Fox likewise struck
out everything in the address which _related to the tokens of ambition
given by France, her aggressions upon our allies, and the sudden and
dangerous growth of her power upon every side_; and instead of all those
weighty, and, at that time, necessary matters, by which the House of
Commons was (in a crisis such as perhaps Europe never stood) to give
assurances to our allies, strength to our government, and a check to the
common enemy of Europe, he substituted nothing but a criminal charge on
the conduct of the British government for calling Parliament together,
and an engagement to inquire into that conduct.
8. If it had pleased God to suffer him to succeed in this his project
for the amendment to the address, he would forever have ruined this
nation, along with the rest of Europe. At home all the Jacobin
societies, formed for the utter destruction of our Constitution, would
have lifted up their heads, which had been beaten down by the two
proclamations. Those societies would have been infinitely strengthened
and multiplied in every quarter; their dangerous foreign communications
would have been left broad and open; the crown would not have been
authorized to take any measure whatever for our immediate defence by sea
or land. The closest, the most natural, the nearest, and at the same
time, from many internal as well as external circumstances, the weakest
of our allies, Holland, would have been given up, bound hand and foot,
to France, just on the point of invading that republic.
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