Representative British Orations Volume 2 (of 4): With Introductions and Explanatory Notes
History
Representative British Orations Volume 2 (of 4): With Introductions and Explanatory Notes
Speeches, addresses, etc., English
Inaccuracy in dates seems to be a sort of fatality common to all who
have written on that side of the question; for even the writer of the
note to his Majesty is not more correct, in this respect, than if
he had taken his information only from the pamphlet of the learned
gentleman. The House will recollect the first professions of the French
Republic, which are enumerated, and enumerated truly, in that note.
They are tests of every thing which would best recommend a government
to the esteem and confidence of foreign powers, and the reverse of
every thing which has been the system and practice of France now for
near ten years. It is there stated that their first principles were
love of peace, aversion to conquest, and respect for the independence
of other countries. In the same note it seems, indeed, admitted that
they since have violated all those principles; but it is alleged that
they have done so only in consequence of the provocation of other
powers. One of the first of those provocations is stated to have
consisted in the various outrages offered to their ministers, of which
the example is said to have been set by the King of Great Britain in
his conduct to M. Chauvelin. In answer to this supposition, it is only
necessary to remark, that before the example was given, before Austria
and Prussia are supposed to have been thus encouraged to combine in
a plan for the partition of France, that plan, if it ever existed at
all, had existed and been acted upon for above eight months. France
and Prussia had been at war eight months before the dismissal of M.
Chauvelin. So much for the accuracy of the statement.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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