"these means endeavoured to effect our treaty, too, hostile to English commerce? utter destruction. He deluded the Empe- I am very anxious upon this point, my 66 ror of Russia into a treaty with him, by Lord; because, if an Emperor really has "which he put an end to all commercial been deluded into one treaty, it is possible "relations between Russia and England; that he may be deluded into another. Beand because the Emperor of that vast sides, if I mistake not,our maguanimous ally 66 empire did not adhere to the prohibi- had had, at the time alluded to, ample op"tions which he (Bonaparte) was conti-portunity of knowing Napoleon's views as well as character. It was in 1808, I believe, when Napoleon's army was in Spain and when his brother was on the throne of the country. If I do not mistake, too, the Emperor, at that time, recognized as valid what had been done in Spain. Grant that this was delusion, however, it is very perilous to have to do with such a man; a man, who was able to delude the two Kings of Spain to abdicate in his favour; to delude the Pope to marry him to a se lude the Emperor of Austria to give him his daughter in marriage; to delude Russia, Austria, Prussia, Spain, and Holland, to declare war against England; to delude Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, to join him in a war to invade Russia. Really, this is delusion upon a grand scale indeed! But, if he did so delude all these powers before, and even contrived to bring America upon us, is there not a possibility, at any rate, that he may be successful in his delusive acts again?-Mr. Grattan's reporter tells us, that Napoleon, after hav 66 nually dictating, he would if he could, have driven him and his people into the ❝ frozen ocean. After having received "the most signal favours from the King "of Prussia, he avowed the intention of - putting him out of the list of crowned "heads; and after all those acts of feroci66 ous enmity and malignant hostility, the "Allies when they arrived at the gates of 66 Paris, did an act which reflected on them the highest honour-an act which "posterity should never forget-the Al-cond wife while the first was alive; to de"lies had magnanimously given to France "liberty; and to Bonaparte life antl the "Island of Elba."-He had made his brother King of Holland; Well? and what was that more than making his brother-in-law King of Sweden, or, at least, heir apparent to the Crown? And, Mr. Grattan ought to bear in mind, that we have confirmed that act by a solemn treaty.-I do not know that he banished the Prince Regent of Portugal, or that he imprisoned the King of Spain; but, I know very well, that he had as great right to both, as Charles V. had to imprisoning "received the most signal favours Francis I.-And, what if he did intend to take England, and capture the King of England? Did not a King of England once do that in France? If he did not, our historians are shocking liars.-But, my Lord, mind, Mr. Grattan says, that, if there had been no water between, Napoleon would have had our king in prison. I know, that the French used to say this; but, I always used to believe, that England could have defended itself without the aid of the water. However, since this second Burke tells us the contrary, we must not hesitate any longer. Napoleon "contrived" to place us between two fires; he contrived to bring the Americans upon us; he deluded the Emperor of Russia into a treaty hostile to our commerce, and then, because the Emperor would not adhere to the prohibitions which Napoleon was dictating, he went to war with the Emperor and his polite people.-But, my Lord, is it true, that an Emperor, our ally, can be deluded; and, more especially into a treaty; and, a from the King of Prussia, he avowed his intention" of putting him out of the list of crowned heads." I never heard of these favours before. I knew, that, on the other side, Napoleon was twice in possession of Berlin; that the Royal Family twice fled; and that, to the infinite mor tification of the Republicans all over the world, Napoleon replaced the King of Prussia in his dominions and authority. I knew, too, that a Prussian army marched with Napoleon against Russia; and thatthe King of Prussia issued a proclamation, severely condemning D'Yorck for his going over and leaving Napoleon. But, really, I never heard of any favours, received by Napoleon from the King of Prussia.