now necessary to inquire; but whatever may have been the fact, in that
respect, the principle on which they acted is clear and intelligible,
and is a decisive instance in favour of the proposition which I have
maintained.

Is it then necessary to examine what were the terms of that ultimatum,
with which we refused to comply? Acts of hostility had been openly
threatened against our allies, an hostility founded upon the
assumption of a right which would at once supersede the whole law
of nations: a demand was made by France upon Holland to open the
navigation of the Scheldt, on the ground of a general and national
right, in violation of positive treaty; this claim we discussed, at
the time, not so much on account of its immediate importance (though
it was important both in a maritime and commercial view), as on
account of the general principle on which it was founded. On the same
arbitrary notion they soon afterwards discovered that sacred law of
nature, which made the Rhine and the Alps the legitimate boundaries
of France, and assumed the power which they have affected to exercise
through the whole of the revolution, of superseding, by a new code of
their own, all the recognized principles of the law of nations. They
were actually advancing towards the republic of Holland, by rapid
strides, after the victory of Jemappe, and they had ordered their
generals to pursue the Austrian troops into any neutral country:
thereby explicitly avowing an intention of invading Holland. They
had already shown their moderation and self-denial, by incorporating
Belgium, with the French Republic. These lovers of peace, who set out
with a sworn aversion to conquest, and professions of respect for the
independence of other nations; who pretend that they departed from
this system only in consequence of your aggression, themselves in
time of peace while you were still confessedly neutral, without the