hardly ever be permanently subdued; our; the dreams of republican equala government, actuated by such steady ity were forgotten, but the Austrian principles, must ultimately be triumph- government remained unchanged; the ant. Such, accordingly, has been the French eagles retired over the Alps; and case in the present instance. Aristo- Italy, the theatre of so much bloodshed, cratic firmness in the end asserted its finally belonged to the successors of the wonted superiority over democratic vig- Cæsars. CHAPTER XXI. CAMPAIGN OF 1796 IN GERMANY. disgrace behind the Rhine, and the troops in the Maritime Alps, worn out with privations, could not be relied on with certainty for offensive operations. 2. But, on the other hand, the external relations of the Republic had eminently improved; and the vast exertions of 1794, even though succeeded by the lassitude and weakness of 1795, had produced a most important effect on the relative situation of the belligerent powers. Spain, defeated and humiliated, had sued for peace; and her accession to the treaty of Bâle, by lib 1. WHEN the Directory was called, by the suppression of the insurrection of the Sections, and the establishment of the new constitution, to the helm of the state, they found the Republic in a very critical situation, and its affairs, externally and internally, involved in almost insurmountable difficulties. The finances were in a state of increasing and inextricable confusion; the assignats, which had for long constituted the sole resource of government, had fallen almost to nothing; ten thousand francs in paper were hardly worth twenty francs in specie, and the un-erating the armies of the Eastern and bounded depreciation of that species of circulation seemed to render the establishment of any other circulating medium of the same description impossible. The taxes for many years back had been so ill paid, that Ramel, the minister of finance, estimated the arrears in his department at fifteen hundred millions in specie, or above £60,000,000 sterling. The armies, destitute of pay, ill equipped, worse clothed, were discontented; and the recent disasters on the Rhine had completely broken the susceptible spirit of the French soldiers. The artillery and cavalry were with out horses; the infantry, depressed by suffering and dejected by defeat, were deserting in great numbers, and seeking a refuge in their homes from the toils and the miseries of war. The contest in La Vendée was still unextinguished; the Republican armies had been driven with Western Pyrenees, had enabled the French government both to reinforce the armies of La Vendée, and to afford means to the young Conquerer of the Sections of carrying the Republican standards into the plains of Lombardy. Prussia had retired, without either honour or advantage, from the struggle; the Low Countries were not only subdued, but their resources were turned against the allied powers; and the whole weight of the contest on the Rhine, it was plain, must now fall on the Austrian monarchy. Britain, baffled and disgraced on the Continent, was not likely to take any effective part in military warfare; and there seemed little doubt that the power which had recently defeated all the coalesced armies of Europe would be able to subdue the brave but now unaided forces of the Imperialists. 3. Aware of the coming danger, Mr | it necessary was deemed a conspirator Pitt had, in the September preceding, against its liberty, and an abettor of concluded a triple alliance between arbitrary power. Great Britain, Austria, and Russia: but the forces of Russia were too far distant, and the danger to its possessions too remote, to permit any material aid to be early acquired from its immense resources. It was not till a later period, and till the fire had fastened on its own vitals, that the might of this gigantic power was effectually roused, and the legions of the north brought to reassert their wonted superiority over the forces of southern Europe. 4. The condition of Great Britain, in the close of 1795 and the beginning of 1796, was nearly as distracted, so far as opinion went, as that of France. The continued disasters of the war, the pressure of new and increasing taxation, the apparent hopelessness of continuing the struggle with a military power which all the armies of Europe had proved unable to subdue, not only gave new strength and vigour to the Whig party, who had all along opposed hostilities, but induced many thoughtful men, who had concurred at first in the necessity of combating the revolutionary mania, to hesitate as to any further continuance of the contest. So violent had party spirit become, and so completely had it usurped the place of patriotism or reason, that many of the popular leaders had come to wish anxiously for the triumph of their enemies. It was no longer a simple disapprobation of the war which they felt, but a fervent desire that it might terminate to the disadvantage of their country, and that the Republican might triumph over the British arms. They thought that there was no chance of parliamentary reform being carried, or any considerable addition to democratic power acquired, unless the ministry were dispossessed; and to accomplish this object they hesitated not to betray their wish for the success of the inveterate enemy of their country. These animosities produced their usual effect of rendering the moderate or rational equally odious to both parties: whoever deplored the war was reputed a foe to his country; whoever pronounced 5. These ill humours, which were afloat during the whole of the summer of 1795, broke out into acts of open violence in the autumn of that year. The associations for the purpose of obtaining parliamentary reform increased in boldness and activity: among them were many emissaries of the French government, and numbers of natives of this country, who had thrown off all connection with it in their hearts, and were become its most violent and rancorous enemies. They deluded immense bodies of men by the seducing language of freedom which they used, and the alluring prospect of peace which they held forth. Societies having these captivating advantages for their professed objects were generally formed in the great towns; and, under the banner of reform, succeeded in assembling, in every quarter, all that ambition had which was reckless, with all that indigence could collect which was desperate. These causes of discontent were increased by the high price of provisions, the natural consequence of the increased consumption and enlarged circulating medium required in the war, but which the lower orders, under the instigation of their demagogues, ascribed entirely to the ministry, and the crusade which they had undertaken against the liberties of mankind. 