Part 35

I am much more mortified than surprised at the event of the House of Commons debate on the Union; for though Lord Castlereagh wrote (as he talked) with confidence, yet one saw very clearly the elements of ratting. I rejoice to hear that you think the question recoverable, because I am more than ever of opinion that it must be tried again and again, till it succeeds. With respect to the person in whose hands it has failed, I may say to you (in _our_ confidence) that my opinion does not very much differ from yours, if indeed it does at all. Since he has been in Ireland I have seen no one trait of that character which I thought he had displayed in former situations of great difficulty, and for which I still gave him credit, though a nearer view of his mind had certainly diminished the impressions which I once entertained on the subject. Sorry I am to confess that I concurred heartily and eagerly in his appointment, a measure, my share in which I shall deplore to the hour of my death, though I certainly have nothing to reproach myself with on that account, having done conscientiously what I then thought the best, though I did not, even then, think it so good as others did.

The question of his removal is, however, a very difficult one indeed--one of the most embarrassing circumstances attending the present state of Ireland being, that in that office, above all others, the effect of change, even from worse to better, is frequently, if not always, more mischievous than the continuance of the evil. A violent and precipitate removal just now would, I think, totally unhinge the Government, and it would, above all, throw the whole absolutists at the feet of those who _perhaps_ (I think, _certainly_) need not have been made enemies, but who being such, must be guarded against as such. Lord Cornwallis never did like the situation; he accepted it unwillingly, and, to do him justice, I believe solely from a sense of public duty. Since he has held it he has experienced nothing but disgusts of every kind, and mortification in every shape, arising no doubt in a very great degree from his own misconduct, but not on that account the less galling to his mind. He can therefore certainly have no desire to stay, and, I should think, would very probably desire to quit at the close of this session, if the dread of foreign invasion is at that time not very urgent.

But if it is, what officer have we to oppose to the domestic and external enemies whom we should in such case have to meet? In a situation requiring above all others the mixture of civil and military talents, to a degree that the Duke of Marlborough scarce possessed them, and for which we must provide by sending some old woman in a red riband that has not a grain of either.

You see it is easy enough to start difficulties, but I do not think myself quite so ready at expedients as I wish I was. This is, I believe, a case where nothing is to be done just now, but to remain quite steady, announcing an unalterable purpose of carrying this great measure, and a fixed persuasion that we must succeed in it. And as to all the rest, if Paddy will set fire to his own house, we must try to put it out if we can, and if we cannot, we must keep the engine ready to play upon our own.

I rejoice that you took the determination, both of not speaking or attending this question in the Irish House of Lords, and of giving your proxy to the Chancellor, which was at once showing him a mark of attention and confidence, which he well deserves, and manifesting your own sentiments in the only way at all consistent with your situation. A little more than two months will now close your pilgrimage, from which you will return with the satisfaction of having done a great deal of good, though not quite all that you might have done if others had done their part.

God bless you.

You will see in to-day's papers the fate of the poor King of Naples. The infatuation of the Emperor is like nothing but that of an Irish Orangeman.

Towards the end of January, Mr. Thomas Grenville again left England on his mission; but his second departure proved even more unfortunate and disastrous than the first. The vessel in which he had sailed was supposed to have made the Elbe, and to have been lost in the ice. The distressing tidings, or rather the terrible apprehensions caused by the absence of any authentic or reliable intelligence, were immediately forwarded to Lord Buckingham. For several days this state of dreadful suspense continued. Every fragment of news that afforded the slightest ground of hope was eagerly seized upon; and, in the anxious solicitude of that affection which appears so touchingly all throughout these letters, Lord Grenville communicated to Lord Buckingham all he could learn from day to day. At last came the joyful intelligence that he was safe! This happy news was rapidly followed by letters from Mr. Grenville himself, and from his Secretary, Mr. Fisher, announcing his landing at Cuxhaven, and his subsequent arrival at Berlin.

MR. FISHER TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.

Cuxhaven, Thursday, Feb. 7th, 1799. MY DEAR LORD,

I cannot think of leaving this place without first acquainting you of our safe arrival here, after experiencing a thousand dangers and difficulties in consequence of our ship having run aground on the Newerk bank, at the entrance of the Elbe.

