: 
F 
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fl 
HISTORY 
late large fortunes in a few years of 
war. He would rather from his soul 
that the blood of his fellow creatures 
should flow to gratify the ambition 
of an Alexander, than that certain 
persons should infamously make it 
the source to enrich their coffers. 
We had terminated the war in which 
we had been so long engaged, hap- 
pily; we had preserved our antient 
dominions, and had acquired others ; 
in other respects we had not been 
-so fortunate, as Europe was still left 
in an unsatisfactory state. He sin- 
cerely hoped however, that adminis- 
tration still approved of the peace 
they had made. (A cry of hear, 
hear.) Some supposed that minis- 
ters only made peace because their 
administration was young, and they 
wished tosecure it: he for his part 
should impute to them no such un- 
worthy motives, and was convinced 
that they then acted with sincerity. 
‘The power of France was certainly 
greater than he or any Englishman 
could wish it, but that was no ground 
for gomg to war. Although we 
might not be pleased with the pro- 
visions of the treaty of Luneville, 
yet at the time it was concluded we 
were not in a situation to interfere at 
all in settling the affairs of Germany. 
It would be 1 monstrous then, if after 
having positively refused to have any 
thing to do with the treaty of Lune- 
ville, we were now to quarrel about 
the execution of the details of that 
treaty between France and the em- 
“peror of Germany. He concluded 
by hoping that the sense of the na- 
tion might be to retain the advan- 
tages of the peace they had made. 
Mr. Canning said, there was one 
point which must be pretty univer- 
‘sally approved of, namely, the sys- 
, Mem of preparation which ministers 
OF EUROPE. 
13 
thought it necessary to adopt. He 
had generally approved of the peace 
which had been made, but if every 
thing was conciliation on our side, 
and we shewed a disposition to bear 
every insult from the French govern- 
ment, in such case the conduet of 
government was blameable. If ei- 
ter ministers had instigated the un- 
fortunate Swiss to a hopeless resist- 
ance, or if they only made a weak 
and ill-judged remonstrance in their 
favour, in such case their conduct 
was very blameable. How they had 
acted in those respects could be col- 
lected from no other source but 
public report. Ife certainly at the 
present time approved of the mea- 
sure of recruiting our exhausted 
army, and dismantled flect. It was 
when Piedmont was incorporated 
with France that our army was dis- 
banded, and the allotments of Ger- 
many were perhaps the effect of our 
ceniandlina our navy. He could 
not but totally disagree with Mr. 
Fox, who attributed all the calami- 
tics of the war to the late adiminis- 
tration; and he was prepared to 
maintain that the situation of the 
country was not so calamitous as it 
was represented, at the time when 
his majesty’s late ministers retired 
from office. It was that adminis- 
tration who had planned the arma- 
ment which the quarrel with the 
northern nations made necessary 5 
and it was that administration w ho 
prepared and sent forth the Egyp- 
tian expedition, which contributed 
so materially to the peace. He did 
not mean to blame the conduct of 
the present ministers ; but they be- 
gan with this advantage, that they 
could claim all the merit of the suc- 
cess of their expeditions; whereas if 
they had “gsi itwwas the late ad- 
ministration 
