[Footnote 2205: "Correspondance du Baron de Staël," Jan.19, 1792.--Gouverneur Morris (II.162, Feb. 4, 1792) writes to Washington that M. de Warville, on the diplomatic committee, proposed to cede Dunkirk and Calais to England, as a pledge of fidelity by France, in any engagement which she might enter into. You can judge, by this, of the wisdom and virtue of the faction to which he belongs--Buchez et Roux, XXX 89 (defense of Brissot, Jan. 5, 1793) "Brissot, like all noisy, reckless, ambitious men, started in full blast with the strangest paradoxes. In 1780. in his 'Recherches philosophiques sur le droit de propriété,' he wrote as follows: 'If 40 crowns suffice to maintain existence, the possession of 200,000 crowns is plainly unjust and a robbery... Exclusive ownership is a veritable crime against nature... The punishment of robbery in our institutions is an act of virtue which nature herself commands.'"] [Footnote 2206: Moniteur, speech by Cambon, sittings of Feb. 2 and April 20, 1792.] [Footnote 2207: Ibid., (sitting of April 3). Speech by M. Cailliasson. The property belonging to the nation, sold and to be sold, is valued at 2,195 millions, while the assignats already issued amount to 2,100 millions.--Cf. Mercure de France, Dec. 17, 1791, p.201; Jan.28, 1792, p. 215; May 19, 1792, p. 205.--Dumouriez, "Mémoires," III. 296, and 339, 340, 344, 346.--"Cambon, a raving lunatic, without education, humane principle, or integrity (public) a meddler, an ignoramus, and very giddy. He tells me that one resource remained to him, which is, to seize all the coin in Belgium, all the plate belonging to the churches, and all the cash deposits... that, on ruining the Belgians, on reducing them to the same state of suffering as the French, they would necessarily share their fate with them; that they would then be admitted members of the Republic, with the prospect of always making headway, through the same line of policy; that the decree of Dec. 15, 1792, admirably favored this and, because it tended to a complete disorganization, and that the luckiest thing that could happen to France was to disorganize all its neighbors and reduce them to the same state of anarchy." (This conversation between Cambon and Dumouriez occurs in the middle of January, 1793.)--Moniteur, XIV. 758 (sitting of Dec. 15, 1792). Report by Cambon.]