Entreaty

“ Where are all the leagues of antiquity or of modern Europe? Where are all such leagues and treaties even of the last century? Where is our own alliance with France of 1778? Where all such alliances and treaties even of the first half of the present century? They are all extinguished. Experience proves—the voice of history proclaims—that treaties or alliances between independent Powers are always of short duration, being soon swept before the gust of contending passions, or melted in the crucible of conflicting interests. ”

“ Now, if you will take the poor advice of one who is really a friend to England and Englishmen, and who hath even some Scotch blood in his veins,—away with your fleets and your armies, acknowledge the independence of America; and as ambassadors, and not commissioners, solicit a treaty of peace, amity, commerce, and alliance with the rising States of this Western world. Your nation totters on the brink of a stupendous precipice, and even delay will ruin her. ”

“ But it has been said, these men were not regular troops. Mr. S. asked, what, then, were they? They surely were not militia. The last objection, and the least serious of all, to this motion, is the expectations of a treaty in the spring. Mr. S. said, if he thought the gentleman who threw this difficulty in the way believed himself that we have any reason to expect a permanent peace from the treaty now proposed, it might deserve an answer. Facts are more to be relied upon than words. ”

“ If we carry our views out of France, and look at the dreadful catalogue of all the breaches of treaty, all the acts of perfidy at which I have only glanced, and which are precisely commensurate with the number of treaties which the Republic have made (for I have sought in vain for any one which it has made and which it has not broken) ”

“ Do you conceive that the true interest and prosperity of America, is materially, or at all, dependent upon an alliance with any foreign nation? If you do, please state the causes, and a preference, if any exists, with the reasons for that preference.
3d. Are you in favor of an alliance, offensive and defensive, with Great Britain? In fine, are you disposed to advocate any other, or a closer connection with that nation, than exists at the ratification of the treaty of 1794? ”

“ Directly circumstances change, and they change constantly, the most solemn treaties are torn up, as Russia tore up the Treaty of Paris, or as Austria tore up the Treaty of Berlin. All history is full of torn-up treaties. ”

“ There is nothing absurd or impracticable in the idea of a league or alliance between independent nations, for certain defined purposes precisely stated in a treaty; regulating all the details of time, place, circumstance, and quantity; leaving nothing to future discretion; and depending for its execution on the good faith of the parties. Compacts of this kind exist among all civilized nations, subject to the usual vicissitudes of peace and war, of observance and non-observance, as the interests or passions of the contracting powers dictate. ”

“ This speech being the plan whereby both France and the allies have been obliged to proceed in the subsequent course of the treaty, I shall desire the reader's leave to insert it at length, although I believe it has been already in most hands:
⁠"My lords and gentlemen,
"The making of peace and war is the undoubted prerogative of the crown. Yet such is the just confidence I place in you, that at the opening of this session, I acquainted you that a negotiation for a general peace was begun ”

“ The judgment of posterity, which rarely coincides with that of the parties to a dispute or to a treaty, is likely to agree with the declaration of General Smuts, after signing the Treaty, that real peace would not be found in it so much as in the machinery it created for its own amendment, and in the spirit which would in time tone down the passions and products of war. ”

“ Now what are the issues for which we are fighting? In due time the terms of peace will be put forward by our Allies in concert with us—in accordance with the alliance that exists between us—and published to the world. ”

“ Having already made an extract from, both declarations of war, I shall here give a translation of the eighth article in the grand alliance, which will put this matter out of dispute.
THE EIGHTH ARTICLE OF THE GRAND ALLIANCE.
WHEN the war is once undertaken, none of the parties shall have the liberty to enter upon a treaty of peace with the enemy, but jointly and in concert with the other. ”

“ What guaranty did we hold in a treaty celebrated with a military despot, a temporary chief, or a sudden usurper, that such a treaty could be maintained before the nation? What constitutional or legal right would an American general or commissioner have, to enter into such a compact? ”

“ Between the Emperor of the French and the Confederated States, federatively and individually, there shall be an alliance, by virtue of which, every continental war in which one or either parties shall be engaged, shall be common to all. ”

“ To understand the permanent use of diplomacy and the necessity for continual negotiations, we must think of the states of which Europe is composed as being joined together by all kinds of necessary commerce, in such a way that they may be regarded as members of one Republic and that no considerable change can take place in any one of them without affecting the condition, or disturbing the peace, of all the others. ”

“ Attend chiefly to those in which the great powers of Europe are the parties; such as the treaty of the Pyrenees, between France and Spain; the treaties of Nimeguen and Ryswick; but, above all, the treaty of Munster should be most circumstantially and minutely known to you, as almost every treaty made since has some reference to it. For this, Pere Bougeant is the best book you can read, as it takes in the thirty years' war, which preceded that treaty. The treaty itself, which is made a perpetual law of the empire, comes in the course of your lectures upon the 'Jus Publicum Imperii'. ”

“ There shall be an alliance, offensive and defensive, against Great Britain for ever. 5. No treaty shall be entered into with Great Britain, without the consent of the two republics.
6. The French republic shall make no peace with any power whatever, without comprising in it the republic of the United Provinces. ”

“ Nothing is at first sight more wearisome than the long line of alliances, triple and quadruple, the endless negotiations, the interminable congresses, the innumerable treaties, which make up the history of Europe during the earlier half of the eighteenth century ”

