Norfolk gazette and publick ledger (Norfolk [Va.]), 1807-03-13 00:00:00

BRITISH PARLIAMENT.
 HOUSE OF COMMONS. 
January 5.
Debate on the Negotiation with France.
(Continued from our last.)
 Lord Farnouth apologised for offering himself to the notice of the house, so early in the debate. He trusted he should be acquitted of presumption, in claiming the priority of persons much better able to direct the judgment of the house, by the candour of gentlemen on every side, who would be sensible of the propriety of his offering an elucidation of some circumstances respecting the negotiation, and some respecting himself, in this early stage of the debate. It was essential that he should rescue himself from some imputations cast upon him, in another place, by a noble lord high in authority, to whom he could not regularly allude. He had seen the expressions he alluded to in a very respectable newspaper early on Saturday. He could not doubt the authenticity of the report, and he wished to set himself right with the house, and to set the house right with respect to the question in the points to which he meant particularly to advert. He thought he could prove to the house that the reflections cast upon him were unfounded. He hoped it would not be taking up too much of the time of the house if he should, in his view of the subject under debate, go back to the causes of the present war. Considering the assigned grounds in the renewal of the war, he was of opinion, that at the beginning of this year there were strong reasons for entering into negotiations for peace. One great cause of the war was the impossibility of obtaining a sufficient guarantee for the security of Malta. An official statement in the Moniteur declared, long after the commencement of the war, that so long as England retained Malta, Bonaparte would not relinquish the sovereignty of the kingdom of Italy. Malta, however, was not the only cause of the war; the desire to resist the aggrandizement of France was another cause. Russia was as averse as we to the overbearing power and character of France. But Russia was unwilling to engage in the enterprise of reducing France, till Britain, which had little danger to apprehend, individually, from the result of the contest, should be engaged. From this principle arose the coalition, in which two powers joined—a third ought to have joined. That coalition was defeated by means of the policy Prussia had thought proper to pursue. In the spring of 1800, the continent afforded a very gloomy prospect. Austria was prostrate at the feet of France; Prussia was bound to France in an alliance offensive and defensive. There was no longer any hope of saving Europe by war. The only remaining chance of saving it was by peace. The existence of Austria could be preserved by peace alone: Peace alone could break the union between Prussia and France, to the detriment of every hope of the deliverance of the world as an union cemented by the transfer of a part of his majesty's dominions. It was of little moment which power had made the first overture. The first that overcame the mad and foolish pride of robbing nations of peace, rather than making an overture, was entitled to the praise of both nations, and of all mankind. The great statesman whose loss Europe had to deplore, had conducted the earlier part of the negotiation by the channel of private correspondence, the substance of which was before the house. When he (Lord Farnouth ) was introduced into the negotiation, one great difficulty in the way of peace was the connection with Russia. That, however, may be got over on paper. But there was a difficulty with respect to Hanover, which was much less capable of management. It was known that we would spurn any peace which would not be coupled with the restitution of Hanover to our beloved sovereign. But at the same time Prussia had been the unalterable ally of France since the Revolution, and Hanover had been conveyed to Prussia as well in reward of that alliance as in consideration of valuable cessions in exchange. Hence it was material that the intended cession should be made matter of confidential verbal communication, till the peace, for which it was to be paid, should be ascertained and agreed upon. The communication was made confidentially, and treated of in letters from one friend to another. So he may speak of the ministers of foreign relations of this country and of France, though the countries were at war. Though both parties, actuated by a desire of peace, had consented for the cession of Hanover as one of the terms, yet it was required on one side, and agreed to as reasonable on the other. But with a view not to dissolve the bonds which united France and Prussia, this agreement should not be entered on unless peace should have taken place. On the beginning of June the proposal was sent by him to Mr. Fox . He declined putting it on paper, in regard to the confidential restriction imposed by the French government; and it was not till the day of his departure for France, with the answer of his majesty's government, that he was induced, on the representation of Mr. Fox , on the representation that we were all mortal, and that in cases of such importance, some fixed record, independent of human casualties, should be preserved, that he was induced, on the faith of an assurance that the document should not pass the cabinet, to commit the substance of the proposal made to him in writing. He did not mean to decorate himself with plumes to which he was not entitled. It may be true that one motive for choosing him to be the instrument of the negotiation, was his having been the bearer of the proposition from the French government; but, if it were inferred, as it had gone abroad, that he had been chosen on that ground only, without any regard to qualification, the inference was 
