land, _is a war of government, begun and
carried on against the sense and interests of the people_,--thus sowing
in their very overtures towards peace the seeds of tumult and sedition:
for they never have abandoned, and never will they abandon, in peace, in
war, in treaty, in any situation, or for one instant, their old, steady
maxim of separating the people from their government. Let me add, (and
it is with unfeigned anxiety for the character and credit of ministers
that I do add,) if our government perseveres in its as uniform course of
acting under instruments with such preambles, it pleads guilty to the
charges made by our enemies against it, both on its own part and on the
part of Parliament itself. The enemy must succeed in his plan for
loosening and disconnecting all the internal holdings of the kingdom.

It was not enough that the speech from the throne, in the opening of the
session in 1795, threw out oglings and glances of tenderness. Lest this
coquetting should seem too cold and ambiguous, without waiting for its
effect, the violent passion for a relation to the Regicides produced a
direct message from the crown, and its consequences from the two Houses
of Parliament. On the part of the Regicides these declarations could not
be entirely passed by without notice; but in that notice they discovered
still more clearly the bottom of their character. The offer made to them
by the message to Parliament was hinted at in their answer,--but in an
obscure and oblique manner, as before. They accompanied their notice of
the indications manifested on our side with every kind of insolent and
taunting reflection. The Regicide Directory, on the day which, in their
gypsy jargon, they call the 5th of _Pluviose_, in return for our
advances, charge us with eluding our declarations under "evasive
formalities and frivolous pretexts." What these pretexts and evasions
were they do not say, and I have never heard. But they do not rest
there. They proceed to charge us, and, as it should seem, our allies in
the mass, with direct _perfidy_; they are so conciliatory in their
language as to hint that this perfidious character is not new in our
proceedings. However, notwithstanding this our habitual perfidy, they
will offer peace "on conditions _as_ moderate"--as what? as reason and
as equity require? No,--as moderate "as are suitable to their _national
dignity_." National dignity in all treaties I do admit is an important
consideration: th