Mr. Steele moving the previous question, 209 votes, against 38, appeared for the ministry.

An address for a change of measures, was moved by Mr. Fox, after an harangue of extraordinary length. He satirised the rashness which had plunged the nation into the war, and the incapacity which appeared in the conduct of it. He condemned the connections of the court with despotic allies, who had no wish to promote the general good, but aimed only at the gratifications of self-interest. He lamented the great injury to which the people were exposed by the war, and deprecated the increase of burdens already oppressive. He censured the answer given to the note of Barthelemy, and said that peace might be obtained by a less arrogant demeanor. Mr. Pitt reasserted the justice of the war, vindicated the spirit and judgment with which it was prosecuted, and attributed the delay of peace to the restless disposition of the enemy. The motion was rejected by a majority of 174. This was the last debate of importance during the session, which terminated on the 20th of May. The distant prospect of a negotiation with France was highly gratifying to every class of society, but more particularly to the middle and lower orders. The war had begun with the approbation and applause of a great majority of the British people; but the disasters of our army in Holland, the pressure of taxes, and the

occurrence of an unusual scarcity, all contributed to excite the murmurs of the nation at the continuance of hostilities. Every domestic evil, whether occasioned by private imprudence or by the dispensation of providence, was attributed to the war; and the general discontent was cherished and exasperated-by the inflammatory proceedings of the innovating societies. The more able advocates of sedition imitated the example of Thelwal, and gratified the populace by the delivery of lectures, in which they represented all wars, and this war in particular, as contrived by courts and ministers for plundering the people. The Corresponding Society resumed their proceedings at Chalk Farm, and a meeting held at Copenhagenhouse, near Islington, was frequently attended by 50,000 persons. The statutes enacted, and the sentiments expressed, during the present session of parliament, had a visible and immediate effect in restoring the tranquillity of the nation, and silencing the expression of public discontent. Some means of coercion had indeed become absolutely necessary; and, while the vigorous measures suggested by Mr. Pitt and adopted by the parliament, contributed to repress the turbulence of the advocates of disaffection, the conciliatory tone adopted by his majesty and by the minister, was productive of the most salutary influence on the virtuous but mistaken zealots of sedition.

the cantonments which they respectively occupied at the distance of some leagues from each other, extended across the Upper Palatinate, the duchy of Deux Ponts, and the Hundsruck. The line occupied by the imperial army, passed through the towns of Spires, Neustadt, Kayserslautern, Kussel, and from thence crossing the Nabe, terminated at the Rhine, in the neighbourhood of Bauharoch, where that river became again the point of separation to both armies, and continued so beyond Cologne, between the river Sieg and the town of Dusseldorf. The Austrians and French occupied an equal share of the space between the river and the last mentioned fortress, before which the republican army had an entrenched camp. The imperialists possessed on the Rhine the strong fortresses of Philipsburg, Manheim, Mentz, and Ehrenbreitstein. The French, on their part, possessed on the Upper Rhine, the fortresses of Alsace, and on the Lower Rhine, that of Dusseldorf.

With respect to the strength of the opposed armies, it is obvious that no one could be able to appreciate them with correctness, but the commander-in-chief or the officers of the staff. From the information, however, of individuals, whose local position and military situation, enabled them to form a probable estimate, the numbers of the French and imperial armies, at the opening of the campaign, may be nearly determined. They authorise the supposition, that at this time the two French armies, commanded by Moreau and Jourdan, amounted to more than 160,000 men; and that the imperial forces, commanded by his royal highness the archduke Charles, including the Saxons and other contingents of the empire, amounted to 150,000 men.

Every motive which determined the French government to continue the war, imposed upon them the necessity of carrying it beyond the Rhine and into the heart of Germany. Their numerous soldiery were destitute of clothes, money, and subsistence. The Netherlands, Holland, and the countries situated between the

Meuse and the Rhine, and sustained, during two years, the whole burden of maintaining the French armies. These countries, a short time before so rich and so abundant, were exhausted; their specie was absorbed by contributions, their manufactures were suspended, and their produce consumed. An immense quantity of paper money of no intrinsic value, had operated to paralyze their commerce and their industry. Two years had been. sufficient to place the countries subdued by France on a level with herself, and to subject them to one common equality of dearth and misery. It was become, therefore, absolutely necessary that the French should march forward into other countries in search of subsistence, of horses, of clothes, and above all, of money. These views were openly expressed by the di rectory, in the order given to their generals, that they should maintain their troops by victory.

To the urgent call of necessity were added, the motives of ambition. The di rectory was persuaded, that by an invasion of Germany it would accomplish the disunion of the Germanic body; that the inferior princes, in their alarm, would hasten by turns to purchase a separate peace; that the emperor, reduced to dependance on his own resources, would at length subscribe to such conditions as it should please his conquerors to impose; and that, at the conclusion of the war, its final result would place all the countries on the right side of the Rhine in possession of the French, and the fate of Germany at their disposal, leaving them enriched with the spoils of the empire, and dictating laws to Europe.

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Every consideration, on the other hand, seemed to prescribe to the court of Vienna a line of conduct directly the reverse. concurrence of military and political considerations should have induced it to persevere in the defensive system, which it had adopted and pursued with advantage in the preceding year. The situation of the French and imperial armies, offered to the latter, no prospect of success in an offensive war. The result of several

campaigns had borne evidence to the difficulty of penetrating into Alsace. France was nearly invulnerable by the route of the Sarre and the Moselle, which were defended by a great number of strong places. They could have entertained no prospect of retaking the Netherlands, and of advancing between the Moselle and the Meuse the French being masters of Dusseldorf, of all the fortified towns on the Meuse, and the strong places of Holland.

