d terms of
equality, not with this or that part of Great Britain, but with Great
Britain entire. We believe this peace to be useful and honourable, not
only to Great Britain and the French republic, but to the human race. We
will not commit an act--we will not utter a word--we will not breathe
an insinuation at variance with the principles of the reciprocal
inviolability of nations which we have proclaimed, and of which the
continent of Europe is already gathering the fruits. The fallen monarchy
had treaties and diplomatists. Our diplomatists are nations, our
treaties are sympathies. We should be insane were we openly to exchange
such a diplomacy for unmeaning and partial alliances with even the
most legitimate parties in the countries which surround us. We are not
competent either to judge them or to prefer some of them to others; by
announcing our partizanship on the one side, we should declare ourselves
the enemies of the other. We do not wish to be the enemies of any
of your fellow-countrymen. We wish, on the contrary, by a faithful
observance of the republican pledges, to remove all the prejudices which
may mutually exist between our neighbours and ourselves. This course,
however painful it may be, is imposed on us by the law of nations, as
well as by our historical remembrances.

"Do you know what it was which most served to irritate France and
estrange her from England during the first republic? It was the civil
war in a portion of our territory, supported, subsidised, and assisted
by Mr. Pitt. It was the encouragement and the arms given to Frenchmen,
as heroical as yourselves, but Frenchmen fighting against their
fellow-citizens. This was not honourable warfare; it was a royalist
propagandism waged with French blood against the republic. This policy
is not yet, in spite of all our efforts, entirely effaced from the
memory of the nation. Well, this cause of dissension between Great
Britain and us, we will never renew by taking any similar course. We
accept with gratitude expressions of friendship from the different
nationalities included in the British empire. We ardently wish that
justice may found and strengthen the friendship of races; that equity
may become more and more its basis; but while proclaiming with you,
with her (England), and with all, the holy dogma of fraternity, we will
perform only acts of brotherhood, in conformity with our principles and
our feelings towards the Irish nation."

At the concl