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may have upon SPAIN, on the side of the Mediterranean, is worthy of the serious attention of the British councils.

That it is most probable, we may say, in a manner certain, that if there should be a rupture between France and Spain, France will not confine her offensive piratical operations against Spain to her efforts in the Mediterranean; on which side, however, she may grievously affect Spain, especially if she excites Morocco and Algiers, which undoubtedly she will, to fall upon that power.

That she will fit out armaments upon the ocean, by which the flota itself may be intercepted, and thus the treasures of all Europe, as well as the largest and surest resources of the Spanish monarchy, may be conveyed into France, and become powerful instruments for the annoyance of all her neighbours.

That she makes no secret of her designs.

That, if the inward and outward bound flota should escape, still France has more and better means of dissevering many of the provinces in the West and East Indies from the state of Spain, than Holland had when she succeeded in the same attempt. The French marine resembles not a little the old armaments of the Flibustiers, which about a century back, in conjunction with pirates of our nation, brought such calamities upon the Spanish colonies. They differ only in this, that the present piratical force is, out of all measure and comparison, greater; one hundred and fifty ships of the line, and frigates, being ready built, most of them in a manner new, and all applicable in different ways to that service. Privateers and Moorish corsaires possess not the best seamanship, and very little discipline, and indeed can make no figure in regular service, but in desperate adventures, and animated with a lust of plunder, they are truly formidable.

In the present state of things, we have nothing at all to dread from the power of Spain by sea, or by land, or from any rivalry in commerce.

That we have much to dread from the connexions into which Spain may be forced.

From the circumstances of her territorial possessions, of her resources, and the whole of her civil and political state, we may be authorized safely, and with undoubted confidence, to affirm, that Spain is not a substantive power:

That she must lean on France, or on England. That it is as much for the interest of Great Britain to prevent the predominancy of a French interest in that kingdom, as if Spain were a province of the Crown of Great Britain, or a state actually dependent on it; full as much so as ever Portugal was reputed to be. This is a dependency of much greater value: and its destruction, or its being carried to any other dependency, of much more serious misfortune.

One of these two things must happen: Either Spain must submit to circumstances, and take such conditions as France will impose; or she must engage in hostilities along with the emperour and the king of Sardinia.

If Spain should be forced or awed into a treaty with the republick of France, she must open her ports and her commerce, as well as the land communication for the French labourers, who were accustomed annually to gather in the harvest in Spain. Indeed she must grant a free communication for travellers and traders through her whole country. In that case it is not conjectural, it is certain, the clubs will give law in the provinces; Bourgoing, or some such miscreant, will give law at Madrid.

the spoils of the new world, and to make a partition of the Spanish monarchy. Clearly it is better to do so, than to suffer France to possess these spoils and that territory alone; which, without doubt, unresisted by us, she is altogether as able, as she is willing, to do.

In this England may acquiesce if she pleases; and France will conclude a triumphant peace with Spain under her absolute dependence, with a broad That the land forces of France are well adapted highway into that, and into every state of Europe. to concur with their marine in conjunct expedi-She actually invites Great Britain to divide with her tions of this nature. In such expeditions, enterprise supplies the want of discipline, and perhaps more than supplies it. Both for this, and for other service, (however contemptible their military is in other respects,) one arm is extremely good, the engineering and artillery branch. The old officer corps in both being composed for the greater part of those who were not gentlemen, or gentlemen newly such, few have abandoned the service, and the men are veterans well enough disciplined, and very expert. In this piratical way they must make war with good advantage. They must do so, even on the side of Flanders, either offensively or defensively. This shews the difference between the policy of Louis the XIVth, who built a wall of brass about his kingdom; and that of Joseph the Second, who premeditately uncovered his whole frontier.

That Spain, from the actual and unexpected prevalence of French power, is in a most perilous situation; perfectly dependent on the mercy of that republick. If Austria is broken, or even humbled, she will not dare to dispute its mandates.

This plan is proposed by the French, in the way in which they propose all their plans; and in the only way in which indeed they can propose them, where there is no regular communication between His Majesty and their Republick.

What they propose is a plan. It is a plan also to resist their predatory project. To remain quiet, and to suffer them to make their own use of a naval power before our face, so as to awe and bully Spain into a submissive peace, or to drive them into a ruinous war, without any measure on our part, I fear is no plan at all.

However, if the plan of co-operation which France desires, and which her affiliated societies here ardently wish and are constantly writing up, should not be adopted, and the war between the emperour and France should continue, I think it

not at all likely that Spain should not be drawn into the quarrel. In that case, the neutrality of England will be a thing absolutely impossible. The time only is the subject of deliberation.

