unity.

There was some truth in these statements, although the general deduction
was erroneous, and the colouring throughout false. The allies had not
given that cordial co-operation to Great Britain which they were bound
to do, and Prussia had evaded the onus of the coalition. Mr. Thomas
Grenville's letter to the Duke of Portland discovers a great deal more
than was known to the Duke of Bedford or Mr. Fox in illustration of
these facts; and the correspondence that follows, which is of the
highest importance from the confidential character of its details,
confirms them. But the attempt to cast the responsibility of these
circumstances upon the English Cabinet was equally ungenerous and
unjust. The policy of Ministers had undergone no change, except that
which was contingent upon the altered situation of affairs. To preserve
a strict neutrality in the face of a declaration of war, was clearly
impossible; and to abandon the war, from an abstract desire for peace,
at a time when the common enemy had gained enormous advantages, and were
menacing the tranquillity and liberties of other nations, and
threatening an invasion of England, would have precipitated results the
very reverse of those contemplated by the Opposition. To have made
proposals to France on what the resolutions termed "equitable and
moderate conditions of reconciliation," would have involved two serious
difficulties--the negotiation, in the first place, with a Government of
anarchy which England had justifiably refused to treat with from the
outset; and, in the second place, the admission of the power of France
to dictate terms which England could not accept without degradation, or
refuse without aggravating the existing grounds of hostility.
Circumstances might arise--such as a change in the Government--to
obviate the former difficulty; but the latter was insuperable. It would
have been inconsistent with the principles upon which the war was
undertaken to have proposed or submitted to any conditions which France,
exulting over her recent successes, could have been expected to approve;
and the result of such a negotiation at such a moment must have been, in
any event, fruitless and inglorious. The decision of Parliament was
unequivocal and decisive. The Duke of Bedford's motion was lost on the
question of adjournment, and Mr. Fox's thrown out by a majority of 210
against 57 votes. The influence of the Opposition was overthrown. The
country was against them,