It was not enough that the speech from the throne, in the opening of the session in 1795, threw out oglings and glances of tenderness. Lest this coquetting should seem too cold and ambiguous, without waiting for its effect, the violent passion for a relation to the Regicides produced a direct message from the crown, and its consequences from the two Houses of Parliament. On the part of the Regicides these declarations could not be entirely passed by without notice; but in that notice they discovered still more clearly the bottom of their character. The offer made to them by the message to Parliament was hinted at in their answer,--but in an obscure and oblique manner, as before. They accompanied their notice of the indications manifested on our side with every kind of insolent and taunting reflection. The Regicide Directory, on the day which, in their gypsy jargon, they call the 5th of _Pluviose_, in return for our advances, charge us with eluding our declarations under "evasive formalities and frivolous pretexts." What these pretexts and evasions were they do not say, and I have never heard. But they do not rest there. They proceed to charge us, and, as it should seem, our allies in the mass, with direct _perfidy_; they are so conciliatory in their language as to hint that this perfidious character is not new in our proceedings. However, notwithstanding this our habitual perfidy, they will offer peace "on conditions _as_ moderate"--as what? as reason and as equity require? No,--as moderate "as are suitable to their _national dignity_." National dignity in all treaties I do admit is an important consideration: they have given us an useful hint on that subject: but dignity hitherto has belonged to the mode of proceeding, not to the matter of a treaty. Never before has it been mentioned as the standard for rating the conditions of peace,--no, never by the most violent of conquerors. Indemnification is capable of some estimate; dignity has no standard. It is impossible to guess what acquisitions pride and ambition may think fit for their _dignity_. But lest any doubt should remain on what they think for their dignity, the Regicides in the next paragraph tell us "that they will have no peace with their enemies, until they have reduced them to a state which will put them under an _impossibility_ of pursuing their wretched projects,"--that is, in plain French or English, until they have accomplished our utter and irretrievable ruin. This is their _pacific_ language. It flows from their unalterable principle, in whatever language they speak or whatever steps they take, whether of real war or of pretended pacification. They have never, to do them justice, been at much trouble in concealing their intentions. We were as obstinately resolved to think them not in earnest: but I confess, jests of this sort, whatever their urbanity may be, are not much to my taste.