-The allies, Mr. Grattan says, magnanimously gave Napoleon life and the island of Elba. You have denied this, several times, in the most positive terms. You have asserted, that the treaty of Fortainbleau was a treaty of policy; you have asserted, that the allies were by no means sure of success by the way of arms. you are describing present themselves to There was, then, no magnanimity here, your own imagination, and to that of your even if we could forget how the crowned al- hearers, in monstrous caricature. There lies had been treated by Napoleon when he is also a marvellous coincidence in the ocreally had them in his power. The allies casions which excited in Mr. Burke a had been accused of magnanimity at Fon- frantic fear of liberty, and that which seems tainbleau; the nation were bellowing very to be producing a similar aborration in loudly about it; they began to be very you. Here I trust the parallel will fail. much out of humour that Napoleon had The influence of his name and of a mind not been put out of the way completely; still powerful, had no small share in givwhen your Lordship, in justice to the al- ing real existence to the horrors of his dislies, stepped forward and very clearly ordered fancy; and the prophecies for showed, that they had by no means been which he obtained so much credit, were guilty of any thing like magnanimity; greatly accessary to their own fulfilment. that they had made the best bargain that It is the recollection of that epoch which f they were able to make for themselves; hope may yet preserve us. Then we had and, that the English nation might be sa- no such example for our instruction. tisfied, that the allies would have dealt Europe is yet at peace, and you, Sir, are harder by Napoleon if they had been in a doing your part to rekindle a war, of situation to do it without danger to them- which the dreadful experience of the last selves. Mr. Grattan seems very bitterly twenty-three years enables us, before provoked, that Napoleon should have pre-hand, to estimate the character. This is pared 60,000 men for the invasion of Eng- a subject for severe deliberation and not land. But, does not this gentleman al- for a display of rhetoric. "Peace withlow, that the French have as great a right" out security and war without allies." to invade England, as the English have to invade France? We made landings at Toulon, at Quiberon; and we even now are, if the public papers speak truth, sending all sorts of implements for killing men; for enabling the people to shed each others blood, in the West of France. I hope that this is not true; but, while our - newspapers are boasting of this, it is likely, that we shall excite much shame in the French nation for their having been led to make preparations for the invasion of England? The other topics I reserve for my next. TO THE RIGHT HON. H. GRATTAN. SIR-From the parliamentary debates, as given in the Morning Chronicle of the 26th inst. it appears that you have chosen this critical juncture to commence a course of oratory in opposition to those principles in the support of which you have acquired a celebrity, which, I fear, will give undue importance to your new character. Like your countryman, and predecessor in the same course, you have adopted a style in which Antithesis holds the place of argument, and metaphor of facts; a style of which deception is the essence, which aggravates on the one hand, and extenuates on the other, until the objects This Antithesis, we are told, drew forth the applause of the honorable assembly to whom you addressed your first philippic! But did you attempt to inform them, how many campaigns it may require to replace France in a situation capable of holding out the security which she now offers? Iler limits determined and acknowledged: men of tried integrity, the friends of peace and moderation, at the head of her councils: her people, and even her army, unless indeed the late excitements have stimulated it to fury, languishing for repose. And as to our wanting allies at a future period, did you stop to say that we purchase them now, and that we shall speedily fail in the means of purchasing.? That to obtain such allies, subsides alone are needed; and that to continue even this miserable traffic in accomplices, peace is . indispensible? The Government of France is, you say, a stratocracy: did you explain how it became such? and why she adopted that system of subjugation you censure so bitterly? She had to fight with Europe single handed: she conquered alliances whilst we purchased them. The General who led her to victory became, mischievously, I allow, but most naturally, her ruler. At length the tide of victory turned; the conquered allies proved faithless, as though they had been purchased; and this very General was given up, that the people of France might escape from a state of war, of which they had good cause to be weary. We, however, gave them a king with old notions, and with the old nobility and priesthood at his heels: these proved still less tolerable than war, and they recalled their Emperor. He remembered their sacrifice of himself for peace, and knew that the promise of peace would be the pledge of their attachment. He, therefore, abjured his schemes of conquest, and submitted himself to moderate councils. Yet you would again urge, nay compel, to war that nation, headed by the same General, and with the same breath in which you detail his triumphs! EXTRACT FROM MINUTES OF CONFEREences of THE POWERS WHO SIGNED THE TREATY OF which have passed since the return of Napoleon Bonaparte to France, and in consequence of the documents published at Paris on the Declaration. which the Powers issued against him