cited: but these sufficiently evince that the confederate republicans agreed 1792 in confounding 'in one common mass every species of monarchy, against which they vowed destruction.-To these Dumouriez alludes, when he says, "that it required all the imprudence of Brissot, all the petulance of the "national convention, and the murder of Lewis the Sixteenth, as atrocious as it was impolitic, to drive the English, in 1793, from their system of neutrality, and to plunge them into a most expensive war which gave "them momentary advantages, balanced by great losses and enormous subsidies, without an assurance of preserving their conquests.' To the motives of resentment to which Dumouriez ascribes the subsequent conduct of Great Britain, we must add that of policy, pointed out by an intelligent and dispassionate French writer. "The massacres of sep"tember, the abolition of royalty, the resistance of the republican troops, "the unexpected retreat of Frederic William, the explosion of the mar"tial ardour of the French, the impetuous energy of the convention, the "success of Dumouriez, the splendid victory of Jamappe, the conquest of "Brabant, the propagation of democracy in Holland and the low countries, totally changed the plan of the English ministry, and they came to a "resolution to reanimate the coalition, and to destroy that republic "whose principles menaced social order, and which shewed in its cradel "so much audacity, power, ambition, and inhumanity." -These citations deserve our attention, because they discover the sentiments of foreigners respecting the line of policy which our government had adopted, and from which it was now induced to depart by the behaviour of the French convention, the prevalence of French principles, the successes of their arms, and their dangerous designs.-At the same time that. Great Britain was impelled by resentment to avenge the cause of an injured monarch, and was induced by policy to reanimate the confederates, and encourage them to act with energy against an ambitious republic which, under cover of establishing more perfect liberty, had already involved their own country in anarchy, and threatened destruction to all civil government and the independency of Europe, whether it would not have been more politic to have left the continental powers to have defended their own Y Dumouriez. 2. 205. 2 Segur. 3. 22. 1792 own frontier, and to have employed the whole strength of the state on its own element, the events of the war will enable us to judge. His majesty having thought it necessary hastily to embody the militia, and to augment his military and naval forces, on account of the alarming indications of internal turbulence and danger from abroad, he now, agreeably with the rules of the constitution, assembled the parliament, to give its sanction to these measures. His speech to the two houses set forth the grounds of his conduct. And although the addresses on it were received with an opposition which discovered that there was a great diversity of sentiment respecting the merits of the present measures, yet they were voted by a majority of 290 to 50 in the house of commons, and by a considerable majority in the house of peers." 1792 HOLLAND. THE Dutch states participated with all established governments in the feelings excited by the violent proceedings of the French convention and the success of their arms. Alarmed by the rapid progress of Dumouriez's army through the Austrian Netherlands, they prepared for defence at the close of this year, and received an assurance from the British ambassador of his sovereign's intention to support them in case of an attack. 1792 FRANCE. THE fatal effects arising from the impassioned feelings of the different parties interested in the revolution, in precluding all hopes of a reconciliation and of the establishment of a monarchical constitution on a firm basis, became daily more manifest.-It was notorious to those who calmly contemplated the state of France at this crisis that, after all the endeavours of a Annual Register. 1793. 19. of the republicans and their occasional auxiliaries, the anarchists, to excite So completely were the emigrants and the monarchs who supported them blinded by their prejudices, that they would not be persuaded that an attempt to restore the old monarchy would oblige the discordant parties of revolutionists to unite, as the only means of preventing an event which would frustrate all their labours, and constrain them again to submit to all the evils which they had been so indefatigably endeavouring to remedy. The jealousy, the fears, the passions of men, which disdained the idea of moderation, and represented as adversaries all who offered conciliatory VOL. III. 2 N counsels, 1792 1792 counsels, or were desirous to temper with prudence the ardour of the party leaders, served to forward that mournful catastrophe which they professed a desire to avert, to involve all Europe in war, and eventually to gratify the enemies of royalty in this kingdom with the accomplishment of their most sanguine wishes.* In the mean-time, some of the most zealous advo cates The comte de Puisaye gives us his sentiments respecting the emigration of the French nobles and others, and his reason for attempting a counter-revolution by erecting the royal standard in the bosom of the kingdom. "I asked myself," says he, "what my duty was in the existing state of "things and my answer was, to endeavour to save my country and my king.—To abandon both 66 was not, in my opinion, the means to effect it.". -He then goes on to state his objections to the confederacy between the emigrant princes and the foreign powers leagued against the French democratic party for the restoration of the king. Among other reasons, he says, that it will prevent the national ferment from subsiding by supplying it with fresh fuel; and that it tended to make the particular cause of the factious the common cause of the great body of the people.