On the same
arbitrary notion they soon afterwards discovered that sacred law of
nature, which made the Rhine and the Alps the legitimate boundaries
of France, and assumed the power which they have affected to exercise
through the whole of the revolution, of superseding, by a new code of
their own, all the recognized principles of the law of nations. They
were actually advancing towards the republic of Holland, by rapid
strides, after the victory of Jemappe, and they had ordered their
generals to pursue the Austrian troops into any neutral country:
thereby explicitly avowing an intention of invading Holland. They
had already shown their moderation and self-denial, by incorporating
Belgium, with the French Republic. These lovers of peace, who set out
with a sworn aversion to conquest, and professions of respect for the
independence of other nations; who pretend that they departed from
this system only in consequence of your aggression, themselves in
time of peace while you were still confessedly neutral, without the
pretence or shadow of provocation, wrested Savoy from the King of
Sardinia, and had proceeded to incorporate it likewise with France.
These were their aggressions at this period; and more than these. They
had issued an universal declaration of war against all the thrones of
Europe; and they had, by their conduct, applied it particularly and
specifically to you: they had passed the decree of November 19, 1792,
proclaiming the promise of French succour to all nations who should
manifest a wish to become free: they had, by all their language, as
well as their example, shown what they understood to be freedom: they
had sealed their principles by the deposition of their sovereign: they
had applied them to England, by inviting and encouraging the addresses
of those seditious and traitorous societies who, from the beginning,
favoured their views, and who, encouraged by your forbearance, were
even then publicly avowing French doctrines, and anticipating their
success in this country; who were hailing the progress of those
proceedings in France which led to the murder of its king: they were
even then looking to the day when they should behold a national
convention in England, formed upon similar principles.
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