on the 18th of March last, it would be necessary to proceed to a new Declaration, presented at the sitting of this day the following Report: REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE. He made his brother King of Holland; he called his son King of Rome; and it is Alexander King of Poland, Frederick Conference of the 12th May, 1815. William King of Saxony, and the immaThe Committee appointed on 9th instant, and culate cabinet of Great Britain (which ap-charged to examine, whether, after the events pointed the King of Belgium by an armed force,) together with his father-in-law, the equally legitimate sovereign of half Italy; these are the pure and honourable avengers of political morality and the faith of treaties!!! The most unpardonable offence of Napoleon was quitting Elba, just before those righteous observers of treaties had fixed on the The Declaration published on the 13th of place of his final seclusion. "Voila March last against Napoleon Bonaparte and his le congrés dessous" are words that can adherents, by the Powers who signed the treaty never be forgiven by the confederacy of of Paris, having, since his return to Paris, been Monarchs. 66 'Imperial Europe" sickened discussed in varions shapes by those whom he has at the sound; but it was music to the employed for that purpose; these discussions people; to thousands in this island who having acquired great publicity, and à letter adwould not yield, in real attachment to the dressed by him to all the Sovereigns, as well as a Constitution, to your former professions. note addressed by the Duke of Vicenza to the Napoleon takes possession of an offered heads of the Cabinets of Europe, having been also throne:-This, upon your new scale, is published by him with the manifest intention of gigantic wickedness."-Assumption by influencing and misleading public opinion, the force, of the government of an unwilling Committee appointed in the sitting of the 9th people, is vice in moderation," and inst. was charged to present a report on these "has displeased you." He intended to topics; and considering that in the above-mentake possession of England: he intends to tioned publications, it has been attempted to in take possession of Belgium: he intends to validate the Declaration of the 13th of March, enslave Europe: on these presumptions by laying it down,-1. That that Declaration, Great Britain must be taxed to destruc-directed against Bonaparte, at the period of his tion; the wretched subjects of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, must be led to slaughter;-France must be laid waste by fire and sword!If no intelligence had reached us, you could not have believed that Louis the Desired, having administered with wisdom an excellent constitution, should not have collected even a small band of faithful adherents to grace his exit. And now that we have heard landing on the coast of Frauce, was without application now that he had laid hold of the reins of government without open resistance, and that this fact sufficiently proving the wishes of the nation, he had not only re-entered into possession of his old rights in regard to France, but that the question even of the legitimacy of his government had ceased to be within the jurisdiction of the powers;-2. That by offering to ratify the Treaty of Paris, he removed every ground of war against FIRST QUESTION. Is the position of Bonaparte in regard to the Powers of Europe altered by the first success of his enterprise, or by the events which have passed since his arrival in Paris. him; The Committee has been especially charged conducted Bonaparte to Paris, and restored to to take into consideration-1. Whether the po-him for the moment the exercise of supreme sition of Bonaparte in regard to the Powers of power, have, donbtless, in fact, altered the posiEurope has changed by the fact of his arrival at tion in which he was at the period of his entering Paris, and by the circumstances that accompanied France; but these events, brought on by criminal the first success of his attempt on the throne of collusion, by military conspiracies, by revolting France;-Whether the offer to sanction the treasons, can create no right; they are absolutely Treaty of Paris, of the 31st of May, 1814. can null in a legal point of view; and in order to the determine the Powers to adopt a system different position of Bonaparte being essentially aud from that which they announced in the Declara legitimately altered, it would be necessary that tion of the 13th of March;-3. Whether it be the steps which he has taken to establish himself necessary or proper to publish a new declaration on the ruins of the government overturned by to confirm or modify that of the 13th of March? him, should have been confirmed by some legal The Committee having maturely examined these title. Bonaparte lays it down in his publicaquestions, submits to the assembly of Plenipo- tions, that the wishes of the French nation if tentiaries the following account of the result of favour of his re-establishment on the