eclaration of the
deputies and ambassadors of Buonaparte himself, offering to the
Directory the first-fruits of this first attempt at general
pacification.

So much for his disposition towards general pacification: let us look
next at the part he has taken in the different stages of the French
revolution, and let us then judge whether we are to look to him as
the security against revolutionary principles; let us determine what
reliance we can place on his engagements with other countries, when
we see how he has served his engagements to his own. When the
constitution of the third year was established under Barras, that
constitution was imposed by the arms of Buonaparte, then commanding
the army of the Triumvirate in Paris. To that constitution he then
swore fidelity. How often he has repeated the same oath I know not;
but twice, at least, we know that he has not only repeated it himself,
but tendered it to others, under circumstances too striking not to be
stated.

Sir, the House cannot have forgotten the revolution of September 4,
which produced the dismissal of Lord Malmesbury from Lisle. How was
that revolution procured? It was procured chiefly by the promise
of Buonaparte (in the name of his army) decidedly to support the
Directory in those measures which led to the infringement and
violation of everything that the authors of the constitution of 1795,
or its adherents, could consider as fundamental, and which established
a system of despotism inferior only to that now realized in his own
person. Immediately before this event, in the midst of the desolation
and bloodshed of Italy, he had received the sacred present of new
banners from the Directory; he delivered them to his army with this
exhortation: 'Let us swear, fellow soldiers, by the manes of the
patriots who have died by our side, eternal hatred to the enemies of
the constitution of the third year'--that very constitution which he
soon after enabled the Directory to violate, and which, at the head of
his grenadiers, he has now finally destroyed. Sir, that oath was
again renewed, in the midst of that very scene to which I have last
referred; the oath of fidelity to the constitution of the third year
was administered to all the members of the assembly then sitting
(under the terror of the bayonet), as the solemn preparation for the
business of the day; and the morning was ushered in with swearing
attachment to the constitution, that the evening might close wi