 false. He regretted as much as any one that the choice of his majesty's government had not fallen on some person of greater ability; but it was at the same time material to be known, that any other person in such a capacity would not have been suffered to remain twelve hours in Paris without producing his full powers. M. D'Oubril was not suffered to remain so long without producing them; and he believed it was a case unparalleled in history, that he (Lord Yarmouth) was not called upon to produce his. He had hoped that the private letter of Mr. Fox to Talleyrand, conveyed by him, contained some memorandum of the substance of what he had communicated, and he told Mr. Fox he did hope so. He communicated to Talleyrand the wishes of his government; he made the demands he was instructed to prefer in a fair, direct, and manly manner, and not with any artifice for the purpose of taking in. He did state the basis of the intended negotiation to be, that of actual possession, and no objection was made to that statement, then, or at any other time—it being always understood, that, though the uti possidetis was the basis, it was subject to explanation and variation, according to mutual interest and convenience. The negotiation might have proceeded on this understanding, were it not for the jealousies conceived by the political death of Mr. Fox, which was understood to have taken place the 17th of July. He had presented a Note to assert the basis of the uti possidetis as soon as he had communicated his full powers; and in his second Note, that basis was insisted upon as much as it could be. But it was not easy in private quarrels to make an individual eat his words. It was much more difficult to bring to that submission a man that was at the head of 500,000 troops. Hence the management by which to avoid a retraction the word adopte was substituted for the word reconnait , in the acknowledgment of the long contested basis. Little progress, however, was made in the negotiation; and scarcely had an exchange of visits taken place when M. D'Oubril arrived at Paris. It was of little moment now to inquire, whether the treaty signed by M. D'Oubril was the act of his own impropriety—or whether the refusal to ratify it arose merely from a change in the Russian ministry, subsequent to his setting out on his mission. He had given his majesty's ministers intimation by which they may have anticipated the possibility of M. D'Oubril's concluding a separate treaty—and, in fact, he did a few days after sign a separate treaty. There arose the difficulty of his (Lord Yarmouth's) situation, and on this point particularly he trusted to the candor of the house for a patient hearing, though the statement was, he was aware, tedious.—On Saturday morning, on getting up, he had read these words in a respectable newspaper, imputed to somebody he could not say—"The noble lord (Yarmouth) had his instructions not to produce his full powers, without a written acknowledgment of the de facto basis; he did not think proper to produce those powers, as it was impossible he could have had such instructions. It was a known thing, that no minister could pass till the full powers had been exhibited. He was instructed to present a paper, containing the sentiments of his majesty's government, to the French minister. But the French minister refused to receive it as a diplomatic communication, without an exhibition of full powers. The French minister desired him, in these circumstances, to go home and copy the note, and give it to a newspaper; and then he would enter into the engagement not to make any further demand. But his majesty's ministers were of opinion, that a written acknowledgment of the de facto basis should have been a less than indispensable condition of the French minister, which he would not have been contented to have delivered, unless he had first called forth an acknowledgment of the de facto; and he might have had authority to give it, without a written acknowledgment of the de facto; but such have been obtained, which would not have been obtained except in a moment of anger. In the state of things that had occurred, even the agreement to cease to move might have been denied. He expected it would have been, and it probably would, had it not been for the war between France and Prussia. When he had received the communication reflecting on his disclosure of his full powers, he had sent a justification on the most material points, as between him and his majesty's ministers. He did not conceive that what he wrote would come before the public, or he would have wrote a great deal more. He had no instruction to withhold his full powers, except on the ground of Sicily; and he considered the consent of his majesty's ministers to negotiate for that island, as an evasion of the claim to its absolute unqualified decision, which he had been before instructed to insist upon as a necessary preliminary to the further progress of the negotiation. The only question between him and his majesty's ministers was, the question of expediency; and his answer to what they urged against him on this point was, that he could not possibly have advanced a step further in the negotiation without exhibiting his full powers. It would have been a question in that case with the French government, whether it should sacrifice the chance of peace with England, and with that change the king's German dominions, to the preservation of its alliance with Prussia? or whether it would encounter a Prussian war for the chance of a negotiation with England. In order to create an alternative in this case, he thought it necessary to give a real existence to the negotiation by the exhibition of his full powers. If he had not taken this resolution, he should have been under the necessity of getting into a post-chaise, and proceeding, not to Boulogne, for he was not an accidental negotiator, but to some other part from whence his majesty's ministers might have had news of him, and of the issue of the negotiation with which he was instructed, in a fortnight after the close of the pro- 