throne its deliberations:-suffice to constitute this legal title. The question for the powers to examine may be stated as follows:-Can the consent, real or fictitious, explicit or tacit, of the French nation to the re-establishment of Bonaparte's power, operate a legal change in the position of the latter in regard to foreign powers, and form a title obligatory on these powers? The Committee are of opinion that such cannot by any means be the effect of such consent; and the following are their rea sons:--The Powers know too well the principles which ought to guide them in their relations with. an independent country, to attempt (as it is endeavoured to accuse them) to impose upon it laws, to interfere in its internal affairs, to prescribe to it a form of government, to give it masters according to the interests or passions of its neighbours (2). But they also know that the liberty of a nation to change its system of government must have its just limits, and that if foreign Powers have not the right to prescribe to it the exercise which it shall inake of that liberty, they have at least indubitably the right of protesting against the abuse which it may make of it at their expense. Impressed with this principle, the Powers do not deem themselves authorised to impose a government on France; but they will never renounce the right of preventing the establishment in France of a focus of disorders and of subversions to other States, under the title of a (1) The 1st Article of the Convention of the Government. They will respect the liberty of 11th of April, 1814, is as follows; "The Em-France in every way in which it shall not be inperor Napoleon renounces for himself, his successors, and descendants, as well as for all the members of his family, all rights of sovereignty and of power, not only over the French empire and the Kingdom of Italy, but also over every other country." Notwithstanding this formal re The Powers, informed of the landing of Bonaparte in France, could see in him only a man who, by advancing on the French territory, with force and arms, and with the avowed project of overturning the established Government, by exciting the people and the army to revolt against their lawful Sovereign, and by usurping the title of Emperor of the French, (1) had incurred the penalties which all legislations pronounce against such outrages,—a man who, by abusing the good falth of the sovereigns, had broken a solemn treaty,- —a man in fine, who, by recalling upon France, happy and tranquil, all the scourges of internal and external war, and upon Europe, at a moment when the blessings of peace must have consoled her for her long sufferings, the sad necessity of a new general armament, was justly regarded as the implacable enemy of public welfare. Such was the origin, such were the grounds of the Declaration of the 13th of March;a Declaration of which the justice aut necessity have been universally acknowledged, and which gemeral opinion has sanctioned. The events which nunciation, Bonaparte in his different prociamations from the Gulf of Juan, from Gap, Grenoble and Lyons, entiled himself by the Grace of God and the constitutions of the empire Emperor of the French, &c. &c. &c. See Moniteur of March 21, 1815. compatible with their own security and the general tranquillity of Europe. In the existing case, the right of the Allied Sovereigus to interfere in the question of the internal government of France, is the more incontestible, inasmuch as the abolition of the power which now claims to (2) It is thus that Bonaparte's Council of State express themselves in their Report on the intentions of the Powers. See Moniteur of the 13th of April. be re-established there, was the fundamental con- Europe and the happiness of France. Never, in dition of a treaty of peace, on which rested all treating with Bonaparte, would they have conthe relations which, up to the return of Bona-sented to the conditions which they granted to parte to Paris, subsisted between France and the rest of Europe. On the day of their entrance into Paris, the Sovereigns declared that they would never treat of peace with Bonaparte (3). This declaration, loudly applauded by France and by Europe, produced the abdication of Napoleon and the convention of the 11th of April; it formed the principal basis of the negociation; it was explicitly pronounced in the preamble of the treaty of Paris. The French nation, even supposing it perfectly free and united, cannot withdraw itself from this fundamental condition without abrogating the treaty of Paris and all its existing relations with the European system. The allied Powers, on the other hand, by insist-be found in the very offer of Bonaparte to ratify ing on this very condition, only exercise a right which it is impossible to contest to them, unless it be maintained that the most sacred compacts can be perverted as suits the convenience of either of the contracting parties. It hence follows, that the will of the people of France is by no means sufficient to re-establish, in a legal