es;
but it is alleged that they have done so only in consequence of the
provocation of other Powers. One of the first of those provocations
is stated to have consisted in the various outrages offered to their
Ministers, of which the example is said to have been set by the King
of Great Britain in his conduct to M. Chauvelin. In answer to this
supposition, it is only necessary to remark that, before the example
was given, before Austria and Prussia are supposed to have been thus
encouraged to combine in a plan for the partition of France, that
plan, if it ever existed at all, had existed and been acted upon for
above eight months: France and Prussia had been at war eight months
before the dismissal of M. Chauvelin. So much for the accuracy of the
statement.

[Mr. Erskine here observed that this was not the statement of his
argument.]

I have been hitherto commenting on the arguments contained in the
notes: I come now to those of the learned gentleman. I understand him
to say that the dismissal of M. Chauvelin was the real cause, I do not
say of the general war, but of the rupture between France and England;
and the learned gentleman states, particularly, that this dismissal
rendered all discussion of the points in dispute impossible. Now I
desire to meet distinctly every part of this assertion: I maintain,
on the contrary, that an opportunity was given for discussing every
matter in dispute between France and Great Britain, as fully as if a
regular and accredited French Minister had been resident here;--that
the causes of war which existed at the beginning, or arose during the
course of this discussion, were such as would have justified, twenty
times over, a declaration of war on the part of this country;--that
all the explanations on the part of France were evidently
unsatisfactory and inadmissible; and that M. Chauvelin had given in a
peremptory ultimatum, declaring that, if these explanations were not
received as sufficient, and if we did not immediately disarm, our
refusal would be considered as a declaration of war. After this
followed that scene which no man can even now speak of without horror,
or think of without indignation; that murder and regicide from which
I was sorry to hear the learned gentleman date the beginning of the
legal government of France. Having thus given in their ultimatum, they
added, as a further demand (while we were smarting under accumulated
injuries, for which all satisfaction was deni