SUBSTANCE OF THE FRENCH KING’S DECLARATION.

In the beginning of June the French king declared war in his turn against his Britannic majesty, and his declaration was couched in terms of uncommon asperity.

He artfully threw a shade over the beginning of hostilities in North America, referring to a memorial which had been delivered to the several courts of Europe, containing a summary of those facts which related to the present war, and the negotiations by which it had been preceded. He insisted on the attack made by the king of England, in the year one thousand seven hundred and fifty-four, on the French possessions in North America; and afterwards by the English navy on the navigation and commerce of the French subjects, in contempt of the law of nations, and direct violation of treaties. He complained that the French soldiers and sailors underwent the harshest treatment in the British isles, exceeding those bounds which are prescribed to the most rigorous rights of war, by the law of nature, and common humanity. He affirmed, that while the English ministry, under the appearance of sincerity, imposed upon the French ambassador with false protestations, others diametrically opposite to these deceitful assurances of a speedy accommodation were actually carrying into execution in North America; that while the court of London employed every caballing art, and squandered away the subsidies of England, to instigate other powers against France, his most christain majesty did not even ask of these powers the succours which guarantees and defensive treaties authorised him to demand; but recommended to them such measures only as tended to their own peace and security; that while the English navy, by the most odious violences, and sometimes by the vilest artifices, made captures of French vessels navigating in full security under the safeguard of public faith, his most christian majesty released an English frigate taken by a French squadron; and British vessels traded to the ports of France without molestation. That the striking contrast formed by these different methods of proceeding would convince all Europe, that one court was guided by motives of jealousy, ambition, and avarice, and that the conduct of the other was founded on principles of honour, justice, and moderation; that the vague imputations contained in the king of England’s declaration, had in reality no foundation; and the very manner in which they were set forth would prove their futility and falsehood; that the mention made of the works at Dunkirk, and the troop assembled on the coasts of the ocean, implied the most gross attempt to deceive mankind into a belief that these were the points which determined the king of England to issue orders for seizing the French vessels; whereas the works at Dunkirk were not begun till after two French ships of war had been taken by an English squadron; and depredations had been committed six months upon the subjects of France before the first battalions began their march for the sea-side. In a word, the most christian king, laying aside that politeness and decorum on which his people value themselves above all the nations upon the face of the earth, very roundly taxes his brother monarch’s administration with piracy, perfidy, inhumanity, and deceit. A charge conveyed in such reproachful terms, against one of the most respectable crowned heads in Europe, will appear the more extraordinary and injurious, if we consider that the accusers were well acquainted with the falsity of their own imputations, and at the same time conscious of having practised those very arts which they affected so much to decry. For after all, it must be allowed, that nothing could be justly urged against the English government, with respect to France, except the omission of a mere form, which other nations might interpret into an irregularity, but could not construe into perfidious dealing, as the French had previously violated the peace by their insolence and encroachments.