is sorry, but it has become highly necessary to interfere with the power of Britain farther, as the crowned ladies and gentlemen of Europe cannot agree about the partition of France, or that such a disposition is about to take place, that we shall be worse off than if we had let France remain as it was. Those who feared the attachment of men to French principles, argued wrong. From the effect of the experiment they would never be popular: nothing but crimes and misery swelled all the accounts from that country. If the peasant had been represented happy and contented, dancing in his vineyard, surrounded with a prosperous and innocent family, if such accounts had come, the tidings would have been gladly received. At present we hear of nothing but want and carnage--very unattracting indeed. More danger, he thought, arose from a blind attachment to power, which gains security from the many evils abounding in France. On the same principle that Prussia divided Poland, he contended, they might act here. They declared a prevalence of French principles existed in Poland: His Majesty's proclamation asserts the same here, and is therefore, in this sense, an invitation to come and take care of us. Could such despots love the free constitution of this country? On the contrary, he was persuaded that, upon the very same principle that Poland was divided, and Dantzic and Thorn subjugated, England itself might be made an object for the same fate as soon as it became convenient to the confederates to make the experiment. He would defy any man to show the principle upon which a difference could exist with regard to us and the other sacrificed countries, in the wishes and the desires of the combined Powers. But supposing this to be out of all question, and that this country had nothing to dread in that respect, and that all Europe had nothing to look to but the extermination of French principles, how would the present prospect of our success then appear? Could we entertain so vain a hope (indeed he was astonished to hear it even hinted) that the French, who had all the winter been lying in the snow at some periods, and wading up to their necks in water at others, in an enemy's country, fighting for their rights, will, in their own, submit to give them up in a mild season? The thought was too absurd, and the expectation too extravagant, to be harboured by a man possessed of a spark of rationality.
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN
FEBRUARY 5, 1795
THE PRUSSIAN SUBSIDY
Mr. Sheridan said, that upon a former occasion he and another honourable gentleman had endeavoured to get some information of the services performed by the King of Prussia during the last campaign, in consequence of his engagements with this country. Some returns had lately been laid on the table on that subject, but these contained no information. It appeared that the King of Prussia had received from this country the enormous sum of twelve hundred thousand pounds, without having rendered it even the smallest service. He thought it therefore necessary, previous to the discussion of the imperial loan, to come to some resolution with respect to this conduct on the part of His Prussian Majesty. It was certainly no argument against granting a loan to the Emperor, that the King of Prussia had violated his faith. But this circumstance ought certainly to enforce on the House the necessity of caution, and induce them to take some step in the present instance that might operate as a warning, with respect to future transactions of the same sort. His Majesty had stated in his message that he had received from the Emperor the strongest assurances of a disposition to make the greatest exertions, provided he should be assisted by a loan of four millions from this country. He understood, if he could rely upon the credit of public statements, that in another country the Parliament had been told of the absolute determination of His Majesty to guarantee this loan. This was a language which he considered as very unbecoming, when addressed to the representatives of the nation, and as highly improper in Ministers, who were of course responsible for whatever proceeded from the Throne. Before such a determination had been expressed, he should have wished to have had something also like a positive determination from His Imperial Majesty to make the exertions which were to be the conditions of the loan. He should more particularly have wished for such a declaration from the Imperial Court, which had, at all times, been proverbially distinguished by ill-faith. He recollected on this subject a strong expression of a right honourable gentleman (we suppose Mr. Windham), who said, that since the capture of Richard I, the conduct of the

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