assador to Paris, which was negatived without a division.
The disruption of the whig party was obvious; Portland, Fitzwilliam,
Spencer, Carlisle, and Loughborough in the lords, and in the commons
Windham, Elliot, and many more voted with the government, and Burke took
his seat on the treasury bench. Loughborough received the great seal on
January 28, 1793, but the rest as yet gave the ministers independent
support. An addition of 9,000 men to the naval force and increased army
estimates were voted unanimously, Fox declaring his approval on the
ground that the position of foreign affairs demanded them. An alien bill
was also carried, subjecting foreign immigrants to police regulations
and empowering the secretary of state to expel them. This bill was
opposed in the lords by Lansdowne, and in the commons by Fox and Grey.
In the course of an almost frenzied speech in support of it, Burke threw
a dagger on the floor of the house, a specimen, he said, of three
thousand which, he was informed on excellent authority, had been ordered
in Birmingham by an English revolutionist.

Chauvelin, whose credentials as "minister plenipotentiary of the French
republic" were not accepted by the English court protested against the
alien bill and the prohibition of the export of grain, and declared that
France considered the treaty of commerce of 1786 broken and annulled.
The two measures excited the indignation of the convention; the speedy
downfall of England was triumphantly predicted; 3,000,000 Irishmen were
ready to revolt, and India would shake off the British rule as soon as
the French appeared in Asia. The executive council was pressed to demand
the repeal of both measures, and a satisfactory explanation of the
English military preparations, and orders were given for the immediate
armament of a fleet. While the French ministers were already preparing
for a descent on England,[238] and France was reducing the Austrian
Netherlands to a merely municipal status, the contemplated invasion of
Holland was delayed by the condition of the French army; and
negotiations with England were carried on. Believing that if the English
people were assured with respect to the Netherlands and the intention of
France not to interfere in their domestic concerns, they would declare
against the government in case of a war, the French foreign minister
protested that the occupation of the Netherlands was merely temporary,
that France looked forward to Belgian