othing of her own, not even to give up all that she had
conquered; that it was offered to her to receive back all that had
been conquered from her; and when she rejected the negotiation for
peace upon these grounds, are we then to be told of the unrelenting
hostility of the combined Powers, for which France was to revenge
itself upon other countries, and which is to justify the subversion
of every established government, and the destruction of property,
religion, and domestic comfort, from one end of Italy to the other?
Such was the effect of the war against Modena, against Genoa, against
Tuscany, against Venice, against Rome, and against Naples; all of
which she engaged in, or prosecuted, subsequent to this very period.

After this, in the year 1797, Austria had made peace, England and its
ally, Portugal (from whom we could expect little active assistance,
but whom we felt it our duty to defend), alone remained in the war.
In that situation, under the pressure of necessity, which I shall not
disguise, we made another attempt to negotiate. In 1797, Prussia,
Spain, Austria, and Naples having successively made peace, the princes
of Italy having been destroyed, France having surrounded itself, in
almost every part in which it is not surrounded by the sea, with
revolutionary republics, England made another offer of a different
nature. It was not now a demand that France should restore anything.
Austria having made a peace upon her own terms, England had nothing
to require with regard to her allies; she asked no restitution of the
dominions added to France in Europe. So far from retaining anything
French out of Europe, we freely offered them all, demanding only, as
a poor compensation, to retain a part of what we had acquired by arms
from Holland, then identified with France, and that part useless to
Holland and necessary for the security of our Indian possessions. This
proposal also, Sir, was proudly refused, in a way which the learned
gentleman himself has not attempted to justify, indeed of which he has
spoken with detestation. I wish, since he has not finally abjured his
duty in this House, that that detestation had been stated earlier,
that he had mixed his own voice with the general voice of his country
on the result of that negotiation.

Let us look at the conduct of France immediately subsequent to this
period. She had spurned at the offers of Great Britain; she had
reduced her Continental enemies to the necessity o