-He then proceeds to describe the situation and circumstances of the emigrant princes.-" Monsieur le comte d'Artois "had quitted France in 1789. He went, the ensuing year, to Coblentz, the place appointed for the rendezvous of the emigrants. In a short time, the prince was surrounded with more than "two-thirds of the French noblesse, and a great number of malecontents of the other orders. No "means, either of invitation or reproach, was now spared, to induce those to leave their homes and "their occupations who either seemed determined not to quit the kingdom, or doubted respecting "the expediency of doing it. Every road was covered with men, women, and children, and even "the aged, who repaired from all parts to this rallying point. No obstacle could resist this incli"nation to emigrate. The jacobins, whose interests were so effectually promoted by it, not content 68 to favour it by conniving at it, forced the more irresolute to emigrate by persecution and outrage. 26 But, if it may be asserted with truth that fear was the principal motive with some, as ambition was with others, we cannot deny that honour and a sense of duty actuated the greater part of "those who pressed to offer the prince, not only their swords and their lives, but the wrecks of "their fortunes."-The count afterwards adverts to the injury which the princes had done their own cause by their self-confidence, their contempt of their adversary, and the high tone in which they talked, and by their presumptuous, unaccommodating spirit. "Those who arrived late at "their standard," says he," being retarded by business or other impediments, were received "coldly, and, as it were, as a matter of favour. A single word spoken incautiously, or a line "written in recommendation of a reform of abuses, though the most notorious, were deemed "unpardonable crimes. They went so far as even to keep lists of the dates of emigrations. A "week sooner or later was esteemed a mark of greater or less merit, a title to preference, or an obstruction in the way to honour and advancement, which each person disposed of, before-hand, in his own mind, according to his opinion of his own merit or pretensions. History will give the "names of men of distinguished talents and sound judgment, who, having received a repulse in the "manner here related, involuntarily joined the armies of the committee of public safety, and were "constrained to serve, with their military skill and their lives, a cause which they held in abhor"rence."- -To such a height did their folly and presumption rise, according to this intelligent writer, that, instead of attending to their present affairs, and the means of ensuring success, they were employed in intrigues to supplant each other; and were dividing, in imagination, the spoils of those who remained in France. The count indirectly apologizes for his sovereign's conduct in this cates of republican principles were convinced of their error in wishing to see them applied to France, when they witnessed the national corruption; and the sincere patriots, the real friends of liberty, who had espoused her cause with the laudable intention of promoting the welfare of their own country and of all mankind, beheld with grief the horrid outrages committed under her banners, and the licentious exercise of authority by those who affected to be her votaries.-The occurrences of every day, and especially the massacres committed by military force in the execution of the proscriptions issued by the convention, more clearly evinced the errors into which an extreme diffidence of the sovereign had carried the authors of the new constitution; which had prevented them from investing him with that degree of power which is necessary to a due administration of justice and the preservation of the public peace. They prove how comparatively easy it is to form the most beautiful theories, and how difficult, especially in an extensive and populous country, to establish a police which may answer all the purposes of giving a nation security of person and property in a manner consistent with their freedom.-Before we proceed to those events and transactions which, although they imply great criminality in the persons who were the chief agents in them, may, in some sense, be considered as the result of the errors and follies of others, our thoughts will, for a moment, be well employed in reflecting on the happy state of those nations among whom the balance of power is properly poised, and justice is impartially dispensed; and especially should such reflections, agreeably with the true use of history, lead to the observance of those duties and the support of those political establishments by which such an excellent order of things may be preserved to them. Since the congress of Pilnitz, it had been the prevailing sentiment that an invasion of this country was meditated by the powers interested in the transactions of it, and that its territories would become a prey to their ambition. this war by the difficulty with which truth reaches the ears of princes: and then, adverting to the present state of France, of which Lewis had, unfortunately, remained in ignorance, he "that says, "such had been the contagion of the revolutionary spirit in France, with respect to what relates to "independence, and even equality, that it had infected with its breath, in a greater or less degree, "the whole nation; and that there were very few who could flatter themselves on an exemption * from it." Memoires du comte de Puisaye. 2. p. 6. 8. 13. and 42.-This note will, no doubt, be interesting to the reader, as it affords him the state of the kingdom, and of the emigrant army, upon the most respectable authority, and will enable him to account for many subsequent events. 1792 |