6. It was fortunate, at this crisis, that the rural population everywhere remained firm, and that the seditious movements were confined chiefly to the excitable population of the commercial towns; but in them it assumed a most formidable character. At length, on occasion of the king's going to parliament, at its opening, on 29th October 1795, these discontents broke out into open outrages of the most disgraceful kind. The royal carriage was surrounded by an immense crowd of turbulent persons, loudly demanding peace, and the dismissal of Mr Pitt. One of the windows was broken by a pebble, or bullet from an air-gun; showers of stones were thrown at the state-coach, both going and returning from par liament; and the monarch narrowly this quantity was hourly on the inescaped the fury of the populace in his crease: that it was impossible that a way from St James's Palace to Buck-nation reduced to such straits could ingham House. These outrages, how-long support a contest with the forever, tended only to strengthen the midable enemies who were preparing hands of government, by demonstrat- to assail it by land and sea, and that ing to all reasonable men to what ex- the system of maintaining war by the cesses the populace would speedily be heinous method of confiscations and a driven if not restrained by a firm hand, forced paper currency, however sucand how slight was the barrier which cessful for the time, must lead in the separated this country from the horrors end to ruin: that the numbers of the of the French Revolution. French armies, and the desperate spirit by which they were animated, arose from the misery of the country, the stagnation of industry, and the impossibility of finding subsistence in pacific employments; but that this system, however successful when a war of in could not be maintained for any length of time, when the French armies were repelled, as they now were on all sides, to their own frontiers, and compelled to subsist on their own resources; that now, therefore, was the time, when the enemy's breath was so evidently failing, to press him hard on every side, and constrain him to such a peace as might protect Europe from Gallic aggression, and England from republican innovation. 7. In debating on the Address, Mr Fox maintained that the representations of ministers were false and delusive; that £100,000,000 had already been added to the national debt, and £4,000,000 a-year to the permanent taxes; that the coalition had been every-vasion and plunder was carried on, where defeated, and the French were preparing to invade Italy with a power ful army; that the example of America proved how fallacious was the hope, that a nation resolved to be free could be reduced to extremity by the mere failure of pecuniary resources; that the alleged danger of concluding peace with a revolutionary power had been surmounted by the despotic governments of Spain and Prussia, and if so, what peril could arise from it to the constitutional monarchy of England? that we had in truth no allies, but a mere set of mercenary associates, who would abandon our interests the moment that it suited their own convenience; and that the severe scarcity which now desolated all Europe seemed to be the consequence of the obstacles to cultivation, which the ravages of war occasioned, and could not be expected to terminate while they continued. 8. On the other hand, it was urged by Mr Pitt, that every consideration, both of justice and policy, called upon us for a vigorous prosecution of the contest; that, notwithstanding his successes in the field, the enemy now began to feel his debility, and had in consequence evinced a disposition toward accommodation, which he never before had done; that the French paper was now at little more than a hundredth part of its nominal value; and though the enormous sum of £750,000,000 worth of assignats had been created, 9. Such were the arguments urged in public, both in the House of Lords and Commons, on the policy of continuing the war; and both Houses, by a great majority, supported the administration -the numbers being, in the Lower House, 240 to 59. But the real motives which influenced both sides were materially different from those stated. It was a domestic war which was really waged; it was the contest between ariştocratic ascendancy and democratic ambition which at bottom divided the country, and excited the fierce and implacable passions by which all classes were animated. The popular party perceived that their chance of success was altogether nugatory while the firm hand which now held the reins continued at the head of affairs, and that, so long as the national spirit was excited by the war with France, the ascendancy of the conservative party might be looked upon as certain: while the adherents to ancient institutions felt that country; this was the bills which government introduced for providing additional security to the king's person, and for the prevention of seditious meet the continuance of the contest at any price was preferable to the flood of democracy with which they would be deluged at its close; and that, till the excitement created by the French Re-ings. No measure had been brought volution had subsided, no passion but that for war could be relied on to counteract its effects. Thus, though the ground on which the parties engaged was the expedience of continuing the strife, the object which both had really in view was the form of domestic government; and the passions which actuated them, in truth, were the same as those which distracted France and agitated Europe. 10. To enable government to carry on the war, parliament voted supplies to the amount of £27,500,000, exclusive of the interest of the debt; and in this was included the enormous sum of £18,000,000 contracted by loan, the annual charge of which was £1,100,000, which was provided for by a considerable addition to the assessed taxes. But the total expenditure of the year amounted to £37,500,000, and the remainder was raised, in spring 1796, by exchequer bills and annuities, to the amount of £13,500,000, which made the total loans of that year £31,500,000. Mr Pitt stated it as a most remarkable circumstance, that in the fourth year of so expensive a war, this large loan was obtained at so low a rate as four and a half per cent; and, without doubt, it was a signal proof of the profusion of capital and confidence in government which prevailed in Britain. But he forgot the ruinous terms on which the loan was contracted for future years; that a bond of £100 was given for every £60 advanced, and posterity saddled with the payment of an immense sum which the nation had never received. This observation, how obvious soever, was not then perceived by the ablest persons even of practical habits. No one looked forward to the repayment of the debt, and the nation reposed in fancied security on the moderate annual charge which the loan imposed on the country. 