If in a military point of view the interest of the emperor prescribed to him a defensive war, it was still more consonant with prudence in its political aspect. The loss of the Netherlands and Holland, and the defection of Prussia and Spain, deprived the rest of the coalition of every possibility of making conquests upon France. The combined plan of England and Austria was less directed against the armies of the republic than against her finances and military resources. To pursue this system with advantage, it became the object of the campaign to exhaust the enemy and to gain time rather than to win battles. The first and most important purpose, which, if steadily pursued, would have averted the long and unexampled series of calamities which ensued, was to confine the French to their own resources for the payment and maintenance of their numerous armies, and to prevent them, from penetrating into Germany. The most natural and most easy method of accomplishing this object would have been to take the course of the Rhine as the line of defence, and to give to the different corps of the imperial army the same disposition which marshal Clairfait had established in 1795, a disposition of which that general's success had proved the advantage. It appeared advisable after his example, to abandon to the French the Hundsruck, and the duchy of Deux Ponts, countries of little importance in themselves, already exhausted by the war, and which always belong, except in the case of great superiority of force, to the possessor of Landau, Bitche, Sar Louis, Traerbatch, and Coblentz. By abandoning

these, countries and carrying the greater part of their forces to the right bank of the Rhine, the Austrians would have been enabled to strengthen their positions on that river with a sufficient number of men, to defend the passage from Basle to Manheim, and to place between the latter fortress and that of Mentz a large body of troops, which could readily advance to the succour of either of those places, and support their garrisons. By adopting this disposition, the imperialists would have been enabled to place on the Lahn and the Sieg more than a third of their army, to reinforce their right wing, the point at which they were most endangered; to oppose a powerful resistance to any enterprise of the French on the lower Rhine, to confine them in the camp before Dusseldorf, and to profit of any favourable opportunity of attacking them with advantage.

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The first movements of the Austrian generals seemed to indicate the adoption of a different plan. The army of the Upper Rhine, under the command of general Wurmser, was strongly reinforced, a circumstance which gave reason suppose that it was intended -he should cross the Rhine to penetrate into Upper Alsace. At the same time the greater part of the army of the Lower Rhine, under the immediate orders of the archduke Charles, took post in the Hundsruck and the duchy of Deux Ponts, and appeared to menace, at the same time, Lower Alsace and the fortresses on the Sallee and the Moselle. The misfortunes which rapidly followed these indications soon obliged the Austrians to renounce their first dispositions, and to adopt, in part, those which have been already mentioned.

The armistice, concluded at the end of the year 1795, between the French and Austrian generals, was broken by the latter on the 21st of May; and an interval of ten days being required between its rupture and the renewal of hostilities, the respective armies became at liberty to recommence their movements on the 31st of the same month.

On that day the French army of the

Sambre and the Meuse, commanded by general Jourdan, made a movement forwards on the two banks of the lower Rhine. It was on the right bank, however, that the French employed the greater part of their force against the very inferior numbers of the enemy under the prince of Wurtemburg, who had taken a position in front of the Sieg. On the 1st of June he was driven from his position by general Kleber, after an engagement of several hours; and, abandoning the Sieg, occupied the strong position of Uckerath. The French being unable to attack it in front without the certainty of considerable loss, availed themselves in the morning of their superiority of number, to outflank and turn it. The Prince of Wurtemburg was therefore compelled to retire to Altenkirchen, from which he was again dislodged by superiority of numbers. The capture of the Austrian magazines enabled the French to subsist in a country exhausted by the consumption of the armies, and compelled the former to retire behind the Lahn, leaving uncovered the fortress of Ehrenbreitstein, which the French invested.

The apprehension that after forcing the passage of the Rhine the republicans would direct their march to the Lahn, and entirely outflank his right, induced the archduke to abandon his auxiliary operations in the Palatinate and the Hundsruck, and hasten to Mentz with the view of reinforcing the prince of Wurtemburg. He passed the Rhine on the 9th, and, not doubting that general Jourdan would hasten to cross the same river and join general Kleber, determined to engage the French on the Lahn, amounting to 50,000 men, before their junction.

1796. On the 15th of June, the archduke made the right wing of his army pass the Lahn and the Dille at, Wetzlar. General Werwick, who commanded it, attacked the French, but was repulsed, and could not succeed in dislodging them from the advantageous position which they occupied A brisk cannonade continued on both sides for the rest of the day; but towards seven o'clock in the evening a

The French, driven from their position, took up another in their retreat, equally good with the former. They were very soon attacked again. soon attacked again. Four squadrons of Austrians and Saxons gained the steep heights on which some of the enemy's battalions were posted, charged them with impetuosity, and completed the victory. It cost the imperialists about 500 men, the loss of the French was more considerable. Four of their battalions were cut to pieces by the Saxon and Austrian cavalry, which took fourteen pieces of cannon and made many prisoners.

The French troops which defended the Lower Lahn not having met with better success, were obliged to quit the banks of that river and fall back on the Sieg. The archduke pursued them without allowing them any respite, and obtained possession of a large quantity of provisions, cannon, artillery, waggons, and baggage, which the difficulty of the country, the animosity of its inhabitants against the French, and the disorder of their retreat, rendered it impossible to save.

The archduke, observing their confusion, pursued his advantage with vigor and celerity. He manoeuvred in such a manner, as to oblige general Jourdan, who had passed the Rhine at Niewied on the 12th of June, to repass it on the 18th, with the right wing of the French army. At the same time he sent forward his advanced guard, amounting to 11,000 men, under the orders of general Kray, in pursuit of Kleber, who slowly retired towards