acted and the laws were made.  Even the fundamental sacred rights of man they have not scrupled to profane.  They have set this holy code at nought with ignominy and scorn.  Thus they treat all their domestic laws and constitutions, and even what they had considered as a law of Nature.  But whatever they have put their seal on, for the purposes of their ambition, and the ruin of their neighbors, this alone is invulnerable, impassible, immortal.  Assuming to be masters of everything human and divine, here, and here alone, it seems, they are limited, “cooped and cabined in,” and this omnipotent legislature finds itself wholly without the power of exercising its favorite attribute, the love of peace.  In other words, they are powerful to usurp, impotent to restore; and equally by their power and their impotence they aggrandize themselves, and weaken and impoverish you and all other nations.

Nothing can be more proper or more manly than the state publication, called a Note, on this proceeding, dated Downing Street, the 10th of April, 1796.  Only that it is better expressed, it perfectly agrees with the opinion I have taken the liberty of submitting to your consideration.  I place it below at full length,[25] as my justification in thinking that this astonishing paper from the Directory is not only a direct negative to all treaty, but is a rejection of every principle upon which treaties could be made.  To admit it for a moment were to erect this power, usurped at home, into a legislature to govern mankind.  It is an authority that on a thousand occasions they have asserted in claim, and, whenever they are able, exerted in practice.  The dereliction, of this whole scheme of policy became, therefore, an indispensable previous condition to all renewal of treaty.  The remark of the British Cabinet on this arrogant and tyrannical claim is natural and unavoidable.  Our ministry state, that, “while these dispositions shall be persisted in, nothing is left for the king but to prosecute a war that is just and necessary.”

It was of course that we should wait until the enemy showed some sort of disposition on his part to fulfil this condition.  It was hoped, indeed, that our suppliant strains might be suffered to steal into the august ear in a more propitious season.  That season, however, invoked by so many vows, conjurations, and prayers, did not come.  Every declaration of hostility renovated, and every act pursued with double animosity,—­the overrunning of Lombardy,—­the subjugation of Piedmont,—­the possession of its impregnable fortresses,—­the seizing on all the neutral states of Italy,—­our expulsion from Leghorn,—­instances forever renewed for our expulsion from Genoa,—­Spain rendered subject to them and hostile to us,—­Portugal bent under the yoke,—­half the Empire overrun and ravaged,—­were the only signs which this mild Republic thought proper to manifest of her pacific sentiments.  Every demonstration of an implacable rancor and an untamable pride were the only encouragements we received to the renewal of our supplications.