Austria having made a peace upon her own terms, England had nothing
to require with regard to her allies; she asked no restitution of the
dominions added to France in Europe. So far from retaining anything
French out of Europe, we freely offered them all, demanding only, as
a poor compensation, to retain a part of what we had acquired by arms
from Holland, then identified with France, and that part useless to
Holland and necessary for the security of our Indian possessions. This
proposal also, Sir, was proudly refused, in a way which the learned
gentleman himself has not attempted to justify, indeed of which he has
spoken with detestation. I wish, since he has not finally abjured his
duty in this House, that that detestation had been stated earlier,
that he had mixed his own voice with the general voice of his country
on the result of that negotiation.

Let us look at the conduct of France immediately subsequent to this
period. She had spurned at the offers of Great Britain; she had
reduced her Continental enemies to the necessity of accepting a
precarious peace: she had (in spite of those pledges repeatedly made
and uniformly violated) surrounded herself by new conquests, on every
part of her frontier but one; that one was Switzerland. The first
effect of being relieved from the war with Austria, of being secured
against all fears of Continental invasion on the ancient territory
of France, was their unprovoked attack against this unoffending and
devoted country. This was one of the scenes which satisfied even those
who were the most incredulous, that France had thrown off the mask,
'_if indeed she had ever worn it_.'[5] It collected, in one view, many
of the characteristic features of that revolutionary system which I
have endeavoured to trace. The perfidy which alone rendered their arms
successful, the pretext of which they availed themselves to produce
division and prepare the entrance of Jacobinism in that country, the