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Ireland, defender of the faith, &c. or treaties, and all other acts, as

to all to whom these prefents fhall come, greeting.-Seeing that the flame of war has for a long time raged in the different parts of the globe; deeply occupied with the project of terminating regularly fo many quarrels and diffenfions, of reftoring and confolidating the public tranquillity; refolved for this purpose to chufe a man capable of a negotiation of this importance, and to inveft him with full authority to complete fo great a work, be it known, that the fidelity, talents, genius, perfpicuity, and experience of our faithful and dear counsellor James Baron Malmefbury, knight of the most honourable order of the Bath, infpiring us with full confidence, we have named him, and he is appointed and conftituted our true, certain, and accredited commiffary and plenipotentiary, giving and conceding him, in all respects, full and entire power, faculty, and authority; charging him befides with our general and special order to confer on our part, and in our name, with the minifter or minifters, commiffioners, and plenipotentiaries of the French republic, fufficiently invefted with equal authority, as well as with the minifters, commiffioners, or plenipotentiaries of the other princes and ftates who may take part in the prefent negotiation, also invefted with the fame authority; to treat either feparately or together; to confer upon the means of establishing a folid and durable peace, amity, and fincere concord; and to adopt all refolutions and conclufions; to fign for us, and in our name, all the faid conventions or conclufions; to make, in consequence, every treaty

he fhall judge neceffary; to deliver and receive mutually all other objects relative to the fortunate execution of the above-mentioned work; to tranfact with the fame force and the fame effect as we thould be able to do if we affifted in perfon; guaranteering, and on our royal word promifing, that all and each of the tranfactions and conclufions which fhall be made determined by our faid plenipotentiary fhall be made and agreed upon, ratified, accepted, and adopted with the best faith; that we thall never fuffer any one, either in whole or in part, to infringe and act contrary to them; and in order to give to every thing more fecurity and force, we have figned the prefent with our royal hand, and affixed to it the great feal of Great Britain.

Given in our palace at St. James's, 13th October, year of grace 1796, and of our reign the 37th.

Manifefto of the British Government against France.

THE negotiation which an anxious defire for the refloration of peace had induced his majesty to open at Paris, having been abruptly terminated by the French government, the king thinks it due to himfelf and to his people to state, in this public manner, the circumftances which have preceded and attended a tranfaction of fo much importance to the general interests of Europe.

It is well known that early in the prefent year his majesty, laying afide the confideration of many circumftances of difficulty and difcouragement, determined to take fuch fteps as were beft calculated

to open the way for negotiation, if nearly all her conquefts, and thofe

peace.

any correfponding defire prevailed on the part of his enemies. He directed an overture to be made in his name, by his minifter in Swifferland, for the purpose of afcertaining the difpofitions of the French government with refpect to The anfwer which he received in return was at once haughty and evafive; it affected to queftion the fincerity of thofe difpofitions of which his majefty's conduct afforded fo unequivocal a proof; it raifed groundless objections to the mode of negotiation propofed by his majefty (that of a general congrefs, by which peace has fo often been reftored to Europe); but it ftudioufly paffed over in filence his majefty's defire to learn what other mode would be preferred by France. It at the fame time afferted a principle which was ftated as an indifpenfible preliminary to all negotiation -a principle under which the terms of peace muft have been regulated, not by the ufual confiderations of juftice, policy, and reciprocal convenience; but by an implicit fubmiflion, on the part of all the powers, to a claim founded on the internal laws and separate conftitution of France, as having full authority to fuperfede the treaties entered into by independent ftates, to govern their interefts to controul their engagements, and to difpofe of their dominions.

A pretenfion in itself fo extravagant could in no inftance have been admitted, or even liftened to for a moment. Its application to the prefent cafe led to nothing leis than that France fhould, as a preliminary to all difcuffion, retain

particularly in which his majefty was moft concerned, both from the ties of intereft, and the sacred obligations of treaties: that the fhould in like manner recover back all that had been conquered from her in every part of the world; and that the thould be left at liberty to bring forward fuch further demands on all other points of negotiation, as fuch unqualified fubmiffion on the part of thofe with whom the treated could not fail to produce.