Mr. Grenville, I am delighted to be able to assure you, is in good health, notwithstanding the extreme fatigue he has undergone since Thursday last. The few hours he stays here being entirely occupied with writing letters of business, he fears he shall not have time to write to you from hence. The same reasons, my dear Lord, will deprive me of the honour of giving you, at the present moment, the details of our misfortunes. The officers and crew are all saved with the exception of thirteen seamen, and one woman and child, who were frozen to death in attempting to gain Newerk from the wreck. We are without a change of any one article of dress, and we fear there is little probability of saving any part of our baggage. We, however, proceed on our journey in a few hours to Berlin, from whence it shall be my first care to write to you the particulars of the melancholy events of the last week. Mr. Wynne is quite well, and has on every occasion of danger and difficulty shown the greatest fortitude and discretion.

I beg to be recalled to the remembrance of Lady Buckingham. Believe me, my dear Lord, to be ever, with the most grateful attachment, your Lordship's most obliged and most devoted servant,

EDWARD FISHER.

MR. T. GRENVILLE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.

Cuxhaven, Feb. 7th, 1799. MY DEAREST BROTHER,

The fatigue which I have undergone, added to the necessity of my writing several letters upon my arrival here, makes it impossible for me to say more to you than that I am alive and well, after a miraculous escape from the 'Proserpine,' which ran ashore off Searhorn, and a second danger, scarcely less, yesterday morning, in a long walk to gain this place, during which we were overtaken by the tide and forced to wade for an hour, in the hardest frost I ever felt, against a strong current of tide, which was sometimes up to, and sometimes above our middle. We are all, however, well to-day, and I proceed this evening towards Berlin, as well as my fatigues will allow me. I cannot say enough to you of Mr. Fisher's behaviour in these trials of danger; his resources, his attachment, and his kind attentions in assisting our poor Henry, and lessening, where he could, the inconvenience of my situation, have entitled him and ensured to him the sincerest and warmest regard. Henry, likewise, has been a stout mariner, and has shown a fortitude much beyond his years.

I find no Italian news except a report of the French having possession of Naples. They have, likewise, Ehrenbreitstein. When will they have Berlin? We have not a shirt in company. My loss, about L700.

God Almighty bless and preserve you.

Having arrived safely at Berlin, Mr. Grenville gives a sketch of his first impressions of the King of Prussia and his Court.

MR. T. GRENVILLE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.

Berlin, Feb. 28th, 1799. MY DEAREST BROTHER,

The journal which Mr. Fisher has shown to me, and which he proposes to send to you by this messenger, will give you a much more accurate account of our voyage than I could pretend to do if I had time to undertake it; but that is unfortunately so far from being the case, that I can with difficulty catch a short time by this opportunity to write even a few words to you.

We arrived here on the 17th, and I have scarcely yet got through the endless presentations and the weary first suppers of the Princes, which engross the whole evening from six in the evening till one in the morning. I have seen the King hitherto very little, but I am going to dine with him to-day; he is thought to be well-disposed in his general intentions, perfectly aware of all he has to fear from the great nation whom he detests and abhors; but having no original opinions of his own, nor habits of forming his own judgment, he falls unfortunately too much into the hands of the military officers, particularly the aides-de-camp with whom he lives, and their influence is, in consequence, powerful enough to weigh sometimes against the opinions of the Ministers whom he employs.

The general idea here is, that the person who has most weight with him is an aide-de-camp named Kochentz, of whose honesty there is no suspicion, but whose talents and capacity are of a very inferior description, and who is therefore open to the artifices of bad and designing men, who work powerfully through him upon the King.

Haugwiz is believed to be sincere in his apprehensions of the general danger of French republicanism, and is considered as struggling against the more immediate followers of the King, who surround him daily, and haunt him with the dreadful consequences of war to Prussia, and the old jealousies and distrusts of Austria.

If the Court of Vienna should at last act, as I am almost disposed to think they will rather than send back the Russian troops at the requisition of France, the beginning of hostilities from that Court cannot fail of producing a good effect here; the great danger is, that while each is waiting for the other to begin, the time for useful and effective exertion will pass by.

I have seen Sieyes at Court with his scarf and cockade. What Lavater would say of his features I know not, but I have seldom seen a countenance of so bad impression. His manners, conduct and appearance here have produced nothing but disgust in all that are not of the lower ranks of life, but it is to those that his mission is considered as being chiefly addressed, and he is said to have both means and agents enough to work through upon the lower classes of men here.

