 
had been assembled at a very awful 
period, in which the public, doubt- 
ful of the principles and policy of 
the present ministers, were anxious 
to learn whether we were to have 
peace or war. ‘The interests and 
happiness of Europe were nearly 
destroyed by the inordinate ambi- 
tion of the French government, 
which was extending its power and 
influence to the total subversion of 
the liberties of mankind. It was 
therefore better to meet the perils 
of war with manly fortitude, than 
to see with silent indifference the 
subjugation of Europe. The speech 
from the throne met in several of 
its passages with his cordial concur- 
rence: he thought many of its pro- 
positions were a direct censure on 
men in power, for their want of 
capacity and vigilance in the direc- 
tion of public affairs, He would 
ask, was any attention paid to the 
machinations of France between 
the signature of the preliminary 
and that of the definitive treaty? 
Did not France during that interval 
send a large fleet to the West Indies 
without informing us of it? Did 
she not take possession of Louisi- 
ana? We saw Europe also pros- 
trate at her feet, its territories 
plundered, and its liberties destroy- 
ed. Had we then boldly stood 
forward in defence of her liberty, 
France must have receded from her 
desperate measures, discontinued 
her depredations, and Europe would 
have been sayed from the tyranny 
of the French republic. 
After the signature of the defini- 
tive treaty, France pursued the 
same line of conduct: The ink was 
scarcely dry with which it was 
signed, the wax scarcely cold with 
which it was sealed; when France, 
in violation of the treaty of Amiens, 
began to add territory to territory to 
the republic. Piedmont was the 
first which fell under its griping 
ambition. Had Great Britain, in 
concert with Russia, remonstrated 
at the time, France would not have 
dared to annex it to her empire. 
France, with her usual cunning, 
first pretended to occupy Piedmont 
merely as a military position, but 
afterwards she thought fit to annex 
it to her states. She made a treaty 
with the king of Sardinia when he 
was a-prisoner in his own capital; 
but even then kis Sardinian majes- 
ty had fortitude and fidelity enough 
to refuse to act hostilely against 
Great Britain, or to exclude the 
English from his sea-ports; yet this 
was the man whom we afterwards 
so fully abandoned to the mercy of 
the French government. When we 
signed the definitive treaty we by 
no means acknowledged this right 
in France, nor had we abandoned, 
our own right of interference for 
the liberties and interests of au 