ceedings. He wished he had had provisional instructions how he should act in the event of the conclusion of a separate treaty by D'Oubril. Then he would have been
But it was not till the fact of the signature of the separate treaty was known to all the courts of Europe that instructions were sent to him how to regulate his conduct upon that event. Shortly after lord Lauderdale was joined with him in the management of the negotiation. He had too long an acquaintance with that noble lord, too high a value upon that acquaintance, too high a sense of his talents and his character, to feel hurt upon that appointment. He owned he was hurt at the conduct of his majesty's ministers in the matter; but he had too high a respect for the noble lord to allow him to see that he felt himself from that time to be a mere dead letter; but he dreaded that if he should withdraw from the negotiation new difficulties and fresh coldness, and want of confidence should arise. No one could doubt that the opportunity was favourable for the conclusion of a more glorious peace than had at an other time been offered to this country. We had broken off in the consideration of Dalmatia and Sicily. Our engagements with the emperor of Russia were the ground of the treaty, and the intrinsic value of the island of Sicily itself. It was not very easy to justify the breaking off a negotiation so essential to the repose of two great nations, without the proof of having made every reasonable attempt to bring it to a favourable issue. What we thought due to the honour of Russia certainly could not wear an unfavourable appearance when proposed by us; but we should be informed whether Russia would set an equal value upon what we insisted upon, from a sense of her regard for it with equal estimation. When the king of Naples entered into the war, with a view to the common interests of nations, he was naturally defended by a great part of the disposable force of this empire, at a vast expense. He said we could be told that we were at war because the emperor of Russia disapproved of the terms offered for himself or for the king of Naples. What would the country think when we were told that more glorious terms than had ever before been offered had been rejected at a time when we had failed in every continental attempt, merely on the ground of this one impediment? We might say to Russia, in view of the fact of her alliance with us was once, and her ascent was difficult.
—to mitigate thy place, Which thou hast lost in strict justice, By thy default. He then observed that the king of Naples was extremely happy to exchange a kingdom which might easily be expelled by the first opportunity, for some power which the maritime superiority of Britain would be sufficient to preserve to him, or to which, by its territorial power, would be difficult to maintain itself? Dalmatia and Albania had been offered to the king of Naples, and it was not clear, if the attempt had been made, but the Adriatic Isles might have been annexed to them; Dalmatia would have excited more jealousy if given to Russia, than if given to Austria or Naples. If it was clear that the war was continued because justice would not be done to our allies, there would be no doubt as to the resolution the house ought to come to—no more ought there to be if the war were continued on account of India. But if it was continued on the former ground, the identity of the sentiments and the reciprocity of the obli- gations of our allies, ought to be established. He had risen merely to rescue his own conduct from the very extraordinary situation of a public man charged with violating instructions which he had never received.
Lord Howick thought he had stated, as distinctly as possible, that the noble lord had no instructions to insist on a written acknowledgment of the basis in the first instance. As the noble lord stated, he was sent to carry a verbal answer to a verbal proposition. He was instructed to return in this way an acknowledgment of the basis, and directed not to use his full powers till the French government should return to the basis on which it had set out. It was not a written but an actual acknowledgment that the noble lord had been instructed to obtain previous to the production of his full powers; and as soon as he should have produced his powers, he was directed to seek, in the first subsequent move, a written acknowledgment. Mr. Puff's letter went back to the original offer of the off-powers. The demand of Sicily was a violation of that offer; and it was on that ground that the noble lord was ordered not to proceed one step further till that demand should be relinquished, and the basis established; unless that requisition were complied with the noble lord was instructed to demand his passports in civil terms, and to come away. He was only surprised, that after the explanation that had already been given to this effect, the noble lord should have thought the vindication he had entered into of all necessary.
