of all Europe from the display of infincerity which has marked their conduct, our only hopes reft on your majefty's royal wisdom and unquestioned affection for your people, that you will be graciously pleased to adopt maxims of policy more suitable to the circumstances of the times than those by which your majesty's ministers appear to have been governed, and to direct your servants to take measures which, by differing effentially, as well in their tendency as in the principle upon which they are founded, from those which have hitherto marked their conduct, may give this country some reasonable hope, at no very distant period, of the establishment of a peace fuitable to the interests of Great Britain, and likely to preferve the tranquillity of Europe."

This incomparable address excited very animated debates in both houses; and the minifters, ftung and mortified to the quick, in vain attempted to clear themselves from the fevere and heavy imputations contained in it—imputations which will most indubitably be ratified by the verdict of a difcerning and impartial pofterity. But, on the divifion, it appeared that they had as much the advantage in numbers as their opponents in argument-the motions both of lord Guildford and Mr. Fox being negatived by prodigious majorities. The public bufinefs being now concluded, his majefty terminated the feffion (May 19, 1796), with a fpeech from the throne, filled with the highest compliments to both houses for the uniform wifdom, temper, and firmness, which had appeared in all their proceedings fince their first meeting in that place." And, on the following day, a proclamation was iffued for their diffolution, and an end was happily put to the political existence of this ftillconfiding, ftill-confounded parliament, which had so enormoufly, and with fuch blind and obftinate rashness, added to the preffure of the public burdens, and involved the nation in a contest the most ruinous, the most unjust, and the most unneceffary, in which it had ever been engaged fince the foundation of the English monarchy.

In confequence of the total fubjugation of Holland by the French armies, hoftilities in that quarter were for the prefent altogether extinguished; but in other parts the war was carried on with increased and redoubled fury. The Auftrian armies were now placed under the command of the archduke Charles, brother to the emperor, a young prince of great fpirit and gallantry, and who was faid to inherit no inconsiderable share of those military talents which had so eminently distinguished his illuftrious ancestor, the great duke of Lorraine. The armistice expiring on the 31st of May, the operations of the campaign upon the Rhine began by a fuccessful attack on the part of the French upon the Austrian posts fituated on the Sieg and the Lahn, ftreams which run in a westward direction into that great river, with a view of opening the way to Mentz, the fiege of which they once more meant to attempt. But the Auftrians, affembling in great force, compelled the French to retreat and resume their former pofitions. A totally different plan was now therefore adopted; and general Moreau, who commanded the army of the Rhine and Moselle, feigning preparations for another and more ferious attack, drew off his troops with the utmost fecrefy, and by forced marches arrived at Strafburg: and notwithstanding an accidental inundation which raised the waters of the Rhine to an uncommon height, he effected the paffage of the river, and by a fudden and furious affault reduced the fortress of Kehl on the oppofite bank. General Wurmfer, who commanded in this quarter, unable to withstand the impetuolity of this irruption, immediately applied to the archduke for aid; and his imperial highnefs, fenfible of the importance of checking early the progress of the French in the Brisgau, haftened in person with a large body of troops to his aflistBefore the arrival of this reinforcement, however, the Auftrians had been worfted in various engagements, and the paffes of the Black Forest forced in several parts. General Wurmfer having at length formed a junction with

ance.

the

the archduke, they took a very advantageous pofition near the village of Ettingen, where they waited the attack of the French; and on the 9th of July a most bloody battle was fought at this fpot with defperate valor on both fides. Fortune at last decided in favor of the republicans, and the Austrians, retreating with precipitation into the heart of Germany, left the fortreffes of Mentz, Manheim, Philipfburg, and Ehrenbreitstein, to their natural defence.

