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we are neither unconcerned, nor unalarmed, at whatever seems to impose restraint on civil or political freedom.

On a due balance between prerogative and liberty has the British constitution been supported. When either of these has preponderated, many evils have been suffered. But there is something in the genius, manners, habits, and character of the English nation, different from, and paramount to, laws and forms, that, amidst all the deviations of the constitution, has constantly brought it back to its true spirit. The same principles which have enabled England, by the immensity of its resources, to stand unshaken in the midst of the disasters that befel the coalition, and to display greater and greater energy, in proportion to increasing difficulties, will, we doubt not, save the state from the disastrous consequences which too often flow even from precedents founded in temporary expediency.

In tracing the movements of armies, the revolutions of states, the political intrigues, dissentions, and contests, which mark the year 1796, we have exerted our usual industry, not only in delineating objects, according to their respective magnitude and importance, but in reducing them within the wonted limits of our Annual History of Europe.

To the various hints of so many of our readers on this head, they will perceive we have not been inattentive. It is not a minute and circumstantial detail of transactions and events that we understand to be wished for and expected in our historical sketches; but a narrative brief and rapid, yet clear and comprehensive: one that may give a just view of what is passing in the world, without too much time or trouble of reading. The curiosity of such of our readers as may have a taste and turn for more particular information, respecting various occurrences, will be gratified in the second part of the volume.

THE

THE

ANNUAL REGISTER,

For the YEAR 1796.

THE

HISTORY

OF

EUROPE.

CHAP. I.

Situation of the French Nation and Government, and Views of the Directory. -Difficulties to be encountered by France at the Close of 1795.-State of Parties in England.-Temper of the British Nation.-Assemblies for the Purpose of a Parliamentary Reform, and Peace with France.-A great and dangerous Scarcity of Procisions.-Meeting of Parliament.-Insults and Outrages of an immense Mob against the King, on his Way to the House of Lords.-The regret of all People of Sense at this Treatment of the King-Speech from the Throne.-Debates thereon.-In the House of Commons. And in that of the Lords.

AFTER the death of Robes to the views of personal aggrandize

pierre, the convention were more at liberty than they had been to declare the voice of the people; and the sentiments of nature, with an inclination to peace, began to appear in the public councils, as well as among the generality of the French nation: but it too often, nay, most commonly happens, in all governments, that the real interests of the many are sacrificed to those of the few: the dictates of humanity VOL. XXXVIII.

ment and ambition.

Uniformity and steadiness of government may proceed from differ ent and even opposite causes; the predominant habits and passions of absolute monarchs on the one hand; and the virtues of nascent and juvenile republics on the other: when the external relations of the state are neither many nor complicated; when its interests are easily discerned and constantly pursued, the [B]

integrity

were want

integrity and upright intentions of the representatives and rulers being constantly supported by a general simplicity of manners, and a sacred regard to the principles of morality and religion. In the newly constituted government of France both these kinds of steadiness we ing. It was less democratical indeed than that of 1793; but still the executive power was consigned into five bands instead of one only. It was not stayed, as all other republics of any extent and durability have hitherto been, by some individual power, whether under the name of archon, duke, doge, king, stadtholder, or the president of a congress. It was impossible that five directors, and these Frenchmen too, should, for any length of time, act with harmony. They split into parties hostile and violent, in proportion to the power with which they were invested in order to retain which the preponderating party treated their rivals in the directory, and their opponents in the councils, with the most merciless severity, and repeatedly violated the constitution, under the pretence of preserving it. Like their predecessors in the revolution, in default of simplicity of manners, and the other requisites to a genuine republic, they had recourse to intrigue and violence. Had their own manners been more pure than they were, without those adventitious supports in so great and corrupt a commonwealth, and where all are so prone to direct, but none to be directed, they could not, for even a short time, have held together any semblance of a regular fabric of government.

There was one point however, in which the directory on their elevation to power unanimously agreed.

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The jacobinical party, that had so long domineered in the public councils, confident, as above related, from victory over the sections of Paris, and treading in the very footsteps of Robespierre, had appointed a commission of five, for the safety of the country; and but for the bold and animated efforts of a few men would certainly have effected the slavery of France in the premanency of the convention. The directors, conscious of the general odium they, in common with the other leaders of the convention, had incurred on this attempt, and also of their malversation in precipitating the consideration of the new constitution, and garbling the reports that had been made concerning its acceptance, determined to divert the minds of the nation from their own conduct, and to exhaust the public discontents by a prosecution of the war. If this should prove successful, of which they entertained not any doubt, the merit would, in a very great degree, be reflected on themselves, and the enemies of the directory would be regarded, by the nation at large, as enemies to the victories and glory of France. They were undoubtedly fortunate in the choice of their commanders. The successes of their generals occupied and dazzled the public mind for a time; but wisdom, constancy, and purity of design, without which no prosperity can be lasting, were wanting in the supreme councils. The armies were neglected; the tide of success was turned; and finally, to shew how little that tem porary success was owing to any principles inherent in the constitution, the vast and stupendous genius of one man, to which chiefly the directory were indebted for a temporary

temporary splendour, ultimately wrought their ruin, and introduced a new order of affairs into the distracted and fluctuating common wealth.