Then the question will be, whether we are to defer putting ourselves into a posture for the common defence, either by armament, or negociation, or both, until Spain is actually attacked; that is, whether our court will take a decided part for Spain, whilst Spain, on her side, is yet in a condition to act with whatever degree of vigour she may have; whilst that vigour is yet unexhausted; or whether we shall connect ourselves with her broken fortunes; after she shall have received material blows, and when we shall have the whole slow length of that always unwieldy, and ill constructed, and then wounded and crippled body, to drag after us, rather than to aid us. Whilst our disposition is uncertain, Spain will not dare to put herself in such a state of defence as will make her hostility formidable, or her neutrality respectable.

If the decision is such as the solution of this question (I take it to be the true question) conducts to no time is to be lost. But the measures, though prompt, ought not to be rash and indigested. They ought to be well chosen, well combined, and well pursued. The system must be general; but it must be executed, not successively, or with interruption, but all together uno flatu, in one melting, and one mould.

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the present misfortunes; not for the sake of criticism, military or political, or from the common motives of blaming persons and counsels which have not been successful; but in order, if we can, to administer some remedy to these disasters, by the adoption of plans more bottomed in principle, and built on with more discretion. Mistakes may be lessons.

There seem indeed to have been several mistakes in the political principles on which the war was entered into, as well as in the plans upon which it was conducted; some of them very fundamental, and not only visibly, but, I may say, palpably, erroneous; and I think him to have less than the discernment of a very ordinary statesman, who could not foresee, from the very beginning, unpleasant consequences from those plans, though not the unparalleled disgraces and disasters which really did attend them: for they were, both principles and measures, wholly new and out of the common course, without any thing apparently very grand in the conception, to justify this total departure from all rule.

For, in the first place, the united sovereigns very much injured their cause by admitting, that they had nothing to do with the interiour arrangements of France; in contradiction to the whole tenour of the publick law of Europe, and to the correspondent practice of all its states, from the time we have any history of them. In this particular, the two German courts seem to have For this purpose, we must put Europe before as little consulted the publicists of Germany, as us, which plainly is, just now, in all its parts, in their own true interests, and those of all the soa state of dismay, derangement, and confusion; vereigns of Germany and Europe. This admisand, very possibly amongst all its sovereigns, full sion of a false principle in the law of nations of secret heart-burning, distrust, and mutual accu- brought them into an apparent contradiction, when sation. Perhaps it may labour under worse evils. they insisted on the re-establishment of the royal There is no vigour any where, except the distem- authority in France. But this confused and conpered vigour and energy of France. That coun-tradictory proceeding gave rise to a practical try has but too much life in it, when every thing around is so disposed to tameness and languor. The very vices of the French system at home tend to give force to foreign exertions. The generals must join the armies. They must lead them to enterprise, or they are likely to perish by their hands. Thus, without law or government of her own, France gives law to all the governments in Europe.

This great mass of political matter must have been always under the views of thinkers for the publick, whether they act in office or not. Amongst events, even the late calamitous events were in the book of contingency. Of course, they must have been in design, at least, provided for. A plan, which takes in as many as possible of the states concerned, will rather tend to facilitate and simplify a rational scheme for preserving Spain, (if that were our sole, as I think it ought to be our principal, object,) than to delay and perplex it.

If we should think that a provident policy (perhaps now more than provident, urgent and necessary) should lead us to act, we cannot take measures as if nothing had been done. We must see the faults, if any, which have conducted to

errour of worse consequence. It was derived from one and the same root; namely, that the person of the monarch of France was every thing; and the monarchy, and the intermediate orders of the state, by which the monarchy was upheld, were nothing. So that if the united potentates had succeeded so far, as to re-establish the authority of that king, and that he should be so illadvised as to confirm all the confiscations, and to recognise as a lawful body, and to class himself with that rabble of murderers, (and there wanted not persons who would so have advised him,) there was nothing in the principle or in the proceeding of the united powers, to prevent such an arrangement.

An expedition to free a brother sovereign from prison was undoubtedly a generous and chivalrous undertaking. But the spirit and generosity would not have been less, if the policy had been more profound, and more comprehensive; that is, if it had taken in those considerations, and those persons, by whom, and, in some measure, for whom, monarchy exists. This would become a bottom for a system of solid and permanent policy, and of operations conformable to that system,

The same fruitful errour was the cause why | nothing was done to impress the people of France (so far as we can at all consider the inhabitants of France as a people) with an idea that the government was ever to be really French, or indeed any thing else than the nominal government of a monarch, a monarch absolute as over them, but whose sole support was to arise from foreign potentates, and who was to be kept on his throne by German forces; in short, that the king of France was to be a viceroy to the emperour and the king

of Prussia.

