lehouse club was actually proposed and accepted by the
Assembly as an _alliance_. The procedure was in my opinion a high
misdemeanor in those who acted thus in England, if they were not so very
low and so very base that no acts of theirs can be called high, even as
a description of criminality; and the Assembly, in accepting,
proclaiming, and publishing this forged alliance, has been guilty of a
plain aggression, which would justify our court in demanding a direct
disavowal, if our policy should not lead us to wink at it.

Whilst I look over this paper to have it copied, I see a manifesto of
the Assembly, as a preliminary to a declaration of war against the
German princes on the Rhine. This manifesto contains the whole substance
of the French politics with regard to foreign states. They have ordered
it to be circulated amongst the people in every country of Europe,--even
previously to its acceptance by the king, and his new privy council, the
club of the Feuillants. Therefore, as a summary of their policy avowed
by themselves, let us consider some of the circumstances attending that
piece, as well as the spirit and temper of the piece itself.

[Sidenote: Declaration against the Emperor.]

It was preceded by a speech from Brissot, full of unexampled insolence
towards all the sovereign states of Germany, if not of Europe. The
Assembly, to express their satisfaction in the sentiments which it
contained, ordered it to be printed. This Brissot had been in the lowest
and basest employ under the deposed monarchy,--a sort of thief-taker, or
spy of police,--in which character he acted after the manner of persons
in that description. He had been employed by his master, the
_Lieutenant de Police_, for a considerable time in London, in the same
or some such honorable occupation. The Revolution, which has brought
forward all merit of that kind, raised him, with others of a similar
class and disposition, to fame and eminence. On the Revolution he became
a publisher of an infamous newspaper, which he still continues. He is
charged, and I believe justly, as the first mover of the troubles in
Hispaniola. There is no wickedness, if I am rightly informed, in which
he is not versed, and of which he is not perfectly capable. His quality
of news-writer, now an employment of the first dignity in France, and
his practices and principles, procured his election into the Assembly,
where he is one of the leading members. M. Condorcet produced on