Untitled - 24grammata.com

464 RISE OF THE CONTINENTALAs long as Lewis XVI. sat on the throne, allinterferencein the French affairs was carefully avoided by the Britishgovernment. The French ambassador, Chauvelin, remainedas representativeof his sovereign in London, and was recognised as such, as was also the British ambassador in Paris.Indeed, even when the unfortunate Lewis was torn from thethrone and plunged with his family into prison, the sympathy of England confined itself to the private demands of herambassador, whether he could contribute any thing to relieve the wants of the unfortunate prince. The public relations were not changed till after the execution of the royalmartyr, and then without a war. The British ambassadorwas recalled, and the recognition of Baron Chauvelin, towhom the Convention had sent credentials, was withheld ;he soon afterwards received orders to quit England.These measures certainly not only expressed a just abhorrence, which the execution of the unfortunate monarchhad excited, but they implied likewise a refusal to recognisethe newly-constituted republic, and with it the avowal thatrelations with it.England would not enter into politicalAlthough the prospects were in consequence clouded, nohostilities immediately ensued. It is of great importancefor the practical purposes of politics,to have a clear understanding, that the provisional breaking off of relations between states does not amount to a declaration of war. Negotiations between two states presuppose in both a regularsystem of government.How can a government negotiatewith a state which itself acknowledges that it is occupied ineffecting a revolution, and wishes first to give itself a newconstitution, and at the same time a different government.Other causes, however, soon concurred to render the participation of England in the war unavoidable. Notwithstanding their disavowal of any intention of aggrandizement,the new republic not only assumed the character of a conqueror, but even scoffed at the laws of nations, which hadbeen hitherto recognised, by immediately appropriatingtoherself the provinces of Avignon and Savoy, which had beentaken from the pope and king of Sardinia. But that whichmore nearly concerned England was the invasion of theAustrian Netherlands, which followed in the autumn, 1792.These provinces formed, as we observed above, the bridge