ch an
insinuation are innumerable. In the first place, the evidence of
dates; in the second place, the admission of all the different parties
in France; of the friends of Brissot charging on Robespierre the war
with this country, and of the friends of Robespierre charging it on
Brissot; but both acquitting England; the testimonies of the French
Government during the whole interval, since the declaration of
Pilnitz, and the date assigned to the pretended treaty of Pavia;
the first of which had not the slightest relation to any project of
partition or dismemberment; the second of which I firmly believe to be
an absolute fabrication and forgery; and in neither of which, even as
they are represented, any reason has been assigned for believing that
this country had any share. Even M. Talleyrand himself was sent by the
constitutional King of the French, after the period when that concert,
which is now charged, must have existed, if it existed at all, with a
letter from the King of France, expressly thanking His Majesty for the
neutrality which he had uniformly observed. The same fact is confirmed
by the recurring evidence of every person who knew anything of the
plans of the King of Sweden in 1791; the only sovereign who, I
believe, at that time meditated any hostile measures against France,
and whose utmost hopes were expressly stated to be, that England would
not oppose his intended expedition; by all those, also, who knew
anything of the conduct of the Emperor, or the King of Prussia; by
the clear and decisive testimony of M. Chauvelin himself, in his
dispatches from hence to the French Government, since published by
their authority; by everything which has occurred since the war; by
the publications of Dumourier; by the publications of Brissot; by the
facts that have since come to light in America, with respect to the
mission of M. Ganet; which show that hostility against this country
was decided on the part of France long before the period when M.
Chauvelin was sent from hence. Besides this, the reduction of our
peace establishment in the year 1791, and continued to the subsequent
year, is a fact from which the inference is indisputable: a fact
which, I am afraid, shows, not only that we were not waiting for the
occasion of war, but that, in our partiality for a pacific system, we
had indulged ourselves in a fond and credulous security, which wisdom
and discretion would not have dictated. In addition to every other
proof