A HISTORY OF ENGLAND, DURING THE REIGN OF GEORGE THE THIRD. CHAPTER XXXIII. THE WAR WITH FRANCE-MISCONDUCT OF THE ALLIES- Ch. 33. THE War in which England became thus involved was unlike any former war, in which any civilized power had been hitherto engaged. It was War with 1793 not a war of ambition, of self-defence, or of France. national rivalry. The elements of those quarrels which had aforetime involved this country in 'just and necessary' warfare with her mighty rival were, indeed, still extant; but at this time, there was no struggle to retain or acquire some distant possession more burdensome than useful to either party; there was no question about the balance of power; there was no dispute, to 2 Ch. 33. 1793 Disinclination of the Ministry for war. DECLARATION OF WAR That serve as a pretext for the indulgence of military England had simultaneously declared against France; nor was it possible that peace could have been maintained between the two countries. The ministers of the Crown, rashly accused of provoking a rupture with the French democrats, were the last to admit the necessity of war. They desired only to guard this country against the contagion of French principles; they gave no encouragement to the rash aggression of the German powers; they used their influence to prevent the States General from joining Austria and Prussia; and proposed, for the first time in the a See Lord Grenville's Letter to Lord Auckland, 21 July and 6 November, 1792. 3 AGAINST FRANCE. 1793 History of England, to maintain a strict neutrality Ch. 33. in the conflict between France and the Continental States. The policy of the first minister, during a lengthened administration of unrivalled prosperity and success, had been essentially the policy of peace. Shortly before the rupture of 1793, he said that the map of Europe might be closed;b and the measures which he had in contemplation were, for the most part, such as were incompatible with the prosecution of a great war. But the decree of the French Convention, exhorting the people of every nation to rise against their government, and promising them material aid: the notorious efforts to give effect to the decree in this country by agents of the Convention and the executive Council; the outrages of the rulers of France on religion, on law, on public decency b Auckland Correspondence, 419 and 464. The agents of Egalité were busily engaged in endeavouring to revolutionise the country; and there can be little doubt, that they were in communication with Talleyrand and Chauvelin. The order for three thousand daggers, given to a manufacturer at Birmingham, referred to by Burke in his speech on the 28th of November, was connected with a conspiracy to which the Government attached so much importance that a Cabinet was summoned. Sir J. B. Burgess, the Under Secretary for the Foreign Department, who had furnished the information upon which the Government proceeded, and was present at the deliberations of the Cabinet thereupon, relates that Pitt expressed to him, after the Ministers had separated, his conviction that war was now inevitable. He desired Burgess to draw up a pamphlet to prepare the public for the event. This pamphlet was corrected, and added to by Pitt, and a large impression was immediately bought up. Three days afterwards, Pitt, at the instance |