ment to those who had been separated from Mr. Fox, on account of his conduct on the first proclamation, to rejoin that party. 5. Not having consulted any of the Duke of Portland's party in the house of commons; and not having consulted them, because he had reason to know, that the course he had resolved to pursue would be highly disagreeable to them, he represented the alarm, which was a second time. given and taken, in still more invidious colours than those in which he painted the alarms of the former year. He described those alarms in this manner, although the cause of them was then grown far less equivocal, and far more urgent. He even went so far as to treat the supposition of the growth of a jacobin spirit in England as a libel on the nation. As to the danger from abroad, on the first day of the session, he said little or nothing upon the subject. He contented himself with defending the ruling factions in France, and with accusing the publick councils of this kingdom of every sort of evil design on the liberties of the people; declaring distinctly, strongly, and precisely, that the whole danger of the nation was from the growth of the power of the crown. The policy of this declaration was obvious. It was in subservience to the general plan of disabling us from taking any steps against France. To counteract the alarm given by the progress If that progress of jacobin arms and principles, he endeavoured to excite an opposite alarm concerning the growth of the power of the crown. alarm should prevail, he knew that the nation never would be brought by arms to oppose the growth of the jacobin empire; because it is obvious that war does, in its very nature, necessitate the commons considerably to strengthen the hands of government; and if that strength should itself be the object of terrour, we could have no war. 6. In the extraordinary and violent speeches of that day, he attributed all the evils, which the publick had suffered, to the proclamation of the preceding summer; though he spoke in presence of the Duke of Portland's own son, the marquis of Titchfield, who had seconded the address on that proclamation; and in the presence of the Duke of Portland's brother, Lord Edward Bentinck, and several others of his best friends and nearest relations. 7. On that day, that is, on the 18th of December, 1792, he proposed an amendment to the address, which stands on the journals of the House, and which is, perhaps, the most extraordinary record which ever did stand upon them. To introduce this amendment, he not only struck out the part of the proposed address which alluded to insurrections, upon the ground of the objections objections which he took to the legality of calling together parliament, (objections which I must ever think litigious and sophistical) but he likewise struck out that part which related to the cabals and conspiracies of the French faction in England, although their practices and correspondences were of publick notoriety. Mr. Cooper and Mr. Watt had been deputed from Manchester to the jacobins. These ambassadors were received by them as British representatives. Other deputations of English had been received at the bar of the National Assembly. They had gone the length of giving supplies to the jacobin armies; and they in return had received promises of military assistance to forward their designs in England. A regular correspondence for fraternizing the two nations had also been carried on by societies in London with a great number of the jacobin societies in France. This correspondence had also for its object the pretended improvement of the British constitution.-What is the most remarkable, and by much the more mischievous part of his proceedings that day, Mr. Fox likewise struck out every thing in the address which related to the tokens of ambition given by France, her aggressions upon our allies, and the sudden and dangerous growth of her power upon every side; and instead of all those weighty, and, at that time, necessary matters, by which the house of commons was (in a crisis, crisis, such as perhaps Europe never stood) to give assurances to our allies, strength to our government, and a check to the common enemy of Europe, he substituted nothing but a criminal charge on the conduct of the British government for calling parliament together, and an engagement to enquire into that conduct. 8. If it had pleased God to suffer him to succeed in this his project, for the amendment to the address, he would for ever have ruined this nation, along with the rest of Europe. At home all the jacobin societies, formed for the utter destruction of our constitution, would have lifted up their heads, which had been beaten down by the two proclamations. Those societies would have been infinitely strengthened and multiplied in every quarter; their dangerous foreign communications would have been left broad and open; the crown would not have been authorized to take any measure whatever for our immediate defence by sea or land. The closest, the most natural, the nearest, and, at the same time, from many internal as well as external circumstances, the weakest of our allies, Holland, would have been given up, bound hand and foot, to France, just on the point of invading that republick. A general consternation would have seized upon all Europe; and all alliance with every other power, except France, would have been for ever rendered impracticable impracticable to us. I think it impossible for any man, who regards the dignity and safety of his country, or indeed the common safety of mankind, ever to forget Mr. Fox's proceedings in that tremendous crisis of all human affairs. 9. Mr. Fox very soon had reason to be apprized of the general dislike of the Duke of Portland's friends to this conduct. Some of those who had even voted with him, the day after their vote expressed their abhorrence of his amendment, their sense of its inevitable tendency, and their total alienation from the principles and maxims upon which it was made; yet, the very next day, that is, on Friday the 14th of December, he brought on what in effect was the very same business, and on the same principles, a second time. 10. Although the House does not usually sit on Saturday, he a third time brought on another proposition, in the same spirit, and pursued it with so much heat and perseverance as to sit into Sunday; a thing not known in parliament for many years. 11. In all these motions and debates he wholly departed from all the political principles relative to France, (considered merely as a state, and independent of its jacobin form of government) which had hitherto been held fundamental in this country, and which he had himself held more . strongly |