Alison's History of Europe [pp. 281-296]

Alison's History of Europe.
proneness to aggression, the same disregard to justice, still actuated the conduct of the men who rule
in France. Peace with a nation by whom war
was made against all order, religion, and morality,
would rather be a cessation of resistance to wrongt
than a suspension of arms in the nature of an ordinary warfare. To negotiate with established governments was formerly not merely easy, but in most
circumstances safe; but to negotiate with the government of France now would be to incur all the
risks of an uncertain truce, without attaining the
benefits even of a temporary peace. France still
retains the sentiments, and is constant to the views
which characterized the dawn of her Revolution.
She was innovating, she is so still; she was Jacobin, she is so still: she declared war against all
kings, and she continues to this hour to seek their
destruction. Even the distant republic of America
could not escape that ravaging power, and next to
a state of active and inveterate war were the relations of those two commonwealths for a long time.
The Republic, indeed, has frequently published her
disinclination to conquest; but has she followed up
that declaration by any acts indicating a similar
disposition 1 Have we not seen her armies march
to the Rhine, seize the Netherlands, and annex
them to her dominions? Have we not witnessed
her progress in Italy! Are not the wrongs of
Switzerland recent and marked? Even into Asia
she has carried her lust for dominion, severed from
the Porte, during a period of profound peace, a vast
portion of its empire, and stimulated' Citizen Tippoo' to engage in that contest which ultimately
proved his ruin.
"' The Republic has proclaimed her respect for
the independence of all governments. How have
her actions corresponded with this profession l
Did not Jacobin France attempt the overthrow of
every government. Did she not, whenever it
suited her purpose, arm the governors against the
governed, or the governed against the governors n
Hlow completely has she succeeded, during a period
of profound peace, which had been unbroken for
centuries, in convulsing the population, and so sub duing the independence of Switzerland! In Italy,
the whole fabric of civil society has been changed,
and the independence of every government violated.
The Netherlands, too, exhibit to mankind mn onu ments of the awful veneration with whilch the Re public has regarded the independence of other
states. The memorable decree of November, 1792,
has not slept a dead letter in their statute book.
No, it has ever since been the active, energetic
principle of their whole conduct, and every nation
is interested in the extinction of that principle for
and cruelty of her rulers. Switzerland co ncluded
a truce with the Republic; her rulers immediately
excited insurrections among her cantons, overthrew
her institutions, seized her fortresses, robbed her
treasures, the accumulation of ages, and, to give
permanence to her usurpations, imposed on her a
government new alike in form and substance. The
Grand-duke of Tuscany was among the earliest
sufferers by a treaty of peace with the Republic.
In everything he strove to conform to the views of
France; her rulers repeated to him her assurances
of attachment and disinclination to conquest; but
at the very time that the honor of the Republic
was pledged for the security of his states, he saw
the troops of his ally enter his capital, and he himself was deposed, and a democracy given to the
Florentines. The King of Sardinia opened the
gates of his capital to the Republican arms, and,
confiding in the integrity of the French government, expected to be secured in his dominions by
the treaty which guaranteed his title and his rights,
and communicated to France equal advantages.
He was, however, in a state of peace, invaded in
his dominions, forced to fly to his insular posses sions, and Turin treacl-lerously taken possession of
by the Republican troops. The change in the
papal government was another part of the same
system. It was planned by Joseph Bonaparte in
his palace. He excited the populace to an insur rection, and effected the revolution in the capital at
the head of the Roman mob. o'0 Venice their
conduct was still more attrocious. After conclu dirg an armistice with the Archduke Charles,
Bonaparte declared that he took the Venitians un der his protection, and overturned the old govern ment by the movements excited among the people;
but no sooner was the national independence in this
way destroyed, than he sold them to the very im perial government against whose alleged oppres sion he had prompted them to take up arms. Ge noa received the French as friends; and the debt
of gratitude was repaidl by the governrnent being
revolutionized, and, under the authority of a mock
constitution, the people plundered, and the public
independence subverted.
"' It is in vain to allege, that these atrocities are
the work of former governrnents, and that Bonaparte
had no hand in them. The worst o f these acts of
perfidy have been p er pet rated by himself. If a
treaty was c oncluded an d broken wit h Sard inia, it
was concluded and broken by Bonaparte. If peace
was entered into and violated with Tuscany, it was
entered into and violated by Bonaparte. If Venice
was first seduced into revolutionary revolt, and
then betrayed and sold to Austria, it was by Bonaparte that the treachery was consummated. If the
papal government was first terrified into submission, and then overturned by rebellion, it was Bonaparte who accomplished the work. If Genoa
was convulsed in a state of profound preace, and
e ver.
"' Every power with whom the Republic has
treated, whether for the purpose of armistice or
peace, could furnish melancholy instances of the
perfidy of France, and of the ambition, injustice
282
[MAY,