On fuch grounds as thefe it was fufficiently evident that no negotiation could be established: neither did the answer of his majesty's enemies afford any opening for continuing the difcuffion, fince the mode of negotiation offered by his majefty had been peremptorily rejected by them, and no other had been ftated in which they were willing to concur.

His majefty was however not difcouraged even by this refult from ftill pursuing fuch measures as appeared to him moft conducive to the end of peace; and the wishes of his ally the emperor correfponding with thofe which his majefty had manifefted, fentiments of a fimilar tendency were preffed on the part of his Imperial majefty at the time of opening the campaign; but the continuance of the fame spirit and principles, on the part of the enemy, rendered this fresh overture equally unfuccessful.

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While the government of France thus perfifted in obftructing every measure that could even open the way to negotiation, no endeavour was omitted to miflead the public opinion throughout all Europe

with refpect to the real caule of the prolongation of the war, and to caft a doubt on those difpofitions which could alone have dictated the steps taken by his majesty and his auguft ally.

In order to deprive his enemies of all poffibility of fubterfuge or evafion, and in the hope that a juft fenfe of the continued calamities of war, and of the increafing diftreffes of France herself, might at length have led to more juft and pacific difpofitions, his majefty renewed in another form, and through the intervention of friendly powers, a propofal for opening negotiations for peace. The manner in which this intervention was received indicated the moft hoftile difpofitions towards Great Britain, and at the fame time afforded to all Europe a ftriking inftance of that injurious and offenfive conduct which is obferved on the part of the French government towards all other countries. The repeated overtures made in his majefty's name were neverthelefs of fuch a nature, that it was at last found impoffible to perfift in the abfolute rejection of them, without the direct and undifguifed avowal of a determination to refufe to Europe all hope of the restoration of tranquillity. A channel was therefore at length indicated, through which the government of France profeffed itself willing to carry on a negotiation, and a readiness was expreffed (though in terms far remote from any fpirit of conciliation) to receive a minifter authorifed by his majefty to proceed to Paris for that purpose.

Many circumstances might have been urged as affording powerful

motives against adopting this fuggeftion, until the government of France had given fome indication of a fpirit better calculated to promote the fuccefs of fuch a million, and to meet thefe advances on the part of Great Britain. The king's defire for the reftoration of general peace on just and honourable terms, his concern for the interefts of his fubjects, and his determination to leave to his enemies no pretext for imputing to him the confequences of their own ambition, induced him to overlook every fuch confideration, and to take a ftep which these reasons alone could juftify.

The repeated endeavours of the French government to defeat this miffion in its outfet, and to break off the intercourfe thus opened, even before the firft fteps towards negotiation could be taken; the indecent and injurious language employed with a view to irritate, the captious and frivolous objections raifed for the purpose of obftructing the progrefs of the dif cuflion; all these have fufficiently appeared from the official papers which paffed on both fides, and which are known to all Europe.

But above all, the abrupt termination of the negotiation has afforded the most conclufive proof, that at no period of it was any real with for peace entertained on the part of the French government.

After repeated evation and delay, the government had at length confented to eftablifh, as the bafis of the negotiation, a principle proposed by his majefty, liberal in its own nature, equitable towards his enemies, and calculated to provide for the interefts of his allies, and of Europe. It had been agreed

that

that compenfation fhould be made to France, by proportionable reftitutions from his majefty's conquefts on that power, for thofe arrangements to which the thould be called upon to confent in order to fatisfy the juft pretenfions of his allics, and to preferve the political balance of Europe. At the defire of the French government itself memorials were prefented by his majefty's minifter, which contain ed the outlines of the terms of peace grounded on the bafis fo efablished, and in which his majesty propofed to carry to the utmost poffible extent the application of a principle fo equitable with refpect to France, and fo liberal on his majefty's part. The delivery of thefe papers was accompanied by a declaration exprefsly and repeatedly made, both verbally and in writing, that his majefy's minifter was willing and prepared to enter, with a spirit of conciliation and fairness, into the difcuffion of the different points there contained, or into that of any other propofal or scheme of peace which the French government might with to fubftitute in its place.