The close of the year 1795 was not so favourable to the French as that of the preceding; they had projected at its commencement to follow up their successes in Holland, by carrying their victorious arms into the heart of Germany; but a variety of obstructions had either prevented or frustrated their designs. At home the violence of the many factions, open or concealed, stood perpetually in the way of government, and impaired its proposed energies. Abroad the remaining parts of the coalition against France, though foiled in their repeated attemps, still preserved their spirit, and determination to persist at all hazards in carrying on the war.

The principal scene of action had been on the banks of the Rhine. Here it had been generally expected, that, after the subjugation of the seven United Provinces, the French would have met with no considerable opposition; but though dispirited, as well as weakened, by the severing of so material a limb from the great body of the confederacy, it still found sufficient resources to make head against the French, in a country where the generality of the inhabitants, though dissatisfied at their rulers, were not so imprudent as to prefer a foreign to a domestic yoke, and would not fail to co-operate in opposing a French invasion. To this disposition of an incomparable majority of the inhabitants of Germany was, in a great measure, due the little progress of the French in those pro vinces of the empire on the right

side of the Rhine, into which they had, with much difficulty, found means to penetrate, and from which they had been, after much fruitless toil and unsuccessful efforts, compelled to retire with very consider able losses.

The failure of the French in their expedition into Germany; their expulsion from every post they had occupied on the eastern banks of the Rhine; their retreat across that river; the pursuit of their discomfited army into the borders of France; and the several defeats they experienced, were circumstances so little hoped for at the commencement of this year's military operations in those parts, that they proportionably revived the spirit of their enemies, and infused a degree of confidence into them, to which they had been strangers, since the disasters of the preceding campaign.

But, notwithstanding their ill success on the Rhine, the French maintained a decided_superiority in every other quarter. Europe seemed to stand at bay, and to wait with anxiety the termination of a quarrel that had produced so many stupen dous events. The dissolution of the confederacy, by the secession of Prussia and Spain, was far from being considered as complete: the princi pal members, Great Britain and Austria, were held fully competent, though not to the purpose of subduing, yet still to that of repressing the French; and this was now viewed as viewed as the only object, at which they ought, in prudence, in the present situation of their affairs, to aim.

During the course of the campaign, the government in France had entertained some ideas tending to a general pacification; but the [B2]

lofti

loftiness of their pretensions, dictated by the pride of their nation, was so apparent, that Europe was not surprised that they were only mentioned transiently in their occasional discourses on that subject. The inveteracy of the ruling party of England subsisted almost as violently as ever. The French beheld, with that rancour which attends an unsuccessful rivalship, the improbability of their ever attaining to an equality with the English at sea. It greatly mortified their pride, that all the European nations should una nimously ascribe.a decided superiority in naval tactics to the English, and represent those as no less invincible on the ocean, than the French bad hitherto been at land; with this difference, however, to the disadvantage of the latter, that it would prove a much easier task to overcome them at land than the others at sea.

Other causes of dissatisfaction militated against the ruling party in France. The royalists, however depressed, were not dispirited; their numbers, though inferior to those of the republicans, were immense; they maintained a close correspondence with each other, and cemented their reciprocal connections with all those acts of friendship, and kindness that bind men so strongly together, when suffering from the same causes, and acting from the same motives.

The vigilance of the republican government found constant employmeut in obviating the dangers that threatened it from the indefatigable activity of those irreconcilable antagonists, who, though surrounded with continual observers of all their motions, neglected no opportunity

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to further their designs, and boldly encountered every risk of being detected in their prosecution.

Enraged at these domestic enemies, the predominant party was perpetually occupied in holding out every species of menace and terror to repress and discourage them; but neither threats nor invitations availed. Actuated by hatred and resentment the royalists considered themselves as equally justified, by conscience and interest, in their determination to seize every occasion of resisting the established powers, holding them as usurpers, with whom no measures ought to be kept, and whom they were bound to oppose, whenever there appeared the least likelihood of doing it to any effect.

Such was the situation of France at this period, deeply convulsed at home, and though in possession of many extensive countries, yet, fearful that having acquired, and retaining them only by the right of the sword, they might lose them through the same means: an event, which, considering the vicissitudes of war, was not more improbable than the astonishing successes that had attended their arms against all likelihood and expectation.

While the people in France were distracted with these internal divisions, those of England were agitated little less with incessant differences and disputes on the propriety of centinuing a war, which had occasioned such losses of men and expence of treasure, without producing those effects which had so repeatedly been represented as infallible. Nothing had been omitted to procure success: every ministerial demand had been granted, every measure acceded to; but the object proposed remained

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