“ An article of a treaty of commerce cannot annul an article so essential of a treaty of peace, and both are expressly comprehended in the principal treaty of alliance of 1678, by which your High Mightinesses are obliged to furnish to his Majesty the succors, which he now demands. You are too just and too wise not to feel, that all the engagements between powers ought to be mutually and reciprocally observed, and although contracted in different periods, they oblige equally the contracting parties. ”

“ Every nation in negotiating has its right hand upon the hilt of its sword, and at intervals playfully unsheaths a little of its gleaming blade. As things stand at present, war and peace are bound together like the vicissitudes of day and night, of Castor and Pollux. ”

“ It was evident that he was bent on war. The concessions57 made by his own ambassadors had been taken back, and the conditions now demanded amounted to nothing less than a partition of France. At the beginning of the negotiations these had been put forward, in a not uncommon fashion of diplomacy, as a maximum from which it might be convenient to make large deductions; as an ultimatum, delivered by a sovereign whose army was almost ready to sail, they meant nothing less than war. ”

“ A treaty of alliance, my lords, has been for some time concerted with the emperour of Muscovy, and has been negotiated with such diligence, that it is now completed, and I doubt not but the last ratifications will arrive at this court in a few days; by which it will appear to your lordships, that the interest of this nation has been vigilantly regarded, and to our allies, that the faith of Britain has never yet been shaken. ”

“ Then conclude with us a treaty, which shall own each nation to be alike independent of the other. If you will swear to do this I will spare your lives and let you go without ransom, each man of you giving up your arms merely and keeping his clothes untouched, and you shall pass in sight of our army as prisoners, whom we ... set free of our own will, when we might have killed them, or sold them, or held them to ransom.’
The Consuls and officers of the army vowed to observe this treaty, and six hundred knights were given as hostages to the Samnites. ”

“ The government has charge of the foreign political relations, conducts negotiations, makes preliminary stipulations, signs and causes to be signed and concluded all treaties of peace and alliance, truce, neutrality, commerce, and other conventions. ”

“ Whenever ‘a spurious and mawkish beneficence’ gives an alarm of peace, the dogs of war stand ready on the slip to hunt it down.
65‘I have stated to you’ (To the Editor of the Times) ‘as the only legitimate basis of a treaty, if not on the part of the continental Allies, at least for England herself, that she should conquer all she can, and keep all she conquers. ”

“ I had uniformly and explicitly declared to the people here, people in the first rank of importance, that nothing short of independence in terms of our treaty of alliance, would induce America to treat for truce or peace, and that no treaty could be had without the consent of our ally first obtained; in a word, if you mean to have peace, you must seek for a general peace. ”

“ No effort of imagination in the civilized party could run any parallel or similitude between the making of a treaty at Ghent, Paris, London, or Washington, as between real nationalities, and the treaty in the woods with grimly painted and greased, blanketed and feathered barbarians, apostrophizing sun and moon in their rhetoric, grunting out their assent or dissent, with an eye to the coming feast and the distribution of the presents. ”

“ III. The King's intention is, that all the parties engaged in the present war, without excepting any of them, may find their reasonable satisfaction in the treaty of peace, which shall be made: That commerce may be re-established and maintained for the future, to the advantage of Great Britain, of Holland, and of the other nations, who have been accustomed to exercise commerce. ”

“ ALLIANCE, in international law, aleague between independent states, defined by treaty, for the purpose of combined action, defensive or offensive, or both. Alliances have usually been directed to specific objects carefully defined in the treaties. ”

“ The nation which resolves to make the overture, despatches several individuals, usually of some note, as ambassadors, with at least one orator. They bear before them the calumet of peace, which renders their character sacred, and secures them from violence. They carry also a certain number of belts of wampum, with which are respectively connected the several motives and terms of the proposed treaty. ”

“ The world has not yet recovered from the surprise and disillusionment which overcame it when the secret treaties of the war became known and when it became evident that they would be made the basis of the Treaty of Peace. ”

“ I can assure you with truth, that we meet you on [366] this occasion, with the sincerest dispositions to remove from between the two countries those obstacles to a cordial friendship, which have arisen from an inexecution of some articles of the treaty of peace. The desire entertained by this country, to be on the best terms with yours, has been constant, and has manifested itself through its different forms of administration, by repeated overtures to enter into such explanations and arrangements as should be right and necessary to bring about a complete execution of the treaty. ”

“ Article I. The Contracting Parties will unite and join to mutually guarantee their independence, sovereignty, and the integrity of their respective territories, binding themselves by the terms of the present Treaty to defend themselves against all foreign aggression, whether proceeding from another or other independent States, or from a force, without a flag, owing obedience to no recognized Power. ”

“ That a perpetual peace and friendship shall, from henceforth, take place and subsist between the contracting parties aforesaid, through all succeeding generations: and if either of the parties are engaged in a just and necessary war, with any other nation or nations, that then each shall assist the other, in due proportion to their abilities, till their enemies are brought to reasonable terms of accommodation,' &c. ”

“ On the contrary, by the avowal of an open and friendly policy, and proceeding on the declaration that the interests of the Western nations are identical, I have been met by the representatives of the other treaty powers in a corresponding spirit, and we are now working together in a sincere effort to strengthen the cause of civilization in the East. ”

“ We are here to meet to-day, in the name of God, to enter upon a treaty of general peace, between the high allies and the King your master. We bring sincere intentions, and express orders from our superiors, to concur, on their part, with whatever may advance and perfect so salutary and Christian a work. On the other side, we hope you have the same disposition; and that your orders will be so full, as to be able, without loss of time, to answer the expectation of the high allies, by explaining yourselves clearly and roundly upon the points we shall have to settle in these conferences ”