sense, a Government proscribed by solemn engagements, which that very people entered into with all the Powers of Europe; and that they cannot, under any pretext, give validity as against these Powers | to the right of recalling to the throne, him, whose exclusion was a condition preliminary to every pacific arrangement with France: the wish of the French people, even' if it were fully ascertained, would not be the less null and of no effect in regard to Europe towards re-establishing a power, against which all Europe has been in a state of permanent protest from the 31st of March, 1814, up to the 13th of March, 1815; and in this view, the position of Bonaparte is precisely at this day what it was at these last mentioned periods. SECOND QUESTION. Should the offer to sanction the Treaty of Paris change the dispositions of the Powers? France has had no reason to complain of the Treaty of Paris. This Treaty reconciled France with Europe; it satisfied all her true interests, secured all her real advantages, all the elements of prosperity and glory, which a people called to one of the first places in the European system could reasonably desire, and only took from her that which was to her, under the deceitful exterior of great national eclat. an inexhaustible source of sufferings, of ruin, and of misery. This Treaty was even an immense benefit for a country, reduced by the madness of its chief to the most disastrous situation (4). The Allied Powers would have betrayed their interests and their duties, if, as the price of so much moderation and generosity, they had not, on siguing the treaty, obtained some solid advantage; but the sole object of their ambition was the peace of (3) Declaration of the 31st of March, 1814. (4) The Emperor, convinced of the critical situation in which he has placed France, and of the impossibility of saving it himself, appeared to resign himself and cousent to an entire and unconditional abdication-Letter of Marshal Ney to the Prince of Benevent. · a government, which," while offering to Europe a pledge of security and stability, relieved them from requiring from France the guarantees which they had demanded under its former government." (5) This clause is inseparable from the treaty of Paris; to abolish it, is to break this treaty. The formal consent of the French nation to the return of Bonaparte to the throne would be equivalent to a declaration of war against Europe: for the state of peace did not exist between Europe and France, except by the treaty of Paris, and the treaty of Paris is incompatible with the power of Bonaparte. If this reasoning had need of further support, it might the treaty of Paris. This treaty had been scrupulously observed and executed: the transactions of the Congress of Vienna were only its supplements and developments; and without the new attempt of Bonaparte, it would have been for a long series of years one of the bases of the public right of Europe; but this order of things has given place to a new revolution; and the agents of this revolution, although they proclaim incessantly" that (6) nothing has been changed," con ceive and feel themselves that all is changed around them. The question is no longer the maintenance of the treaty of Paris, but the making of it afresh. The Powers find themselves, with respect to France, in the condition in which they were on the 31st of March, 1814. It is not to prevent war, for France has in fact rekindled it, it is to terminate it that there now offers itself to Europe a state of things essentially different from that on which the peace of 1814 was founded. The question, then, has ceased to be a ques tion of right; it is no more than a question of political calculation and foresight, in which the powers have only to consult the real interests of The Committee thinks it may dispense with entheir people and the common interest of Europe, tering here into an exposition of the considerations which, under this last view, have directed the measures of the governments. It will be suf ficient to recall to notice, that the man, who, in now offering to sanction the treaty of Paris, pretends to substitute his guarantee for that of a Sovereign, whose loyalty was without stain, and benevolence without measure, is the same who during 15 years ravaged and laid waste the earth, to find means of satisfying his ambition, who sacrificed millions of victims, and the happiness of an entire generation, to a system of conquests, whom truces, little worthy of the name of peace, have only rendered more oppressive and more odious; (7) who, after having by mad enterprizes (5) Preamble of the Treaty of Paris. (6) This idea recurs perpetually in the report of the Council of State of Bonaparte, published in the Moniteur, April 13, 1815. (7) The Committee here think it right to addthe important observation, that the greater part of the invasions, and forced unions, of which Bonaparte formed successively what he called the Great Empire, took place during those perfidious intervals of peace, more destructive to |