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Country. Among all our shames, it is that of the most fatal nature, and of which, possibly, we shall longest rue the effects.

Sir, I have done. I have stated, as I thought it my duty to do, what my apprehensions are, as to the nature and consequences of the present Peace. If the evils which I impute to it, are not to be found there, if the dangers which I apprehend should not come to pass, no one will more rejoice in my error than myself those who differ from me will have nothing to complain of; I shall have alarmed myself; I shall not, probably, even have to reproach myself with having succeeded in alarming then. But if any there should be (there are none I am sure in this House), who' should say, that my fears are not imaginary; that they think of this Peace as I do; that they apprehend it will ruin the country; but that they hope the country may last long enough to serve their turn; that being traders, they think the trade of the country may be lost; that, being manufacturers, they believe its manufactures may decline; but that for this they care but little, provided the Peace in the mean time shall prove advantageous to them; to all such, if any there can be, there could be but one answer, that they are a disgrace to their country and to their species; and that he must be as bad as they, who, upon such terms, could seek to merit their good

See Appendix R.

opinion, or could solicit their favour. I trust, however, that no such men are to be found; but that all who rejoice in the present Peace, do it under a persuasion, that the good which they may hope to derive from it, individually, is not to be obtained by the sacrifice of the final welfare and safety of their country.

The arguments contained in the above Speech were supported by Dr. Laurence, Mr. William Elliot, and Mr. C. Wynne, and replied to by Mr. Wilberforce, Mr. Yorke (Secretary at War), and Mr. Addington (Chancellor of the Exchequer) ; — after which the address was carried without a division..

APPENDIX

TO THE FOREGOING SPEECH.

A.- Page 3.

It would have been too much to have urged the plea of poverty in a country, which was at that moment exciting the envy and jealousy of all the world by its exorbitant wealth.

B.- Page 9.

THE answer to be given to this question, in the case of the present treaty, will be best ascertained perhaps by recurring to what happened when the terms of the treaty were first declared. It was some time before any body could be found to believe them. The first reporters, when they stated that every thing was given up, except Ceylon and Trinidad; that Demerary, Cochin, the Cape, Malta, all were gone; were treated as persons who were joking, or who were themselves the dupes of some idle joke put about by the Opposition. Nobody could believe that the terms of the treaty were in reality such as that description represented them.

On the Continent, where the speculations are apt to be more refined; after some time given to disbelief, the difficulty was solved by the supposition of secret articles. • Some great advantages were to be secured to Great-Britain of

another kind:

Buonaparté was to abdicate:

Louis

the XVIIIth was to be restored:' &c. &c. It never entered the thought of any one, that the state of things was finally to prove, what it appeared in the first instance; and that from mere impatience of contest, from sheer impotence of mind, Great-Britain had thus suddenly stopped in her career, dropped down as in a fit, and, abandoning all her means of defence, was rolling herself in the dust at the feet of her adversary, regardless of what in future was to become of her, and looking to nothing but such temporary respite, as 'the satiate fury' of the foe, or some feeling still more degrading to her, might happen to yield.

C.-Page 10.

THIS position will not be thought to have become less commanding by the completion of an event, which, lost as this country is to all feeling of its situation, does seem to have produced some slight sensation, namely, the extinction of the Cisalpine Republick, and the reproduction of it under the new form and title of the Italian. Those who before doubted, to what degree Buonaparte was master of Europe, may find here wherewithal to settle their opinion. It is not the mere assumption of so much new territory, or of so much new dominion at least, over a territory already dependant; nor the new danger arising from thence to Austria; (either of them circumstances, that, in former times, would have set the Continent in a flame,) but what the state must be of the Powers of Europe, whoever they are, when they can sit quiet spectators of this proceeding, without daring to stir a step to prevent it. The assumption of this territory, though it be only a change in the form of the dominion exercised over it, must by no means be considered as of little importance. As has been

well observed, (vide Cobbett's Register, påge 114) the use to be made of a country, in any state of independence, however nominal, is by no means the same, as when that country is placed at once in the hands of the governing power. France is mistress, it is true, of Spain and Prussia, and of Holland, Switzerland, Genoa, Tuscany, and all the south of Italy: but not to the same degree of the two former countries, as she is of the others; nor of the others, in the same manner as she is of the new Italian Republick. There may be a difference of several weeks.

2

D.- Page 11.

AMONG the posts and ports included in this description, we must not omit to particularize the Island of Elba, with its port, Porto Ferrajo. This little island, small in extent, but not small in consequence, and rendered nobly conspicuous at the close of the day, by the last parting rays of British glory, which fell upon it, was supposed by the provisions of the Treaty of Luneville to have been left indirectly only in the power of France; inasmuch as it was expressly stipulated, that it was to form part of the territories of the new king of Etruria, -a king made by France; in the wantonness of her malice, and as a mockery of the ancient sovereigns of Europe. The possession of the Island, however, in this way was not thought sufficient; and therefore, that nothing might be wanting to mark that perfect contempt of good faith which has never failed to be manifested by the Republick in all her transactions with other countries, Elba was to be obtained by a secret treaty with the King of Spain, -the chief of the house of which the King of Etruria was a member. The consequence was, that when Austria in the Treaty of Luneville, and England in the late Preliminary Treaty, thought that they had left this island, such as it had

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