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1792.

BOOK rather than subscribe any thing contrary to this!" The political sagacity which had long characteriz. ed the elector of Saxony now conspicuously ap peared in his declining, at the period of the estab lishment of the new constitution, to accept the dangerous offer of the reversion of the crown of Poland, which the Diet purposed to make heredi tary in his house.

On contemplating the whole of this atrocious procedure, it is difficult to restrain within the dig. nified limits of historic decorum the sympathetic feelings of involuntary indignation. If, on the one hand, the wild licentiousness of democracy never displayed itself in a form so dreadful as at the present period; on the other, the pride and perfidy, the tyranny and treachery, of courts and kings have never appeared in a light so destruc tive and detestable; and certain it is, that the tide of political and philosophical opinion, such as is the usual precursor of great changes, has set strongly and alarmingly against them.

The affairs of Sweden, since the termination of the war with Russia, remained in a perplexed and critical situation. The king of Sweden summon. ed, in the beginning of 1792, a Diet to meet at Gefle, a solitary and obscure place on the borders of the Bothnic Gulf, seventy miles from Stockholm. During the sitting of the Diet, the town was filled with troops. Notwithstanding these precautions,

XXIV.

1792.

King of

sassinated.

the demands and expectations of the king were BOOK by no means answered; and the Diet was finally dissolved in anger. On his return to Stockholm he was assassinated at a masquerade by an officer Sweden as of the name of Engerstrom, actuated by the enthusiasm of public, and the rancor of personal, revenge. He was succeeded by his son Gustavus IV. a youth of fourteen years of and the reage: gency was vested in the hands of the duke of Sudermania, brother to the late king, who conducted himself in his high office with singular prudence and propriety. It was perfectly understood that Gustavus III. had acceded to the cONSPIRACY of SOVEREIGNS against France, and had even proposed to take the command of the combined armies in person. This monarch had been frequently accustomed to declare," that a war was necessary to characterize a reign," but the regent his brother, with a just abhorrence of this infamous maxim, maintained a strict and scrupulous neutrality. The same wise plan was also steadily pursued by Wise conDenmark, under the excellent and admirable ad- Danish goministration of count Bernstorf, the invariable friend of peace, economy, aud reform. The Italian and Helvetic republics adopted the same safe and salutary system. Spain alone appeared wavering and indecisive, agitated by the alternate fluctuations of policy and passion.

duct of the

vernment.

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English am

recalled

from

France.

BOOK In consequence of the transactions of the 10th August, and the virtual deposition of the French 1792. monarch, lord Gower, the English ambassador at bassador Paris, received orders from the court of London to quit the kingdom on the slight and frivolous pretext, that, the functions of royalty being suspended, his mission was at an end. This recall was considered by the leading men in France as a certain and very ominous indication of the enmity of the British court:. nevertheless, as a demonstration of their moderation and solicitude for peace, M. Chauvelin, the French ambassador, still remained in London, though from this period unacknowledged in any public or authorised capacity. The recall of the English ambassador at this critical moment, on the ground stated by the English court, seemed to imply that appointments of this nature are a mere matter of form and compliment between sovereigns. But if ambassadors are considered in a higher and juster light, as the necessary means of intercourse between nation and nation, never could the recall of an ambassador take place at a period when his presence and services were more indispensable.*

*The government of France at this period will scarcely be pronounced worse than it was during the reign of Charles IX. under the guidance of Catherine de Medicis, and subsequent to the massacre of St. Bartholomew. But in those circumstances

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1792.

sionate

On the success of the French arms in Flanders BOOK the court of London gave a still farther proof of ~~ its inimical disposition, by making, seven days Impolitic only after the battle of Gemappe, an eager, offi- and pascious, and unsolicited offer of assistance to the conduct of the English States General, in case of need. But their High court. Mightinesses declared themselves under no apprehension of attack. They even affirmed that there is not the least reason to attribute to any of the belligerent powers hostile intentions against the republic.

The causes of the deposition of the French monarch, and the nature of the provocations and injuries which preceded and produced that event, not being sufficiently understood in England, it

did queen Elizabeth refuse to maintain any farther political correspondence with that infamous government? No; she received Fenelon, the French ambassador, in such a manner as denoted indeed her indignation and horror at their proceedings, but without supposing his functions suspended by these enormities. Nay, as there existed strong and weighty reasons of state for not breaking with France, she appointed one of the first noblemen in the kingdom, the earl of Worcester, as her ambassador at that court, with an express commission to renew the negotiations which had been previously depending; and, as Mr. Hume justly observes, " cautiously avoided coming to extremities with Charles, though she had sufficient ground to regard him in the light of a most dangerous enemy." Is it possible that any one can imagine or will affirm the spirit of Burleigh and Walsingham to have actuated the British cabinet at this crisis?

1

BOOK made an impression very unfavorable upon the XXIV. minds of the generality of the people, already bi

1792.

assed and perverted by the inflammatory decla. mations of Mr. Burke and his partizans. And the horrid massacres of September, perpetrated when France was shaken to her centre with civil and political convulsions, and no regular or efficient authority, such as might restrain the rage of ven. geance or awe the audacity of guilt, existed in the country, completely alienated their minds from the revolution; although these detestable enormi. ties could not in any rational sense be said to ori. ginate in the revolution, but merely and solely in Terrors of the opposition made to its establishment.* The nation was on a sudden struck with terror at the idea of any political innovation of any kind; and the very name of REFORM became the subject of violent and indiscriminate reprobation.

innovation.

"Comment a pu être fait (says M. Garat) cette grande plaie à l'humanité au milieu d'un peuple où toute lumière et toute pitié n'etoient pas éteintes? Par quoi, par qui étoient réduits à cette désastreuse impuissance, tant de répresentans de la puissance nationale, tant d'organes des loix, tant de dépositaires de la force publique?-Comment l'expliquer autre. ment que par l'in urrection qui, en frappant une autorité perfide et coupable, s'étoit mise au-dessus des autorités les plus pure et les plus fidelles ?-Comment l'expliquer qu'en avouant que les législateurs, les ministres, et les magistrats, de la nation, n'avoient pu réprendre encore les rènes destinées de la'France, et que l'insurrection seule commandoit encore aux événemens ?"

Memoires de la Révolution de la France.