mischievous part of his proceedings that day, Mr. Fox likewise struck out everything in the address which related to the tokens of ambition given by France, her aggressions upon our allies, and the sudden and dangerous growth of her power upon every side; and instead of all those weighty, and, at that time, necessary matters, by which the House of Commons was (in a crisis such as perhaps Europe never stood) to give assurances to our allies, strength to our government, and a check to the common enemy of Europe, he substituted nothing but a criminal charge on the conduct of the British government for calling Parliament together, and an engagement to inquire into that conduct.

8.  If it had pleased God to suffer him to succeed in this his project for the amendment to the address, he would forever have ruined this nation, along with the rest of Europe.  At home all the Jacobin societies, formed for the utter destruction of our Constitution, would have lifted up their heads, which had been beaten down by the two proclamations.  Those societies would have been infinitely strengthened and multiplied in every quarter; their dangerous foreign communications would have been left broad and open; the crown would not have been authorized to take any measure whatever for our immediate defence by sea or land.  The closest, the most natural, the nearest, and at the same time, from many internal as well as external circumstances, the weakest of our allies, Holland, would have been given up, bound hand and foot, to France, just on the point of invading that republic.  A general consternation would have seized upon all Europe; and all alliance with every other power, except France, would have been forever rendered impracticable to us.  I think it impossible for any man, who regards the dignity and safety of his country, or indeed the common safety of mankind, ever to forget Mr. Fox’s proceedings in that tremendous crisis of all human affairs.

9.  Mr. Fox very soon had reason to be apprised of the general dislike of the Duke of Portland’s friends to this conduct.  Some of those who had even voted with him, the day after their vote, expressed their abhorrence of his amendment, their sense of its inevitable tendency, and their total alienation from the principles and maxims upon which it was made; yet the very next day, that is, on Friday, the 14th of December, he brought on what in effect was the very same business, and on the same principles, a second time.

10.  Although the House does not usually sit on Saturday, he a third time brought on another proposition in the same spirit, and pursued it with so much heat and perseverance as to sit into Sunday:  a thing not known in Parliament for many years.