BOOK this murder his ministers and his generals? XX. Never but in English writings and English 1794. speeches was this apology made for their ferocity.

They were expelled from the pale of humanity, because they were wild beasts and murderers upon principle. He denied that the French were a people struggling for liberty. Under the old government of France, which had some bad things in it with much good, the palace and the cottage were equally secure: every man enjoyed himself in peace under his own vine and fig-tree. He spake with the most marked and indecorous contempt of the war being a war about the Scheldt. It was a war for religion, for property, for posterity, for all that was dear to man; and he rejoiced to see that instead of vain attempts at obtaining a barrier, it was now to be prosecuted on its only rational principle, the destruction of the faction that occasioned it.

Mr. Sheridan, in an admirable reply, remarked, that those frantic, furious, and murderous dispositions, which the French had, during the present revolution, discovered, were not shewn by Louis XIV. and the French nation, at that time, for this plain reason, because the confederacy formed against them did not aim at their final and utter destruction. The application of the principle of humanity to the emigrants was this-not to hold out to them a promise of pro

XX.

tection which we may not afterwards be able to BOOK afford them. He called to the mind of the right honorable gentleman the protection promised 1794. to the people of La Vendée, but never granted. He desired him to recollect the protection likewise promised to the Toulonese, to the fulfilment of which we found ourselves unequal. He wished also to refresh the memory of the right honorable gentleman on the subject of holding out protection to the American loyalists-a practice against which that gentleman wrote and spoke with infinite ability; and predicted what would be the consequence of such offered protection -which predictions were subsequently verified. The question, being at length put, passed in the affirmative, after a most able debate, remarkable for being the last in which Mr. Burke, who soon afterwards vacated his seat in Parliament, took any active part, and in which he discovered no diminution of those extraordinary powers which had so long excited the admiration of the world, and which, unfortunately for mankind, had, for the last seven years of his life, taken so eccentric a direction.

subsidy with

At the end of the month of April, Mr. Secre- Treaty of tary Dundas delivered a message from the king, Prussia, announcing a treaty of subsidy with the king of Prussia, and a convention with the States General. Mr. Pitt stated the terms to be as

XX.

BOOK follows:-That his Prussian majesty had agreed to furnish 62,000 troops, for which his Britannic 1794. majesty had agreed to pay him 50,000l. per

month; 100,000l. per month for forage, 400,000l. to put the army in motion, and 100,000/. on their return; of the aggregate of which sums the States General were to pay 400,000l. as their proportion. Over the troops subsidized at this enormous expense, the direction and command were still vested in the king of Prussia. The motion of Mr. Pitt for the sum of 2,500,000l. to be raised by way of loan on exchequer bills, in addition to the supplies of the current year, for the purpose of making good this engagement, after being vehemently combated in every stage, ultimately passed by a great majority.

A similar motion by lord Grenville in the house of lords met with a similar resistance.

To an important question put by the marquis of Lansdown, "what security would be required from the king of Prussia for the performance of those services which were deemed equivalent to such enormous sums?" the earl of Mansfield, late lord Stormont, answered, "that his Prussian majesty would, no doubt, hold himself bound to the sacred maintenance of the faith he had pledged, from the dignified sentiments of his own royal mind.”—Lord Hawkesbury insisted strongly upon the necessity of persevering in the war, as neither of the

great

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1794.

objects of it, indemnity and security, was yet BOOK attained. His lordship expressed the most perfect confidence that the system now acted upon in France would be very short-lived. Considering the rapid waste of capital in that country, it must soon come to an end: when, he could not precisely predict; but it would be a sudden explosion, and break up at once. And lord Aukland hesitated not to say, that he had always thought this a war which was to be waged usque ad internecionem. The motion at length passed by the accustomed majority.

from the

specting se

On the 12th of May, Mr. Dundas brought Message down a second message from the king, importing, king rethat seditious practices had been carried on by ditious soci certain societies in London, in correspondence eties. with other societies; that they had lately been pursued with increasing activity and boldness, and been avowedly directed to the assembling of a pretended national convention of the people, in contempt and defiance of the authority of parliament, on principles subversive of the existing laws and the constitution, and tending to introduce that system of anarchy prevailing in France: that his majesty had given orders for seizing the books and papers of those societies, which were to be laid before the house; that it was recommended to the house to consider them, and to pursue such measures as were

BOOK necessary in order to prevent their pernicious XX. tendency.

-1794.

On the same day, Thomas Hardy, shoemaker in Piccadilly, who had acted as secretary to the London Corresponding Society, and Daniel Adams, secretary to the Society for Constitutional Information, two well-known and longestablished political associations, were apprehended, by warrant from the secretary of state, for treasonable practices; and several other members of the two societies were, in the course of a week, arrested, and, to the great astonishment of the public, committed close prisoners to the Tower, on a charge of high-treason.

The papers in question being referred to a secret committee of twenty-one members, chosen by ballot, the first report of the commitee was brought up by Mr. Pitt on the 16th of May. It contained an account of the proceedings of the societies, from the year 1791, chiefly from the public newspapers. In a very long and studied harangue, Mr. Pitt endeavoured to impress upon the house the belief of the existence of a most dreadful and dangerous conspiracy. He should call, he said, the attention of the house to a society which, though composed of the meanest and most despicable of the people, acting upon the worst Jacobinical principles, had within it the means of the most unbounded extension and