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mouth should think the vindication glancings and oglings at peace, which he had entered into at all necessary. it contained, could escape the notice

Sir Thomas Turton said, that in of such a penetrating politician as his view of the conduct of our am M. Talleyrand. He did not like the bassadors, the history of their pro. expression of perfect attach. .

. ceedings might be summed up in a ment+, to the man who had been so very concise way.-They were in long the disturber of Europe. When this country when they should have the friendship between M. Talleybeen in France ; and they had re. rand began, he could not say. Pero mained in France long after the pe. haps it was in 1792, when Talleyrand riod at which they should have dated was here, and had kindled the flames their departure. He was of opinion, of war over Europe. He acknow. that the person whom Mr. Fox de- ledged that Mr. Fox had exposed nounced, was a spy of the French the sophistry of Talleyrand in a clear government. He condemned the em. and manly manner. But, was it the ploying in the negotiation, a person policy of Talleyrand to obtain peace? not used to diplomatic transactions. No. The negotiation was nothing If an experienced person had been more than a truce, made use of for employed, the basis would have the purpose of blinding our govern. been early acknowledged, or the ment, and enabling Buonaparte to negotiation would have been broken make preparations for his attack on off. The negotiation was meant but Prussia and Russia. The French mito entrap. And hence the aversion nisters had treated our late plenipoa to written documents.

tentiaries, as Mr. Burke said they Mr. Montague regretted that in treated lord Malmesbury, “ Poor the whole of this business, he saw baby hunting, the king is gone a the complete success of the machina. hunting.” Yes! he had gone a tions of France. Mr. Fox was eagere hunting with a vengeance. But it ly desirous of making peace, and of was to hunt the royal tyger of this eager desire the French had Prussia, and he carried with him a taken advantage. He lamented the train no less numerous than that death of Mr. Fox, though he had which preceded the tyger hunting in always differed from him in politics, the East. Talleyrand had chosen durieg the last twenty years; he lord Yarmouth to carry on the nego. Talued him as a man. Mr. Fox du. tiation, under circumstances in ring the whole of that period had which he was not a proper person never altered his conduct, which in for the business, because he was that period of shifting and turning was then a prisoner in France, and had rather a singular instance. The first hopes of freedom only through the operture for peace Mr. Montague medium of peace.

This country considered as having beyond a ought not to have committed such a doubt, come from Mr. Fox, for his burthen to the shoulders of a man letter to Talleyrand had broken the unaccustomed to diplomacy. Не , ice. It was impossible that those said this without any disrespect to

See the papers relative to the Negotiation with France, No. 1. Vol. XLVIII. P.708. + Ms. Fox in his letter to Talleyrand, subscribes himself" with perfect attachment."

lord lord Yarmomth, but really it was proper person to be entrusted with pot fitting that he should have been the negotiation. sent to treat with such a man as Mr. Montague joined heartily in Talleyrand.

that part of the address which As to the basis of the uti possi. pledged every heart and hand to the detis, the whole controversy on that defence of the country. Let mini. point lay between the assertions of sters, he said, be vigilantand attentive, that noble lord and Talleyrand. A and they should have his support : written note would have made the not uniform and unqualified support, matter clear, and it was very incon. for he thought it might be right to siderate in government not to have keep them alert by admonition and insisted on this. But, the fact was, castigation, but qualified and rational that Mr. Fox did not like to put the support according as they should be question suddenly. He was afraid found to deserve it. he might lose his favourite object; Mr. Whitbread, in a very long and following the policy of a man with a elaborate speech, expressed his full woman, he did not ask her the ques.' conviction that the chief of the tion broadly at once, lest she would French government was desirous, have slapped the door in his face. and the ministers of France sincere As to the other noble lord entrusted in their wishes for peace; that an with the negotiation, from his in. opportunity had been lost of making timacy with the Brissotines who had peace on terms both honourable and since put their king to death, and advantagcous; that the negotiation the patience with which he listened had been broken off by the governwithin the walls of the national as. ment of this country prematurely sembly, to the projects for the de. and unnecessarily; and that with struction of England, he could not greater prudence and candour, and think him a fit person to be charged a little more patience, skill and ad. with the interests of his country in dress on our part, we should have this negotiation. He blamed the found France ready to grant such dalliance in which our two plenipo- terms as his majesty's ministers ought tentiaries had been kept. Their to have accepted.-In reply to the situation was no better than that of strictures that had been made by Mr. prisoners. Why did not lord Lau. Montague, on the choice of the earl derdale demand a categorical answer of Lauderdale as a negotiator from at once ? He had only to say, this country to France, he observed 66 This is the basis on which we shall that the leaders of the different re. treat,” and then he would have had volutionary factions there had ex. a plain answer, Aye or No. In piated their crimes by their blood. short, our ministers had been bam. But if, to the various qualifications boozled from beginning to end. for such a situation possessed by his He had no doubt but lord Lauder- noble friend, his extensive informa. dale had done his duty, though, ha. tion, his indefatigable industry, his ving sat quietly in the Cyclops' cave, acknowledged talents, and inflexible while the thunderbolts of war were integrity, could be added an actual forging against his country, he could acquaintance with the persons and not appear to him to have been a characters of some of those with

