IX. 1793. 126. Limits of the victorious advance of the French armies to the banks of the Scheldt. The principle of non-interference with the domestic concerns of other states, perfectly just in the general case, the princi- is necessarily subject to some exceptions. No answer ple of noninterference. has ever been made to the observation of Mr Burke, 127. the war as stated in British declaration. Oct. 29. "that if my neighbour's house is in flames, and the fire is likely to spread to my own, I am justified in interfering to avert a disaster which promises to be equally fatal to both." If foreign nations are warranted in interposing in extreme cases of tyranny by rulers to their subjects, they must be equally entitled to prevent excessive severity by a people towards their sovereign. The French, who so warmly and justly supported the treaty of 6th July 1827, intended to rescue Greece from Ottoman oppression-who took so active a part against Great Britain in the contest with her American colonies, and invaded the Netherlands and besieged Antwerp in 1832, professedly to preserve the peace of Europe,-have no right to complain of the Treaty of Pilnitz, which had for its object to rescue the French king from the scaffold, and the French nation from a tyranny which proved worse to themselves than that of Constantinople. The grounds on which the war was rested by the Grounds of British government were afterwards fully developed in an important declaration, issued to the commanders of their forces by sea and land on 29th October 1793, shortly after the execution of the Queen. It was stated in that noble state paper,-" In place of the old government has succeeded a system destructive of all public order— maintained by proscriptions, exiles, and confiscations without number-by arbitrary imprisonments, by massacres, which cannot be remembered without horror, and at length by the execrable murder of a just and beneficent sovereign, and of the illustrious princess who, with unshaken firmness, has shared all the misfortunes of her royal consort-his protracted sufferings, his cruel captivity, and IX. 1792. ignominious death. The Allies have had to encounter CHAP. acts of aggression without pretext, open violation of all treaties, unprovoked declarations of war; in a word, whatever corruption, intrigue, or violence could effect, for the purpose, openly avowed, of subverting all the institutions of society, and extending over all the nations of Europe that confusion which has produced the misery of France. This state of things cannot exist in France without involving all the surrounding powers in one common danger; without giving them the right-without imposing it upon them as a duty, to stop the progress of an evil which exists only by the successive violation of all law and property, and attacks the fundamental principles by which mankind is united in the bonds of civil society. on which still offered. "The King will impose no other than equitable and 128. moderate conditions; not such as the expense, the risk, Conditions and sacrifices of the war might justify, but such as his peace was majesty thinks himself under the indispensable necessity of requiring, with a view to these considerations, and still more to that of his own security, and of the future tranquillity of Europe. His majesty desires nothing more sincerely than thus to terminate a war which he in vain endeavoured to avoid, and all the calamities of which, as now experienced by France, are to be attributed only to the ambition, the perfidy, and the violence of those whose crimes have involved their own country in misery, and disgraced all civilised nations. The King promises on his part the suspension of hostilities, friendship, and, as far as the course of events will allow-of which the will of man cannot dispose-security and protection to all those who, by declaring for a monarchical form of government, shall shake off the yoke of sanguinary anarchy—of that anarchy which has broken all the most sacred bonds of society, dissolved all the relations of civil life, violated every right, confounded every duty; which uses the name of liberty to exercise the most cruel tyranny, to annihilate all property, seize on all possessions; which founds its VOL. II. 2 F IX. 1792. CHAP. power on the pretended consent of the people, and itself carries fire and sword through extensive provinces, for having defended their laws, their religion, and their lawful sovereign." This is real eloquence: this is the true statement of the grounds of the war, in language 1 Ann. Reg. worthy of the great cause of freedom to which the Papers, 199, nation was thenceforward committed, and which was xxx. 1597. never abandoned till the British armies passed in triumph through the gates of Paris.1 1793. State Parl. Hist. CHAPTER X. CAMPAIGN OF 1792. CHAP. 1792. 1. men for "PEACE," says Ségur, "is the dream of the wise war is the history of man. Youth listens without attention to those who seek to lead it by the paths of reason to happiness, and rushes with irresistible violence into the General arms of the phantom which lures it by the light of glory passion of to destruction." Reason, wisdom, experience, strive in war. vain to subdue this propensity. For reasons superior to the conclusions of philosophy, for objects indispensable to the improvement of mankind, its lessons in this particular are unheeded by the generality of the species; and whole generations, impelled by an irresistible impulse, fly to their own destruction, and seek, in contending with each other, a vent for the ungovernable passions of their nature. "To overawe or intimidate," says Mr Ferguson, "and when we cannot persuade with reason, to resist with fortitude, Ségur's are the occupations which give its most animating exer- Memoirs, cise and its greatest triumphs to a vigorous mind; and Ferguson, he who has never struggled with his fellow-creatures is a Society. stranger to half the sentiments of mankind." 1 ii. 59. 39, Civil effects of this But we should greatly err if we imagined that this 2. universal and inextinguishable passion is productive only Beneficial of suffering, and that from the work of mutual destruction warlike no benefit accrues to the future generations of men. It passion. is by these tempests that the seeds of improvement are scattered over the world, that the races of mankind are mingled together, and the energy of northern character is X. 1792. CHAP. blended with the refinement of southern civilisation. It is amidst the extremities and dangers of war that antiquated prejudice is abandoned, and new ideas are disseminated; that invention springs from necessity, and improvement is stimulated by example; that injustice is crushed by force, and liberty engendered amidst suffering. By the intermixture of the different races of men, the asperities of each are softened, the discoveries of each diffused, the productions of each appreciated, and the benefits of mutual communication extended. Rome conquered the world by her arms, and humanised it by her example; the northern conquerors spread, amidst the corruption of ancient civilisation, the energy of barbarian valour; the Crusades diffused through the western the knowledge and arts of the eastern world. The wars which sprang out of the French Revolution produced effects as great, and benefits as lasting upon the human species; and amidst their bloody annals may be discerned at once the just retribution inflicted on both sides for enormous national crimes, and the rise of principles destined to change the frame of society, and purify the face of the moral world. France, having decided upon war, directed the formaState of the tion of three considerable armies. In the north, Marshal Rochambeau commanded forty thousand infantry and eight thousand cavalry, cantoned from Dunkirk to Philof the war. lippeville. In the centre, Lafayette was stationed with forty-five thousand infantry and seven thousand cavalry, from Phillippeville to Lauter; while Marshal Luckner, with thirty-five thousand infantry and eight thousand cavalry, observed the course of the Rhine from Bâle to Lauterburg. In the south, General Montesquiou, with fifty thousand men, was charged with the defence of the line of the Pyrenees and the course of the Rhone. But these armies were formidable only on paper. The agitation and license of the Revolution had loosened the bands of discipline, and the habit of judging and discussing political subjects destroyed the confidence of the soldiers in their comman 3. French armies at the commencement |