It was the first time that foreign powers, interfering in the concerns of a nation divided into parties, have thought proper to thrust wholly out of their councils, to postpone, to discountenance, to reject, and, in a manner, to disgrace, the party whom these powers came to support. The single person of a king cannot be a party. Woe to the king who is himself his party! The royal party with the king or his representatives at its head is the royal cause. Foreign powers have hitherto chosen to give to such wars as this the appearance of a civil contest, and not that of a hostile invasion. When the Spaniards in the sixteenth century, sent aids to the chiefs of the league, they appeared as allies to that league, and to the imprisored king (the cardinal de Bourbon) which that league had set up. When the Germans came to the aid of the protestant princes, in the same series of civil wars, they came as allies. When the English came to the aid of Henry the Fourth, they appeared as allies to that prince. So did the French always when they intermeddled in the affairs of Germany. They came to aid a party there. When the English and Dutch intermeddled in the succession of Spain, they appeared as allies to the emperour Charles the Sixth. In short, the policy has been as uniform as its principles were obvious to an ordinary eye.

According to all the old principles of law and policy, a regency ought to have been appointed by the French princes of the blood, nobles, and parliaments, and then recognised by the combined powers. Fundamental law and ancient usage, as well as the clear reason of the thing, have always ordained it during an imprisonment of the king of France; as in the case of John, and of Francis the First. A monarchy ought not to be left a moment without a representative, having an interest in the succession. The orders of the state ought also to have been recognised in those amongst whom alone they existed in freedom, that is, in the emigrants.

Thus, laying down a firm foundation on the recognition of the authorities of the kingdom of France, according to nature and to its fundamental laws, and not according to the novel and inconsiderate principles of the usurpation which the united powers were come to extirpate, the king of Prussia and the emperour, as allies of the ancient kingdom of France, would have proceeded with dignity, first, to free the monarch, if possible; if not, to secure the monarchy as princi

pal in the design; and in order to avoid all risks to that great object, (the object of other ages than the present, and of other countries than that of France,) they would of course avoid proceeding with more haste, or in a different manner than what the nature of such an object required.

Adopting this, the only rational system, the rational mode of proceeding upon it, was to commence with an effective siege of Lisle, which the French generals must have seen taken before their faces, or be forced to fight. A plentiful country of friends, from whence to draw supplies, would have been behind them; a plentiful country of enemies, from whence to force supplies, would have been before them. Good towns were always within reach to deposit their hospitals and magazines. The march from Lisle to Paris is through a less defensible country, and the distance is hardly so great as from Longwy to Paris.

If the old politick and military ideas had governed, the advanced guard would have been formed of those who best knew the country, and had some interest in it, supported by some of the best light troops and light artillery, whilst the grand solid body of an army disciplined to perfection, proceeded leisurely, and in close connexion with all its stores, provisions, and heavy cannon, to support the expedite body in case of misadventure, or to improve and complete its

success.

The direct contrary of all this was put in practice. In consequence of the original sin of this project, the army of the French princes was every where thrown into the rear, and no part of it brought forward to the last moment, the time of the commencement of the secret negociation. This naturally made an ill impression on the people, and furnished an occasion for the rebels at Paris to give out that the faithful subjects of the king were distrusted, despised, and abhorred by his allies. The march was directed through a skirt of Lorraine, and thence into a part of Champagne, the Duke of Brunswick leaving all the strongest places behind him; leaving also behind him the strength of his artillery; and by this means giving a superiority to the French, in the only way in which the present France is able to oppose a German force.

In consequence of the adoption of those false politicks, which turned every thing on the king's sole and single person, the whole plan of the war was reduced to nothing but a coup de main, in order to set that prince at liberty. If that failed every thing was to be given up.

The scheme of a coup de main might (under favourable circumstances) be very fit for a partisan at the head of a light corps, by whose failure nothing material would be deranged. But for a royal army of eighty thousand men, headed by a king in person, who was to march an hundred and fifty miles through an enemy's country-surely this was a plan unheard of.

