n the
world into a democratic republic. If every government was against her,
it was, because she had declared herself hostile to every government.
This strange republic may be compared to the system of Mahomet, who,
with the Koran in one hand and a sword in the other, compelled men to
adopt his creed. The Koran which France held out was the declaration of
the Rights of Man and universal fraternity; and with the sword she was
determined to propagate her doctrine, and conquer those whom she could
not convince." Burke said that he did not wish to hurry the nation into
a war, but only to make the people of England see that France had in
reality declared war against them. The national convention had passed
a variety of decrees, every one of which might be considered as a
declaration of war against every government in Europe; and the people of
France had resolved to wage an eternal war against kings, and all kinds
of kingly government. Moreover, in contempt of the king and
parliament, the convention had received Englishmen at its bar, as the
representatives of the people of England. In the absence of Pitt, his
colleague, Dundas, entered into a long and elaborate vindication of the
measures of administration; concluding with a confident prediction that,
"if we were forced into a war, it would prove successful and glorious."
The amendment was rejected without a division.

Still undismayed, Fox, on the 15th of December--which was a Saturday--a
day when parliament did not usually meet--moved, "that a minister be
sent to Paris, to treat with those persons who exercise provisionally
the executive government of France." Fox contended that this measure
would neither imply approbation nor disapprobation of the conduct of the
existing government; and that it was the policy and practice of every
nation to treat with the existing government of every other nation with
which it had relative interests, without inquiring how that government
was constituted, or by what means it acquired possession of power. He
illustrated his argument by asserting that we had more then once sent
embassies to the government of Morocco, when men sat upon that throne
who had waded to it through blood. We had, likewise, he said, ministers
at the German courts at the time of the infamous partition of Poland;
and we had a minister at Versailles when Corsica was bought and
enslaved. Yet, he argued, in none of these instances was any sanction
given, directly or indir