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whom he might have to transact busi. who at the same time, gave full as. ness of such importance ; surely, in surances of the disposition of France the eyes of any reasonable man, this to make specific concessions to ERcircumstance decided the preference gland of the highest national impor. in his favour. It was not any dis. tance. True it was that Mr. For position to ogle for peace, as Mr. M. desired lord Yarmouth to recall the had called it, that had induced Mr. French minister to his own original Fox to give information of the circum. propositions, when on his return to stance which gave rise to his first letter Paris, he found him receding from to M. Talleyrand. It was the sponta. them. But he emphatically adds, neous act of his roble and generous Sicily is the sine qua non.And heart,influenced by no motive but that although he argues with great of the pure and exalted benevolence warmth on the conduct of the French with which it at all times overflowed. government, and even says it was on Had he then thought peace as impos- the faith of the uti possidetis, that sible as it was now represented to be, lord Yarmouth was then at Paris, he Day, had the incident occurred at a does not direct him to break off the much earlier period, and he could negotiation until that basis be again have foreseen and been sure, that the recognized. He sums up the whole battles of Marengo, Austerlitz, and of his reasoning in one remarkable Jena would have been prevented by paragraph : “ The result of what I the perpetration of a deed so foul, have stated to your lordship is this : he not only would have neglected it 1st, That Sicily is a sine qua non, on with indignation, but made the com. which subject, if the French minister munication that might counteract recede from his farther answer, it is it *.

in vain that any former discussion Mr. Whitbread having given a should take place. It is clearly brief account of the negotiation up within his first opinion delivered to to the 2d of June, when the point of your lordship. It is clearly within joint or separate negotiation between his last description of places which France and the two allies was ad. are reciprocally possessed by the justed; he asked his noble friend two countries, and which cannot be (lord H.) whether up to that mo. recovered by war." There was not ment, there was any other sine qua any other ground in any part of Mr. non, than that of joint negotiatiou? Fox's dispatch, on which the discus. The unhappy term of uti possidetis, sions were to be finally and peremphad neither been introduced nor 'torily closed. Mr. W. further ob. thought of. And most unlucky it served, that it was not the intention had been that it ever was in. of either government to insist on the troduced, for it had proved the absolute recognition of the abstract bane of the negotiation. This basis basis of the uti possidetis, as pre. lord Yarmouth had told them, was liminary to negotiation, or even to first proposed by M. Talleyrand, Degotiate strictly upon that basis.

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• This is a case of conscience, on which divines and moral philosophers might, per. kaps, entertain different sentiments. But most people, we presume, would be apt' to think, that if the life of so great a scourge to mankind, could have proved a ransora for so many, it would bave been well disposed of.-The world could have spared him.

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The state of actual possession cause it appears to him conformable must have been intended on both to the principles already agreed on sides, if on either. And yet we by both parties.” He requested the find, that in the very first conver. house to compare this with a para, sation held by the English plenipo. graph contained in a note delivered tentiary on his return to Paris by lord Lauderdale, to general wherein he urges upon that minisa" Clarke on the 7th August : “ He ter the correctness of the message cannot consent to treat on any other he took to England, he gives Mr. principle, than that of the uti posa Fox to understand, that he had asked sidetis, as originally proposed to his for the cession of Naples, Venice, sovereign by the court of France. Istria, and Dalmatia, as well as At the same time, he desires it an alienation of some parts of the should be well understood, that the French emperor's Italian states, to adoption of this principle will not form a provision for the king of Sar. prevent him either from listening to dinia. Where then was this basis of any just and adequate compensation the uti possidetis to be found, as in. to his Sicilian majesty for the cession dispensably necessary to further pro- of Sicily, or from accepting any ceeding ? Not in any part of the proposition for the exchange of tere papers, which he had so carefully ritory between the two contracting searched; not in the narrative of parties, upon just and equal prin. lord Yarmouth, which he had so ciples, such as may tend to the recandidly given to the house ; not in ciprocal advantage of the two coun, the eloquent speech of his noble tries.” Between these declarations friend lord Howick. After all he was there any substantial, nay, had read, and all he had heard, he whether there was any formal differ, was bound to say, he did not find ence between them? Why then did the uti possidetis was the sine qua not the negotiation proceed? The non of negotiation, up to the 2d obstacle was removed, why was it of June, when the correspondence revived ? In Mr. Whitbread's opi. on the subject was renewed by M. nion, a golden opportunity was lost, Talleyrand, in his letter to Mr. Fox he did not say of making peace, for of that date.

