And what were the explanations they offered on these different grounds of offence? As to Holland: they told you the Scheldt was too insignificant for you to trouble yourselves about, and therefore it was to be decided as they chose, in breach of positive treaty, which they had themselves guaranteed, and which we, by our alliance, were bound to support. If, however, after the war was over, Belgium should have consolidated its liberty (a term of which we now know the meaning, from the fate of every nation into which the arms of France have penetrated) then Belgium and Holland might, if they pleased, settle the question of the Scheldt by separate negotiation between themselves. With respect to aggrandizement, they assured us that they would retain possession of Belgium by arms no longer than they should find it necessary to the purpose already stated, of consolidating its liberty. And with respect to the decree of the 19th of November, 1792, applied as it was pointedly to you, by all the intercourse I have stated with all the seditious and traitorous part of this country, and particularly by the speeches of every leading man among them, they contented themselves with asserting that the declaration conveyed no such meaning as was imputed to it, and that, so far from encouraging sedition, it could apply only to countries where a great majority of the people should have already declared itself in favor of a revolution: a supposition which, as they asserted, necessarily implied a total absence of all sedition. What would have been the effect of admitting this explanation? to suffer a nation, and an armed nation, to preach to the inhabitants of all the countries in the world that they themselves were slaves and their rulers tyrants; to encourage and invite them to revolution by a previous promise of French support to whatever might call itself a majority, or to whatever France might declare to be so. This was their explanation; and this, they told you, was their ultimatum.