hostility: but it is not a little material to the whole of my
argument, compared with the statement of the learned gentleman, and
with that contained in the French note, to examine at what period this
hostility extended itself. It extended itself, in the course of 1796,
to the states of Italy which had hitherto been exempted from it. In
1797 it had ended in the destruction of most of them; it had ended in
the virtual deposition of the King of Sardinia, it had ended in the
conversion of Genoa and Tuscany into democratic republics; it had
ended in the revolution of Venice, in the violation of treaties with
the new Venetian republic; and finally, in transferring that very
republic, the creature and vassal of France, to the dominion of
Austria.

I observe from the gestures of some honourable gentlemen that they
think we are precluded from the use of any argument founded on this
last transaction. I already hear them saying, that it was as criminal
in Austria to receive, as it was in France to give. I am far from
defending or palliating the conduct of Austria upon this occasion: but
because Austria, unable at last to contend with the arms of France,
was forced to accept an unjust and insufficient indemnification from
the conquests France had made from it, are we to be debarred from
stating what, on the part of France, was not merely an unjust
acquisition, but an act of the grossest and most aggravated perfidy
and cruelty, and one of the most striking specimens of that system
which has been uniformly and indiscriminately applied to all the
countries which France has had within its grasp? This can only be
said in vindication of France (and it is still more a vindication of
Austria), that, practically speaking, if there is any part of this
transaction for which Venice itself has reason to be grateful, it
can only be for the permission to exchange the embraces of French