Mr. Mansel, after an attentive and impartial perusal of the papers, was sorry the negotiation had at all taken place. It had afforded a triumph of duplicity over credulity; to French over English objects, and to France herself a total triumph. France had adopted the policy which Mr. Puffendorf described as that of the Turks, in the more vigorous part of their history. They made short wars to obtain conquests, and short truces to secure them. This negotiation had afforded that facility to France, which it palied our exertions and our means of obtaining continental co-operation. He complimented Mr. Pitt, "the pilot, who had weathered the storm"—that gentleman, even when languishing on his death bed, would, like Fabius, have refused to listen to the motions that would
so often deceived him. He had no doubt of his private character which was always good, though he had always discovered some subjects. He thought the letter which contained glances of peace which were not sincere a minister of Talleyrand's capacity. He mentioned the profession of personal attachment which the letter concludes. He did not know where this attachment commenced in 1792, when Talleyrand conducted here the negotiation which terminated in the first war with the French republic. At all events he walked such professions of attachment to an enemy. He was, however, ready to subscribe to the candour and disinterestedness. Plus, in seeking peace, so strikingly evident, which the craft of Talleyrand is pursuing his object of obtaining, not peace, but a truce to secure the acquisitions of former wars, and to prepare for new aggressions. Talleyrand has used negotiation to inspire Russia with jealousy towards us, and the degradation of Russia's respect with jealousy towards that power. He was a man who would not spare misrepresentation. The forged letter to lord Lauderdale was a proof of that. Prussia was a natural ally of this country, and France had excited dissention between the Power and us by means of Hanover. He therefore blamed the precipitation with which the country had been plunged into a war with Prussia, at a time when her alliance was particularly necessary, and when it may have been hoped, upon the events which were every day arising, to bring her to her right senses. He believed the French government dealt with the evil, and conjured up Hanover as a phantom to cause dissention between this country and Prussia. This was the cause of an ill-advised war with Prussia. He blamed the noble lord opposite, in the situation in which he was, as a person anxious for reform, a unfit person to be charged with the negotiation. But he thought ministers had an innumerable responsibility after the negotiations, which he had conducted to the best of his judgment, as if they had incautiously made use of him in them. It was evident that the basis of the uti possidetis , though not immediately offered by the French at the time, was insisted upon by our government. Mr. Fox was like a person who was a woman, and fears that an abrupt avowal of his object will cause her to shut the doors against him. From the conduct of the second noble lord entrusted with the negotiation, in the year 1792, and his intimacy with the Brissotine party, who had put their king to death, and from the patience with which he had listened to the projects for the destruction of England, within the walls of the national assembly, he could not think him a fit person to be charged with the interests of his country in this negotiation. He blamed the dallying in which these ministers were kept. Their situation was no better than prisoners, being refused the passports they demanded. It reminded him of a story he had read in the newspapers, of a gentleman, and two prostitutes locked in Bond street, and squeezed so closely, one behind and another before, that he was unable to move, while a third picked his pockets. Then they were told the emperor was gone a hunting. This was what the nurses said to the children: "Baby hunting, the king is gone a hunting". The emperor was gone to hunt the royal family of Prussia, and the ambassadors were to have been entertained with the sight, as lord Macartney was in China. Our ambassador remained at Paris like a fish out of water, while the French minister went off in a post chaise, and looked back through the hand glass to see whether he remained in his place. In short, the ministers were bamboozled from beginning to the end. Mr. Burke had described the case of a person in Turkey, who, while he received a certain unpleasant application, begged those who inflicted it to accept the assurances of his high consideration. This was the case with lord Lauderdale at first, but at length he seemed disposed to retort not only on the prince of Benevento, the prince of Porto Cervo, and the duke of Berg, but even on the emperor himself. Otherwise he could not have been described as behaving unsuitable, imperious and savage manners. He had no doubt that the noble lord had done his duty, but having sat quietly in the Cyclop's forge, while the thunder bolts of war were forging against his country, he could not think him a proper person to be entrusted with the negotiation. He could see no benefit likely to accrue from sending a second negotiator, after the changes in Germany, which rendered any peace that could be made, as the noble lord observed, equally insecure. He charged ministers with obvious inferiority to the late government, which they represented as inefficient. He blamed them for the deficiency of their own performance, and for the recall of officers who have done well, merely because they were objects of private pique. He joined heartily in that part of the address which pledged every heart and every hand to the defence of the country; and it seemed had been a disposition, on the part of our government, to sacrifice part of what was necessary to the balance of power, the ill success of that disposition afforded double motives for vigorous exertion in war. Now was the time to put forth British fortitude. In peace, nought was so becoming as meekness; but when the trumpet of war was sounded, the sinews ought to stiffen, and the senses become fierce as those of a tiger. Let ministers be vigilant and attentive, and they should have the support, not uniform unquestioned support, for he thought it right to keep them alert by admonition and investigation, but qualified and rational support, according as they should be found in the right or in the wrong. To his private he would give the fullest assistance of the nation, and the full force of his power to