o those gentlemen.
16. Mr. Fox regularly and systematically, and with a diligence long
unusual to him, did everything he could to countenance the same
principle of fraternity and connection with the Jacobins abroad, and the
National Convention of France, for which these officers had been removed
from the Guards. For when a bill (feeble and lax, indeed, and far short
of the vigor required by the conjuncture) was brought in for removing
out of the kingdom the emissaries of France, Mr. Fox opposed it with all
his might. He pursued a vehement and detailed opposition to it through
all its stages, describing it as a measure contrary to the existing
treaties between Great Britain and France, as a violation of the law of
nations, and as an outrage on the Great Charter itself.
17. In the same manner, and with the same heat, he opposed a bill which
(though awkward and inartificial in its construction) was right and wise
in its principle, and was precedented in the best times, and absolutely
necessary at that juncture: I mean the Traitorous Correspondence Bill.
By these means the enemy, rendered infinitely dangerous by the links of
real faction and pretended commerce, would have been (had Mr. Fox
succeeded) enabled to carry on the war against us by our own resources.
For this purpose that enemy would have had his agents and traitors in
the midst of us.
18. When at length war was actually declared by the usurpers in France
against this kingdom, and declared whilst they were pretending a
negotiation through Dumouriez with Lord Auckland, Mr. Fox still
continued, through the whole of the proceedings, to discredit the
national honor and justice, and to throw the entire blame of the war on
Parliament, and on his own country, as acting with violence,
haughtiness, and want of equity. He frequently asserted, both at the
time and ever since, that the war, though declared by France, was
provoked by us, and that it was wholly unnecessary and fundamentally
unjust.
19. He has lost no opportunity of railing, in the most virulent manner
and in the most unmeasured language, at every foreign power with whom we
could now, or at any time, contract any useful or effectual alliance
against France,--declaring that he hoped no alliance with those powers
was made, or was in a train of being made.[1] He always expressed
himself with the utmost horror concerning such alliances. So did all
his phalanx. Mr. Sheridan in particular, after one of his inv
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