11. Another matter of the highest importance gave rise to the most vehement debates both in the legislature and the forward by government since the Revolution began, which excited such vehement opposition, both in the legislature and the country, as these celebrated statutes, which were stigmatised by the popular party as the Pitt and Grenville Acts, in order that they might for ever be held in execration by the country. By the latter, it was required that notice should be given to the magistrate of any public meeting to be held on political subjects; he was authorised to be present, and empowered to seize those guilty of sedition on the spot; and a second offence against the act was punishable with transportation. On the part of the Opposition it was urged, that meetings held under such restrictions, and with the dread of imprisonment hanging over the speakers for any word which might escape from them in the heat of debate, could never be considered as the free and unbiassed meetings of Englishmen; that so violent an infringement had never been attempted on the liberties of the people since the days of the Tudors; that, if the times were so far changed that British subjects could no longer meet and deliberate on public affairs without endangering the state, it would be better at once to surrender their liberties, as in Denmark, into the hands of a despotic sovereign; that it was evident, however, that there really was no such danger as was apprehended, but the alarm was only a pretence to justify the adoption of arbitrary measures; that it was in vain to appeal to the example of France, as vindicating the necessity of such rigorous enactments; everybody knew that the Revolution in that country was not owing to Jacobin clubs, or the meetings of the people, but to the corruptions of the court, and the vices of the political system; and if this bill should pass, the people of this country, rendered desperate by the imposition of similar fetters, would, without all doubt, break out in their own defence into similar excesses. 12. On the other hand, it was argued | is beset with difficulties; and that noby the Administration, that it was ne- thing but the manifest danger of the cessary to consider the bill attentively times could have furnished an excuse before representing it in such odious for so wide a deviation from the princolours; that it imposed restrictions ciples of British freedom. At the same only on public assemblies, and left un- time, it is evident that the bills, limited fettered the press, the great palladium as they were in their duration, and parof liberty in every representative mon- tial in their operation, were not calcuarchy; that public meetings required lated to produce the mischiefs which to be narrowly watched in turbulent their opponents so confidently pretimes, because it was in such great as- dicted. The proof of this is decisive; semblages that the passions took fire, the bills were passed, and the liberties and men were precipitated by mutual of England not only remained entire, excitement into violent measures; that but have since that time continually the great danger of such meetings arose gone on increasing. from the fact, that only one side was heard, and extravagant sentiments were always those which gained most applause; that the object of the meetings against which these enactments were levelled was notorious, being nothing less than the overthrow of the monarchy, and the formation of a republican constitution similar to that established with such disastrous effects in France; that the proposed enactments were certainly a novelty in this country, but so also was the democratic spirit against which they were levelled, and extraordinary times required_extraordinary remedies; and that no danger was to be apprehended to public freedom, as long as the press was unfettered, and juries regarded with so much jealousy as they now did all the measures which emanated from the authority of government. 14. In truth, the management of a country which has become infected with the contagion of democratic ambition is one of the most difficult matters in government, and one of which the principles are only now beginning to be understood. Is is always to be recollected, that the formidable thing in periods of agitation, and that against which governments are in an especial manner called to raise a barrier, is not the discontent arising from real grievance, but the passion springing from popular ambition. The first, being founded in reason and justice, is easily dealt with; it subsides with the removal of the causes which called it forth, and strong measures are very seldom required or justifiable for its suppression. The second, being a vehement passion, arising often from no real evil, but awakened by the anticipation of power, is insatiable; it increases with every gratification it re 13. The latter bill passed the House of Commons by a majority of two hun-ceives, and conducts the nation through dred and fourteen to forty-two, and the House of Lords by sixty-six to seven. So exasperated were the Opposition with the success of ministers on this occasion, that Mr Fox and a large part of the minority withdrew altogether for a considerable time from the Housea ruinous measure, dictated by spite and disappointment, and which should never, on any similar occasion, be repeated by true patriots. The bill was limited in its duration to three years; and, after passing both houses, it received the royal assent. On coolly reviewing the subject of such vehement contention in the parliament and the nation, it is impossible to deny that it blood and suffering by a sure and rapid progress to military despotism. The same danger to freedom is to be apprehended from the prevention of the expression of real suffering, as from concession to democratic ambition. Reform and redress are the remedies suited to the former; resistance and firmness the regimen adapted to the latter. In considering, therefore, whether themeasures of Mr Pitt at that period were justifiable or not, the question is, did the public discontents arise from the experience of real evils, or the contagion of democratic ambition? And when it is recollected from what example in the neighbouring kingdom these passions |