For when Mr. Fox admitted
that the conduct of the Jacobins did discover ambition, he always ended
his admission of their ambitious views by an apology for them, insisting
that the universally hostile disposition shown to them rendered their
ambition a sort of defensive policy. Thus, on whatever roads he
travelled, they all terminated in recommending a recognition of their
pretended republic, and in the plan of sending an ambassador to it. This
was the burden of all his song:--"Everything which we could reasonably
hope from war would be obtained from treaty." It is to be observed,
however, that, in all these debates, Mr. Fox never once stated to the
House upon what ground it was he conceived that all the objects of the
French system of united fanaticism and ambition would instantly be given
up, whenever England should think fit to propose a treaty. On proposing
so strange a recognition and so humiliating an embassy as he moved, he
was bound to produce his authority, if any authority he had. He ought to
have done this the rather, because Le Brun, in his first propositions,
and in his answers to Lord Grenville, defended, _on principle, not on
temporary convenience_, everything which was objected to France, and
showed not the smallest disposition to give up any one of the points in
discussion. Mr. Fox must also have known that the Convention had passed
to the order of the day, on a proposition to give some sort of
explanation or modification to the hostile decree of the 19th of
November for exciting insurrections in all countries,--a decree known to
be peculiarly pointed at Great Britain.
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