he did not know what would have Mr. Whitbread begged the favour been the issue of the negotiation, of lord H. and the house to peruse but of ascertaining whether peace with attention a paragraph of a note, could be made. And, as this opdated the 11th of August, signed portunity, among others, was lost, by MM. Champagny and Clarke: it was impossible for him to say that “ In laying down the principle of the continuation of hostilities was ene uti possidetis, have the English tirely owing to “the injustice and plenipotentiaries had it in view to ambition of France *.». Mr. Whit: propose a means of exchange and bread having taken a review of most accommodation ? If this be their of the papers submitted to the cona meaning, the cmperor adopts it be. sideration of the house by his ma.

* Declaration of the King of Great Britain, October 21, 1806. Vide State Papers. Vol. XLVII. of this work, page 793.

jesty,

jesty, proceeded to take some notice Austria and Turkey. After the one of the terms which were offered at power had been so repeatedly and siglast, by France to this country and nally defeated, could it well appear to her ally – Malta was ours – The surprizing if the other, aiter such a Cape of Good Hope, the cession of career of victory, when almost every which by England in the treaty of thing was in her power,

should select Amiens had been so much censured, such posse sions as would most was ours – Every point of conse- effectually disable Austria from quence in the East was yielded. - making any attempts against France And Tobago, perhaps of little con- in future? And if Austria, Russia, sequence in itself, but which ha- and England conjoined, could not ving originally been an English prevent the peace of Presburgh, colony, was on that'account an ho. which gave Dalmatia to France, nourable acquisition to this country, could it be hoped that England, for was also given up. What was there the sake of Russia, would do that for remaining for England, as England, Austria, which Austria, with the asto ask? As to Sicily, an indemnity sistance of Russia, could not obtain for Sicily had been admitted by the for herself? But then Dalmatia was king's servants as possible, and if, a point from which the independence for the consideration of the question, of the Ottoman empire might be at. that time had been given which was tacked. If, however, Russia was wasted in useless discussion, such an jealous of French influence in Turindemnity, he thought, might pos. key, was not France equally jealous sibly have been found.

of the influence of Russia ? And in With regard to Dalmatia, the the hands of either of those powers, peace of Presburgh, made when would not Dalmatia be equally a Austria lay prostrate at the feet of point of oifence in war, and intrigue the French emperor, her capital in in peace against that empire ? It had his possession, and her condition ten been insinuated, if not stated, that times more abject than ever, gave the object of the war, was not to obDalmatia to France. Was it pro. tain Dalmatia for Russia, but only bable then, that France would cede its evacuation by France. But surely Dalmatia within a few months after no one would be brought to believe, she had so acquired it ? Had the that if France could have been persuccess of the war in Russia heen suaded to march ont, Russia would such, as to entitle her to make large not have stepped in Even the terms demands on France ? or to make it held out in the last communication reasonable to expect that France between lord Lauderdale and M. would listen to great pretensions on Champagny, could not fairly be her part? It had been stated, that stated to be the ultimate terms of Dalmatia was not

necessary to France. To the last hour M. France, either for the intezrity of Champagny, with an earnestness her dominions, or for her defence. . which, to Mr. Whitbread evinced Was Dalmatia necessary, for either sincerity, pressed for farther com. of these purposes, to Russia ? munication, and hoped for fresh in.

But France, it was alledged, had structions. And the emperor had been desirousof possessing Dalmatia, said, that he would leave every as a point of offence in war both to thing to his plenipotentiaries. 'All VOL. XLIX

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tended

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