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.
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