country, such and
so situated as France, round, entire, immensely perhaps augmented.

"Well," some will say, "in this case we have only submitted to the
nature of things." The nature of things is, I admit, a sturdy
adversary. This might be alleged as a plea for our attempt at a treaty.
But what plea of that kind can be alleged, after the treaty was dead and
gone, in favor of this posthumous Declaration? No necessity has driven
us to _that_ pledge. It is without a counterpart even in expectation.
And what can be stated to obviate the evil which that solitary
engagement must produce on the understandings or the fears of men? I
ask, what have the Regicides promised you in return, in case _you_
should show what _they_ would call dispositions to conciliation and
equity, whilst you are giving that pledge from the throne, and engaging
Parliament to counter-secure it? It is an awful consideration. It was on
the very day of the date of this wonderful pledge,[38] in which we
assumed the Directorial government as lawful, and in which we engaged
ourselves to treat with them whenever they pleased,--it was on that very
day the Regicide fleet was weighing anchor from one of your harbors,
where it had remained four days in perfect quiet. These harbors of the
British dominions are the ports of France. They are of no use but to
protect an enemy from your best allies, the storms of heaven and his own
rashness. Had the West of Ireland been an unportuous coast, the French
naval power would have been undone. The enemy uses the moment for
hostility, without the least regard to your future dispositions of
equity and conciliation. They go out of what were once your harbors, and
they return to them at their pleasure. Eleven days they had the full use
of Bantry Bay, and at length their fleet returns from their harbor of
Bantry to their harbor of Brest. Whilst you are invoking the propitious
spirit of Regicide equity and conciliation, they answer you with an
attack. They turn out the pacific bearer of your "how do you dos," Lord
Malmesbury; and they return your visit, and their "thanks for your
obliging inquiries," by their old practised assassin, Hoche. They come
to attack--what? A town, a fort, a naval station? They come to attack
your king, your Constitution, and the very being of that Parliament
which was holding out to them these pledges, together with the
entireness of the empire, the laws, liberties, and properties of all the
people. We kn