Although this plan was not well chosen, and proceeded upon principles altogether ill judged

and impolitick, the superiority of the military | Accordingly, the Rhine, Sardinia, and the Swiss, force might in a great degree have supplied the are left to their fate. The king of Prussia has no defects, and furnished a corrective to the mistakes. direct and immediate concern with France; conseThe greater probability was that the duke of quentially, to be sure, a great deal: but the empeBrunswick would make his way to Paris over rour touches France directly in many parts: he is the bellies of the rabble of drunkards, robbers, a near neighbour to Sardinia, by his Milanese terriassassins, rioters, mutineers, and half-grown boys, tories; he borders on Switzerland; Cologne, posunder the ill-obeyed command of a theatrical, sessed by his uncle, is between Mentz, Treves, and vapouring, reduced captain of cavalry, who op- the king of Prussia's territories on the Lower Rhine. posed that great commander and great army. The emperour is the natural guardian of Italy But-Diis aliter visum-He began to treat, the and Germany; the natural balance against the winds blew, the rains beat, the house fell-be- ambition of France, whether republican or monarcause it was built upon sand-and great was the chical. His ministers and his generals, therefore, fall thereof. This march was not an exact copy ought to have had their full share in every material of either of the two marches made by the duke consultation, which I suspect they had not. If of Parma into France. he has no minister capable of plans of policy, which comprehend the superintendency of a war, or no general with the least of a political head, things have been as they must be. However, in all the parts of this strange proceeding, there must be a secret.

There is some secret. Sickness and weather may defeat an army pursuing a wrong plan; not that I believe the sickness to have been so great as it has been reported; but there is a great deal of superfluous humiliation in this business, a perfect prodigality of disgrace. Some advantage, real or imaginary, must compensate to a great sovereign, and to a great general, for so immense a loss of reputation. Longwy, situated as it is, might (one should think) be evacuated without a capitulation with a republick just proclaimed by the king of Prussia as an usurping and rebellious body. He was not far from Luxembourg. He might have taken away the obnoxious French in his flight. It does not appear to have been necessary that those magistrates who declared for their own king, on the faith, and under the immediate protection, of the king of Prussia, should be delivered over to the gallows. It was not necessary that the emigrant nobility and gentry who served with the king of Prussia's army, under his immediate command, should be excluded from the cartel, and given up to be hanged as rebels. Never was so gross and so cruel a breach of the publick faith, not with an enemy, but with a friend. Dumourier has dropped very singular hints. Custine has spoken out more broadly. These accounts have never been contradicted. They tend to make an eternal rupture between the powers. The French have given out, that the duke of Brunswick endeavoured to negociate some name and place for the captive king, amongst the murderers and proscribers of those who have lost their all for his cause. Even this has not been denied.

It is singular, and, indeed, a thing, under all its circumstances, inconceivable, that every thing should by the emperour be abandoned to the king of Prussia. That monarch was considered as principal. In the nature of things, as well as in his position with regard to the war, he was only an ally; and a new ally, with crossing interests in many particulars, and of a policy rather uncertain. At best, and supposing him to act with the greatest fidelity, the emperour and the empire, to him, must be but secondary objects. Countries out of Germany must affect him in a still more remote manner. France, other than from the fear of its doctrinal principles, can to him be no object at all.

It is probably known to ministers. I do not mean to penetrate into it. My speculations on this head must be only conjectural. If the king of Prussia under the pretext, or on the reality, of some information relative to ill practice on the part of the court of Vienna, takes advantage of his being admitted into the heart of the emperor's dominions in the character of an ally, afterwards, to join the common enemy, and to enable France to seize the Netherlands, and to reduce and humble the empire, I cannot conceive, upon every principle, any thing more alarming for this country, separately, and as a part of the general system. After all, we may be looking in vain in the regions of politicks, for what is only the operation of temper and character upon accidental circumstances-But I never knew accidents to decide the whole of any great business; and I never knew temper to act, but that some system of politicks, agreeable to its peculiar spirit, was blended with it, strengthened it, and got strength from it. Therefore the politicks can hardly be put out of the question.

Great mistakes have been committed: at least I hope so. If there have been none, the case in future is desperate. I have endeavoured to point out some of those which have occurred to me, and most of them very early.

Whatever may be the cause of the present state of things, on a full and mature view and comparison of the historical matter, of the transactions that have passed before our eyes, and of the future prospect, I think I am authorized to form an opinion without the least hesitation.

That there never was, nor is, nor ever will be, nor ever can be, the least rational hope of making an impression on France by any continental powers, if England is not a part, is not the directing part, is not the soul, of the whole confederacy against it.

This, so far as it is an anticipation of future, is grounded on the whole tenour of former history -In speculation it is to be accounted for on two plain principles.

