but the inviolable faith of jacobinism, and the steady politicks of anarchy to depend upon, against France's renewing the very same attempts upon Holland, and renewing them (considering what Holland was and is) with much better prospects of success. Mr. Fox must have been well aware, that if we were to break with the greater continental powers, and particularly to come to a rupture with them, in the violent and intemperate mode in which he would have made the breach, the defence of Holland against a foreign enemy, and a strong domestick faction, must hereafter rest solely upon England, without the chance of a single ally, either on that or on any other occasion. So far as to the pretended sole object of the war, which Mr. Fox supposed to be so completely obtained, (but which then was not at all, and at this day is not completely obtained,) as to leave us nothing else to do than to cultivate a peaceful, quiet correspondence with those quiet, peaceable, and moderate people, the jacobins of France.

31. To induce us to this, Mr. Fox laboured hard to make it appear, that the powers with whom we acted were full as ambitious and as perfidious as the French. This might be true as to other nations. They had not, however, been so to us or to Holland. He produced no proof of active ambition and ill faith against Austria. But supposing the combined powers had been all thus faithless,

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faithless, and been all alike so, there was one circumstance which made an essential difference between them and France. I need not therefore be at the trouble of contesting this point, which, however, in this latitude, and as at all affecting Great Britain and Holland, I deny utterly be it So. But the great monarchies have it in their power to keep their faith if they please, because they are governments of established and recognised authority at home and abroad. France had, in reality, no government. The very factions, who exercised power, had no stability. The French convention had no powers of peace or war. Supposing the convention to be free (most assuredly it was not) they had shewn no disposition to abandon their projects. Though long driven out of Liege, it was not many days before Mr. Fox's motion, that they still continued to claim it as a country, which their principles of fraternity bound them to protect, that is, to subdue and to regulate at their pleasure. That party which Mr. Fox inclined most to favour and trust, and from which he must have received his assurances (if any he did receive) that is, the Brissotins, were then either prisoners or fugitives. The party which prevailed over them (that of Danton and Marat) was itself in a tottering condition, and was disowned by a very great part of France. To say nothing of the royal party who were powerful and growing, and

who

who had full as good a right to claim to be the legitimate government, as any of the Parisian factions with whom he proposed to treat or rather (as it seemed to me) to surrender at discretion.

32. But when Mr. Fox began to come from his general hopes of the moderation of the jacobins, to particulars, he put the case, that they might not perhaps be willing to surrender Savoy. He certainly was not willing to contest that point with them; but plainly and explicitly (as I understood him) proposed to let them keep it; though he knew (or he was much worse informed than he would be thought) that England had, at the very time, agreed on the terms of a treaty with the king of Sardinia, of which the recovery of Savoy was the casus federis. In the teeth of this treaty, Mr. Fox proposed a direct and most scandalous breach of our faith, formally and recently given. But to surrender Savoy, was to surrender a great deal more than so many square acres of land, or so much revenue. In its consequences, the surrender of Savoy was to make a surrender to France of Switzerland and Italy, of both which countries, Savoy is the key-as it is known to ordinary speculators in politicks, though it may not be known to the weavers in Norwich, who, it seems are, by Mr. Fox, called to be the judges in this matter.

33. A sure way, indeed, to encourage France

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not to make a surrender of this key of Italy and Switzerland, or of Mentz, the key of Germany, or of any other object whatsoever which she holds, is to let her see, that the people of England raise a clamour against the war before terms are so much as proposed on any side. From that moment, the jacobins would be masters of the terms.They would know, that parliament, at all hazards, would force the king to a separate peace. The crown could not, in that case, have any use of its judgment. Parliament could not possess more judgment than the crown, when besieged (as Mr. Fox proposed to Mr. Gurney) by the cries of the manufacturers. This description of men, Mr. Fox endeavoured in his speech, by every method, to irritate and inflame. In effect, his two speeches were, through the whole, nothing more than an amplification of the Norwich hand-bill. He rested the greatest part of his arguments on the distress of trade, which he attributed to the war; though it was obvious to any tolerably good observation, and, much more, must have been clear to such an observation as his, that the then difficulties of the trade and manufacture could have no sort of connexion with our share in it. The war had hardly begun. We had suffered neither by spoil, nor by defeat, nor by disgrace of any kind. Publick credit was so little impaired, that, instead of being supported by any extraor

dinary aids from individuals, it advanced a credit to individuals to the amount of five millions for the support of trade and manufactures, under their temporary difficulties, a thing before never heard. of; a thing of which I do not commend the policy-but only state it, to shew, that Mr. Fox's ideas of the effects of war were without any trace of foundation.

33. It is impossible not to connect the arguments and proceedings of a party with that of its leader-especially when not disavowed or controlled by him. Mr. Fox's partisans declaim against all the powers of Europe, except the jacobins, just as he does; but not having the same reasons for management and caution which he has, they speak out. He satisfies himself merely with making his invectives, and leaves others to draw the conclusion. But they produce their Polish interposition, for the express purpose of leading to a French alliance. They urge their French peace, in order to make a junction with the jacobins to oppose the powers, whom, in their language, they call Despots, and their leagues, a combination of Despots. Indeed, no man can look on the present posture of Europe with the least degree of discernment, who will not be thoroughly convinced, that England must be the fast friend, or the determined enemy, of France. There is no medium; and I do not