House will forgive me if I
endeavour, as far as I am able, to take a large and comprehensive view
of this important question. In doing so, I agree with my honourable
friend, that it would, in any case, be impossible to separate the
present discussion from the former crimes and atrocities of the French
revolution; because both the papers now on the table, and the whole
of the learned gentleman's argument, force upon our consideration the
origin of the war, and all the material facts which have occurred
during its continuance. The learned gentleman has revived and retailed
all those arguments from his own pamphlet, which had before passed
through thirty-seven or thirty-eight editions in print; and now gives
them to the House embellished by the graces of his personal delivery.
The First Consul has also thought fit to revive and retail the chief
arguments used by all the Opposition speakers, and all the Opposition
publishers, in this country during the last seven years. And (what is
still more material) the question itself, which is now immediately at
issue--the question, whether, under the present circumstances, there
is such a prospect of security from any treaty with France as ought
to induce us to negotiate, cannot be properly decided upon without
retracing, both from our own experience and from that of other
nations, the nature, the causes, and the magnitude of the danger
against which we have to guard, in order to judge of the security
which we ought to accept.

I say, then, that before any man can concur in opinion with that
learned gentleman--before any man can think that the substance of His
Majesty's answer is any other than the safety of the country required;
before any man can be of opinion, that to the overtures made by the
enemy, at such a time, and under such circumstances, it would have
been safe to have returned an answer concurring in the negotiation--he
must come within one of the three following descriptions: he must
either believe that the French revolution neither does now exhibit,
nor has at any time exhibited, such circumstances of danger, arising
out of the very nature of the system and the internal state and
condition of France, as to leave to foreign Powers no adequate ground
of security in negotiation; or, secondly, he must be of opinion, that
the change which has recently taken place has given that security,
which, in the former stages of the revolution, was wanting; or,
thirdly, he must be on