General Jourdain, who commanded the army of the Sambre and Meuse, having repaffed the Lahn, was by this time before the gates of Frankfort; fo that the French were now masters of the whole courfe of the Rhine, from the confines of Switzerland to the Weftphalian frontier. General Moreau, after taking poffeffion of Fribourg, the chief town in the Brifgau, and Stutgard, the capital of the duchy of Wirtemberg, croffed the Necker, reducing the entire circle of Suabia to fubmiffion. Jourdain in the mean while marching through Frankfort, Aschaffenburg, and Wurtzburg, all of which places furrendered almost to his first summons, found himself in poffeflion of the whole of Franconia. A divifion of the army of the Rhine and Mofelle, under Ferino, having at the other extremity of the line feized upon the city of Conftance, and the various fortresses on the Lake, the republican armies formed an immenfe chain, of which the left extended to the frontiers of Bohemia and Saxony, and the right to the Tyrolian mountains. In these circumftances the duke of Wirtemberg and the prince of Baden, bereft of their territories, fent ambasfadors to the Directory to fue for peace, which was granted them on their engaging to withdraw from all alliances offenfive and defenfive into which they had entered against the republic, and to cede to France whatever territory they poffeffed, which was but of trivial account, on the left or French fide of the Rhine. A new treaty of friendship and alliance was at the fame time concluded with the king of Pruffia, who, delighted to fee the humiliation of the house

of

of Auftria, was occupied only with the thought how to convert the passing events of the war to his own advantage. With this view, and trusting to the connivance at least of the French, he detached a body of troops to feize upon the imperial city of Nurenburg, upon which he took this opportunity to advance` some abfurd and frivolous claims.

As the French armies advanced into Germany, the inhabitants, who were at first much biaffed in their favor, and strongly attached to the principles upon which the revolution had been originally founded, began to perceive that principles and practices were not neceffarily connected, and that, in the present instance, they were far as the poles afunder. The contributions levied by the French generals for the support of their troops in the German principalities were fo heavy as to make the Germans bitterly to regret the milder tyranny of their own petty defpots; and the troops, flushed with the pride of victory, indulged in all manner of military license. The French government had never really or seriously entertained the design of establishing their dominion or influence on the eastern fide of the Rhine, and fince their connection with Pruffia they were particularly careful not to alarm the court of Berlin by any projects of revolutionizing the empire. The bond of union between them was the defire of humbling the power of the Auftrian house; which it was now, as at all other times, the true policy of Great Britain to support and strengthen. When the emperor indulged the wild ambition of aggrandizing himself at the expence of France, and of partitioning her provinces, it would indeed have been not only the highest wisdom, but the trueft friendship, in the court of London, to have interpofed her powerful and irrefiftible mediation to restrain these foolish and deftructive projects. But circumstances were at present totally changed: France had not only repelled her infolent invaders, but the emperor was in danger of being attacked in his hereditary dominions; and France was now the nation whose

vast preponderancy threatened the balance of power and the liberties of Europe. All the feelings which had been originally interested in her favor were now excited against her, and all impartial perfons wished to see the armies of France in their turn compelled to abandon their conquefts, and regarded the archduke with emotions of affection and admiration, as the glorious and patriotic defender of his native country.

The two invading armies continued their march without meeting any considerable resistance, till that of the Rhine and Mofelle, after taking poffeffion of Ulm, Donawert, and other towns in the fame direction, arrived, Auguft the 24th, on the banks of the Lech, a large river running into the Danube, and which divides the circles of Suabia and Bavaria. Here a body of Auftrians were pofted near Augsburg, who disputed the paffage very gallantly; but the high fortune of the French prevailed, and general Moreau, entering Bavaria in triumph, took poffeffion of Munich on the 27th. In the mean time the archduke had directed his chief attention to the army of the Sambre and Meuse, under the command of general Jourdain; and contenting himself, to remain upon the defenfive, ftrongly entrenched on the right of the Ihn, a ftream flowing parallel with the Lech, fent very strong reinforcements to general Wartenfleben, who commanded on that fide of the Danube. In confequence of this seasonable junction, the Austrian general attacked, August 22, the van of Jourdain's army, which had arrived within a few days' march of Ratisbon, with forces fo fuperior, that general Bernadotte, who conducted it, was compelled to fall back in confufion upon the main body, which, in the face of a victorious enemy, and in the midft. of a country rendered univerfally hoftile by the injuries and the depredations they had fuftained, cut off from all communication with France, diminished in its numbers, and hopeless of effecting the intended junction with Moreau, had no option but to retreat.

This was not

accomplished