First, That Great Britain is likely to take a more fair and equal part in the alliance, than the other powers, as having less of crossing interest, or perplexed discussion with any of them.

Seventhly, to acknowledge the king of France's next brother, (assisted by such a council and such representatives of the kingdom of France, as shall be thought proper,) regent of France, and to send that prince a small supply of money, arms, cloath

Secondly, Because France cannot have to deal with any of these continental sovereigns, withouting, and artillery. their feeling that nation, as a maritime power, greatly superiour to them all put together; a force which is only to be kept in check by England.

England, except during the eccentrick aberration of Charles the Second, has always considered it as her duty and interest to take her place in such a confederacy. Her chief disputes must ever be with France, and if England shews herself indifferent and unconcerned when these powers are combined against the enterprises of France, she is to look with certainty for the same indifference on the part of these powers, when she may be at war with that nation. This will tend totally to disconnect this kingdom from the system of Europe, in which, if she ought not rashly to meddle, she ought never wholly to withdraw herself from it.

If then England is put in motion, whether by a consideration of the general safety, or of the influence of France upon Spain, or by the probable operations of this new system on the Netherlands, it must embrace in its project the whole as much as possible, and the part it takes ought to be as much as possible, a leading and presiding part.

I therefore beg leave to suggest,

First, that a minister should forthwith be sent to Spain, to encourage that court to persevere in the measures they have adopted against France; to make a close alliance and guarantee of possessions, as against France, with that power, and, whilst the formality of the treaty is pending, to assure them of our protection, postponing any lesser disputes to another occasion.

Secondly, To assure the court of Vienna, of our desire to enter into our ancient connexions with her, and to support her effectually in the war which France has declared against her.

Thirdly, to animate the Swiss, and the king of Sardinia, to take a part, as the latter once did on the principles of the grand alliance.

Fourthly, To put an end to our disputes with Russia, and mutually to forget the past. I believe if she is satisfied of this oblivion, she will return to her old sentiments, with regard to this court, and will take a more forward part in this business than any other power.

Eighthly, To give force to these negociations, an instant naval armament ought to be adopted; one squadron for the Mediterranean; another for the Channel. The season is convenient, most of our trade being, as I take it, at home.

After speaking of a plan formed upon the ancient policy and practice of Great Britain, and of Europe; to which this is exactly conformable in every respect, with no deviation whatsoever, and which is, I conceive, much more strongly called for by the present circumstances than by any former, I must take notice of another which I fear, but cannot persuade myself to believe, is in agitation. This plan is grounded upon the very same view of things which is here stated, namely, the danger to all sovereigns, and old republicks, from the prevalence of French power and influence.

It is to form a congress of all the European powers, for the purpose of a general defensive alliance, the objects of which should be,

First, The recognition of this new republick, (which they well know is formed on the principles, and for the declared purpose of the destruction of all kings,) and, whenever the heads of this new republick shall consent to release the royal captives, to make peace with them.

Secondly, To defend themselves with their joint forces against the open aggressions or the secret practices, intrigues, and writings, which are used to propagate the French principles.

It is easy to discover from whose shop this commodity comes. It is so perfectly absurd, that if that, or any thing like it, meets with a serious entertainment in any cabinet, I should think it the effect of what is called a judicial blindness, the certain forerunner of the destruction of all crowns and kingdoms.

An offensive alliance, in which union is preserved, by common efforts in common dangers, against a common active enemy, may preserve its consistency, and may produce, for a given time, some considerable effect; though this is not easy, and for any very long period can hardly be expected. But a defensive alliance, formed of long discordant interests, with innumerable discussions existing, Fifthly, If what has happened to the king of having no one pointed object to which it is directPrussia is only in consequence of a sort of panicked, which is to be held together with an unreor of levity, and an indisposition to persevere long in one design-the support and concurrence of Russia will tend to steady him, and to give him resolution. If he be ill disposed, with that power on his back, and without one ally in Europe, I conceive he will not be easily led to derange the plan.

Sixthly, To use the joint influence of our court, and of our then allied powers, with Holland, to arm as fully as she can by sea, and to make some addition by land.

mitted vigilance, as watchful in peace as in war, is so evidently impossible, is such a chimera, is so contrary to human nature, and the course of human affairs, that I am persuaded no person in his senses, except those whose country, religion, and sovereign, are deposited in the French funds, could dream of it. There is not the slightest petty boundary suit, no difference between a family arrangement, no sort of misunderstanding, or cross purpose between the pride and etiquette of courts, that would not entirely disjoint this sort of alliance,

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