governments, without disturbing their tranquillity, without violating their rights.

With respect to that character of ill-will which is endeavoured to be found in the conduct of England towards France, I cannot discuss it, because you speak of it in general terms only, without alleging a single fact. All Europe has seen the justice and the generosity which have characterised the conduct of the king: his majesty has always been desirous of peace: he desires it still, but such as may be real, and solid, and consistent with the interests and dignity of his own dominions, and with the general security of Europe.

On the rest of your paper I say nothing. As to what relates to me and to my colleagues, the king's ministers owe to his majesty the account of their conduct; and I have no answer to give you on this subject, any more than on that of the appeal which you propose to make to the English nation. This nation, according to that constitution by which its liberty and its prosperity are secured, and which it will always be able to defend against every attack, direct or indirect, will never have with foreign powers connexion or correspondence, except through the organ of its king; of a king whom it loves and reveres, and who has never for an instant separated his rights, his interests, and his happinees, from the rights, the iuterests, and the happiness of his people.

(Signed)

Official Note of the Executive Power of France, in Answer to that of the British Minister.

T

Paris, Jan. 7, 1793. Second year of the republic. HE provisory executive council of the French republic, previous to their answering, in a more particular manner, each of the heads comprised in the note which has been remitted to them on the part of the ministry of his Britannic majesty, shall begin by renewing to the said ministry the most express assurances of their sincere desire of preserving peace and harmony between France and England.

The sentiments of the French nation towards the English have been manifested, during the whole course of the revolution, in so constant, so unanimous a manner, that there cannot remain the smallest doubt of the esteem which it has vowed them, and of its desire of having them for friends. It is, therefore, with the greatest repugnance the republic would see herself forced to a rupture, much more contrary to her own inclination than her interest. Before we come to such an extremity, explanations are necessary; and the matter is of so high an importance, that the executive council did not think it proper to trust it to the ever-unacknowledged ministry of a secret agent; hence they have deemed it to be expedient in all points to charge citizen Chauvelin with it, though he be no otherwise acknowledged before his Britannic majesty than on the late king's ac

The opinion of the executive council was justified on this occasion,

sion, by the manner in which our negociations were at the same time transacted in Spain, where citizen Burgoing was exactly in the same situation as citizen Chauvelin at London; yet this did not prevent the ministers of his catholic majesty from treating with him for a convention of neutrality, the declaration of which is to be exchanged at Paris between the minister for foreign affairs and the Spanish chargé d'affaires. We will even add, that the prime minister of his catholic najesty, in writing officially on this subject to citizen Burgoing, did not forget to give him his title of Minister Plenipotentiary from France. The example of a power of the first order, such as Spain, induced the executive council to hope to find the same facility at London. However, the executive council freely own, that this demand of negociations has not all the rigour of diplomatic form, and that citizen Chauvelin is not regularly enough authorized. In order to remove this obstacle entirely, to discard every reproach of having stopped, by a single want of formality, a negociation on the success of which the tranquillity of two great nations is depending, they have taken the resolution of sending letters of credence to citizen Chauvelin, which would furnish him with the means of treating in all the severity of diplomatic form. Now, to come to the three points which can alone make an object of difficulty at the court of London, the executive council observe, respecting the first, which is the decree of the 19th of November, that we have not been properly understood by the ministry of his Britannic majesty, when

they accuse us of having given a declaration which announces to the seditious of all nations which are the cases in which they may depend previously on the support and assistance of France. Nothing could be more strange than this reproach to the sentiments of the national convention, and to the construction we have laid on it; and we did not think that it were possible we should be charged with the open design of favouring the seditious, even at the moment when we declare, that it would be wronging the national convention, if they were charged with the project of protecting mobs, and with the commotions that may break out in any corner of a state, to join the ringleaders; and to make thus the cause of a few private individuals that of the French nation.

We have said, and we have to repeat it to you, that the decree of the 19th of November could not have any application, unless in the sole case in which the general will of a nation, clearly and unequivocally expressed, should call the French nation to its assistance and fraternity,. Sedition can certainly never be construed into the general will. These two ideas mutually repel each other; since a sedition is not and cannot be any other than the movement of a small number against the nation at large; and this movement would cease to be seditious, provided all the members of a society should at once rise, either to correct their government, or to change its form in toto, or for any other object.

The Dutch were assuredly not seditious when they formed the generous resolution of shaking off the yoke of Spain, and when the

general

general will of that nation called for the assistance of France. It was not made a crime in Henry the Fourth, or in Elizabeth of England, to have listened to them. The knowledge of the general will is the only basis of the transactions of nations with each other; and we can only treat with any government whatever on this principle, that such a government is deemed the organ of the general will of the nation governed.

Thus, when by this natural interpretation, the decree of the 19th of November is reduced to what it truly implies, it will be found that it announces more than one act of the general will, and that beyond any doubt; and so effectually founded in right, that it was scarcely worth the trouble to express it. On this account the executive council think that the evidence of this right might perhaps have been dispensed with by the national convention, and did not deserve to be made the object of a particular decree. But with the interpretation which precedes it, it can molest no nation what

ever.

It appears that the ministers of his Britannic majesty have objected nothing to the declaration relative to Holland, since the simple observation made by them on that subject, belongs to the discussion of the Scheldt. It is this last point, therefore, to which we are confined.

We repeat it, this question is of itself of little moment. The ministers of Great Britain conclude, that "it only serves to prove more clearly, that it was brought forward merely for the purpose of insulting the allies of England, &c. We shall

reply with much less warmth and prejudice, that this question is absolutely indifferent to England; that it is of little importance to, Holland; but that it is extremely important to the Belgians. That it is indifferent to England, it is not necessary to prove; and its trivial import to Holland is evinced by this fact, that the productions of the Belgians flow equally by the canals which terminate at Ostend. Its great importance to the Belgians is proved by the numerous advantages the port of Antwerp presents to them. It is therefore on account of this importance-it is to restore to the Belgians the enjoyment of so precious a right, and not to offend any one, that France has declared herself ready to support them in the exercise of so legitimate a right.

But is France authorised to break the stipulations which are opposed to the liberty of the Scheldt? If the rights of nature and those of nations are consulted, and not France alone, all the nations of Europe are authorised to do itthere can be no doubt of it.

If we consult public law, we shall say, that it ought to be nothing but the application of the principles of the general rights of nations to the particular circumstances in which nations are placed with regard to each other, insomuch that every particular treaty which hurts such principles, can only be regarded as the work of violence. We moreover add, in relation to the Scheldt, that this treaty was concluded without the participation of the Belgians. The emperor, to secure the possession of the Low Countries, sacrificed, without scruple, the most inviolable of

rights.