In consequence of his
knowledge that we _could_ not effectually do _without_ them, and his
resolution that we _should_ not act _with_ them, he proposed, that,
having, as he asserted, "obtained the only avowed object of the war (the
evacuation of Holland) we ought to conclude an instant peace."
28. Mr. Fox could not be ignorant of the mistaken basis upon which his
motion was grounded. He was not ignorant, that, though the attempt of
Dumouriez on Holland, (so very near succeeding,) and the navigation of
the Scheldt, (a part of the same piece,) were among the _immediate_
causes, they were by no means the only causes, alleged for Parliament's
taking that offence at the proceedings of France, for which the Jacobins
were so prompt in declaring war upon this kingdom. Other full as weighty
causes had been alleged: they were,--1. The general overbearing and
desperate ambition of that faction; 2. Their actual attacks on every
nation in Europe; 3. Their usurpation of territories in the Empire with
the governments of which they had no pretence of quarrel; 4. Their
perpetual and irrevocable consolidation with their own dominions of
every territory of the Netherlands, of Germany, and of Italy, of which
they got a temporary possession; 5. The mischiefs attending the
prevalence of their system, which would make the success of their
ambitious designs a new and peculiar species of calamity in the world;
6. Their formal, public decrees, particularly those of the 19th of
November and 15th and 25th of December; 7.
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