In reply to this communication, he received a demand, in form the moft offenfive, and in fubftance the most extravagant, that ever was made in the courfe of any negotiation. It was peremptorily required of him that in the very out-.' fet of the bufinefs, when no answer had been given by the French government to his firft propofal, when he had not even learnt, in any regular fhape, the nature or extent of the objections to it, and much less received from that government any other offer or plan of peace, he should in twenty-four

hours deliver in a statement of the final terms to which his court would in any cafe accede a demand tending evidently to fhut the door to all negotiation, to preclude all difcuffion, all explanation, all posfbility of the amicable adjustment of points of difference-a demand in its nature prepofterous, in its execution impracticable, fince it is plain that no fuch ultimate refolution refpecting a general plan of peace ever can be rationally formed, much lefs declared, without knowing what points are principally objected to by the enemy, and what facilities he may be willing to offer in return for conceflion in thofe refpects. Having declined compliance with this demand, and explained the reafons which rendered it inadmisible, but having, at the fame time, exprefsly renewed the declaration of his readiness to enter into the difcuffion of the propofal he had conveyed, or of any other which might be communicated to him, the king's minifter received no other answer than an abrupt command to quit Paris in forty-eight hours. If, in addition to fuch an infult, any further proof were neceflary of the difpofitions of thofe by whom it was offered, fuch proof would be abundantly fupplied from the contents of the note in which this order was conveyed. The mode of negotiation on which the French government had itself infifted, is there rejected, and no practicable means left open for treating with effect. The bafis of negotiation, fo recently established by mutual confent, is there difclaimed, and, . in its room, a principle clearly inadmiffible is reafferted as the only ground on which France can con

fent

fent to treat the very fame principle which had been brought forward in reply to his majefty's first overtures from Switzerland, which had then been rejected by his majefty, but which now appears never to have been, in fact, abandoned by the government of France, however inconfiftent with that on which they had exprefsly agreed

to treat.

It is therefore neceffary that all Europe fhould understand, that the rupture of the negotiation at Paris does not arife from the failure of any fincere attempt on the part of France to reconcile by fair difcuffion the views and interefts of the contending powers. Such a difcuffion has been repeatedly invited and even folicited, on the part of his majefty, but has been, in the first instance, and absolutely, precluded by the act of the French go.

vernment.

It arifes exclufively from the de termination of that government to reject all means of peace-a determination which appeared but too ftrongly in all the preliminary difcuffions; which was clearly manifefted in the demand of an ultimatum made in the very outfet of the negotiation, but which is proved beyond all poflibility of doubt by the obftinate adherence to a claim which never can be admitted—a claim that the conftruction which that government affects to put (though even in that refpe&t unfupported by the fact) on the internal conftitution of its own country, fhall be received by all other nations as paramount to every known principle of public law in Europe, as fuperior to the obligations of treaties, to the ties of common intereft, to the moit preffing VOL. XXXVIII.

and urgent confiderations of general fecurity.

On fuch grounds it is that the French government has abruptly terminated a negotiation, which it commenced with reluctance, and conducted with every inclination to prevent its final fuccefs. On these motives it is that the further effu

fion of blood, the continued calamities of war, the interruptions of peaceable and friendly intercourfe among mankind, the prolonged diftreffes of Europe, and the accumulated miferies of France itself, are by the government of that country to be juftified to the world.

His majefty, who had entered into the negotiation with good faith, who has fuffered no impcdiment to prevent his profecuting it with earneftnefs and fincerity, has now only to lament its abrupt termination; and to renew, in the face of all Europe, the folemn de claration, that, whenever his enemies fhall be difpofed to enter on the work of a general pacification, in a spirit of conciliation and equity, nothing fhall be wanting on his part to contribute to the accomplishment of that great object, with a view to which he has already offered fuch confiderable facrifices on his part, and which is now retarded only by the exorbitant pretenfions of his enemies.

Westminster, 27th Dec. 1796.

Speech of Earl Camden, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, to both Houses of Parliament, Jan. 21, 1796.

My Lords and Gentlemen, I HAVE received his majefty's commands to meet you in Parliament.

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