Monthly Chronicle.

my Mission ; since even allowing his two positions , viz . that the retrocession of the Austrian Netherlands was incompatible with their laws , and that we ought to have known that beforehand ; yet that there existed a droit publique in . Europe , paramount to any droit publique they might think proper to establish within their own dominions ; and that if their constitution was publicly known , the Treaties existing between his Majesty and the Emperor , were at least equally public ; and in these it was clear and distinctly announced , that the two

Contracting Parties reciprocally promise not to lay dowii their arms without the restitution of all the dominions , territories , & c . which may have belonged to either of them before the war ; that the date of this stipulation was previous . to their annexing the Austrian Netherlands to France ; and the notoriety of this ought , at the very moment when they had passed that law , to have convinced them , that , if adhered to , it must prove an insurmountable obstacle to Peace . I applied his maxim to the West India Islands , and to the Settlements in the East Indies ; and asked himWhether it was expected that we were

, to wave our right of possession , aud be required still to consider them as integral parts of the French Republic which MUST be restored , and on which no value was to be set in the balance of compensation ? I also stated the possible case of France having lost part of what she deemed her integral dominions , instead of having added lo them in the course of the War , -and whether then , under the apprehension of still greater losses , the Government , as it was now composed , should consider itself as not vested with powers sufficient to save their Country from the impending dangerby making

, Peace on the conditions of sacrificing a portion of their dominions to save the remainder ? M . Delacroix said , this was stating a case of necessity , and such a mode of reasoning did not attach to the -present circumstances . I readily admitted the first part of this proposition ; but contended , that if the power existed in a case of of necessity , it equally existed in all others , and particulars- in the case before us , since he himself had repeatedly told me , that - peace was what this Country and its Government wished for and even wanted .

M . Delacroix , in reply , shifted his ground , and by a string of arguments founded on premises calculated for this purpose , attempted lo prove , that from the relative situation of the adjacent countries , the present Government of France would be reprehensible in the extreme , and deserve impeachment , if they ever permitted the Netherlands to be separated from their dominions ; that by th .- partition of Poland , —Russia , Austria , and Prussia , had increased their power to a most formidable degree ; that England , by its conquests , and hy the activity and judgment with which it governed its colonies , had doubled

its strength . Your Indian Empire alone , said M . Delacroix , with vehemence , has enabled you to subsidize all the Powers of Europe against us , and your monopoly of trade has put you in possession of a fund of inexhaustible wealth . His words were , " Voire empire dans ! ' Inde vous a fourni les moyens de salarier toutes les puissances centre nous , el vous avez accapare le commerce de maniere que toutes les richesses du monde se vcrsenl dans vos erf res . " From the necessitythat France should keep the Netherlands and the left

• , bank of the Rhine , for the purpose of preserving its relative situation in Europe , he passed to the advantages which he contended would result to the o-Jher Powers by such an addition to the French dominions . Belgium ( to use his words ) by belonging to France , would remove what has been the source of all Wars ' for two centuries past ; and the Rhine being the na ' ural boundary of France , would ensure ( he tranquillity of Europe for two ceutuies to come . I did not feel it necessary to combat this preposterous doctrine . I contented myself with reminding him of what he had said to me in one of our last

con-. ferences , w'lien he made a comparison of the weakness of France under its Monarchs , and its strength and vigour under its Republican form form of Government . " Nous ne sommes plus dans la decrepitude de la France Monarchique , mais dans toule la free d'ur . e Republique adolescenle , " was his expression ; and I inferred from this , according to his own reasoning , that the force and power France had acquired by its change of Government was much greater than it