COLLECTION OF STATE PAPERS, RELATIVE TO THE WAR against FRANCE Now carrying on by GREAT-BRITAIN and the TREATIES, CONVENTIONS, DECREES, REPORTS, PROCLAMATIONS, MANIFESTOES, DECLARATIONS, Containing COPIES of MEMORIALS, REMONSTRANCES, OFFICAL LETTERS, PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS, LONDON GAZETTE ACCOUNTS Many of which have never before been published in ENGLAND. VOL. II. London: Printed for J. DEBRETT, oppofite Burlington-Houfe, Piccadilly. Denn 9-15·47 59648 INTRODUCTION. BEFORE any thing is faid of the present Volume, it is ne ceffary to notice fome obfervations which have been made on the one published last year. It is not intended to point out its utility as a book of reference, for that is now well understood; nor is there a wish to enlarge on the flattering eagerness with which it has been fought by all those who pay much attention to politics, and particularly by the Members of both Houses of Parliament. To dwell on the acknowledged usefulness of the work would justly be deemed an unneceffary difplay of vanity; but it is the Editor's duty to answer those who have charged it with errors. Some gentlemen have afferted the treaty of partition figned at Pavia to be a forgery: and others who have been inclined to doubt this affertion, have nevertheless discovered that the subftance of it, inferted in the former volume, is evidently spurious, because it is not in the usual form of such inftruments: This informality the Editor perceived on first reading it, and for that reason it was not inferted as the treaty itself, but exprefsly as the fubftance of the treaty; and a number of circumftances, both in the declarations and conduct of the allied powers, ftrongly concur to establish its credit. In July, 1791, the Emperor was in Italy, and invited all the principal powers in Europe to join in a confederacy, (fee Vol. I. p. 169.)" In the October following his Imperial Majefty "requested the powers to whom he addreffed himfelf, to declare, by their respective minifters at Paris, that their Coalition existed" (see Vol. I. p. 152.) And on the 18th of March, 1792, the court of Vienna" refused to agree to the diffolution of the confederacy "in which the King of Hungary was engaged with the most "refpectable powers in Europe," (p. 177.) 66 Such are the proofs of the exiftence of a confederacy, the conditions of which are thought unfit for the public eye. And if we compare the conduct of the allies with the articles of the treaty of Pavia, we muft either be confirmed in the truth of fome fuch tranfaction, or conclude that those who forged the inftrument knew and described the real views of the princes concerned; for, as far as it has been in their power, |