I have heard nothing from England or Ireland since I left Yarmouth, nothing of Union, and nothing of you; but how can I till the summer, if the last ten days of soft weather will not unlock the inhospitable ice of the Elbe at Cuxhaven? We are all well. God send that you and yours are so. Love to Lord B. and George and Mary. The Major is, I trust, soon expecting you in England.

God bless you, dearest brother. You will be glad to hear great part of my baggage is saved.

The negotiations which the French had been carrying on at Rastadt relative to the German boundaries, were broken off in consequence of the Emperor having permitted the Russian troops to enter his dominions; and on the 1st of March, the Directory having declared war against him, Jourdan, at the head of forty thousand men, crossed the Rhine at Kehl and Basle. Austria was now fairly committed to the war, and, strengthened by the Russians, who entered into it with enthusiasm, achieved a succession of important movements. On the 5th of March, the Arch-Duke Charles crossed the Leck; and on the 25th, defeated Jourdan at the battle of Stockach, and, leaving ten thousand men dead or expiring on the field, compelled the French to retire towards the Rhine. This triumph was followed up vigorously by the battle of Magnan, on the 5th of April, in which the Austrians, under Kray, joined by the vanguard of the Russians, effected so signal a victory, that Scherer, beaten for the third time in the course of the campaign, fled in precipitation across the Nincio. The effect of these encouraging successes was utterly lost on the Court of Prussia, where the policy, or no-policy, of doing nothing still prevailed over the counsels of friends, and the menaces of enemies. The picture Mr. Grenville gives of the weakness and incapacity of the Government suggests the only intelligible explanation of the conduct they pursued at this juncture.

MR. T. GRENVILLE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.

Berlin, April 17th, 1799.

If I am behind-hand, my dearest brother, in thanking you for your two letters of the 11th and 24th of March, I am less so than those dates would lead you to imagine, for the messengers did not bring me the first of them till a week ago, and the last arrived here only the day before yesterday. The amities of the 'Proserpine' are out of date with me, and would long ago have been forgotten, if they were not daily recalled to me by new and continued proofs of the affectionate interest which has been taken in them. To know what you would feel in a state of anxiety and suspense which I could not relieve, was a distress greater to me than the fatigue and danger which accompanied my escape. It has ended well, and I trust it will not be long before we shall laugh over it together.

I presume that you will have heard from William how exactly the politics of Berlin have continued to remain in _statu quo_; how much more occupied they are in enumerating the follies and disgraces of Austria, than in adapting their own conduct to any wise system or any liberal principles, and how little applicable are the measures which they take, either to the danger which they fear, or to the hopes which they entertain. Their fear of France is, however, not dissembled by them, and certainly is not affected by them; it engrosses all their attention, and furnishes to them great and constant disquietude in the present, and serious apprehension for the future. But as there is no man of leading and commanding talents enough to show them the greatness of their danger, and to provoke from the public the adequate means of resisting it, there is nothing done by the Government, and they are living on from day to day, conscious of all they have to fear, but destitute of energy and activity, and submitting to a state of things which could only be produced by the most extreme weakness and incapacity; for you will certainly have remarked that the little influence which Prussia exercises, either from her hopes or fears, in Europe, is not owing to the defeat of any great and ambitious projects, is not to be attributed to the disappointment of any great plans, civil or military, but to a total absence of any leading and governing talents in those who direct the measures which prevail here.

It has been the fashion, I know, to consider the influencing men here as having views and principles of a bad description, and as being engaged in a systematic course of conduct pursued by them with great address and dissimulation. It is perhaps presumptuous in a stranger, as I am, to trust to any opinion formed upon so short a residence amongst them, but if I am sure of anything, I tell myself I may be sure that the miserable policy which is seen here is very much more weak than wicked, and the wretched state of Government much more to be attributed to the absence of great talents than the influence of deep and dangerous designs. Whatever be the cause, the effect is the same; and although it seems to be a pretty universal opinion that Prussia must and will at length be driven into war, they are content rather to let their enemy choose that moment for the commencement of hostilities, than make common cause and fight one common battle, which in my conscience I believe would be successful. Indeed, the Austrian successes in driving the French to the Rhine, if they are followed by similar success in Switzerland, will almost justify one's hope that, even without Prussia, the French may in this campaign be pushed back upon their own country; and the continued state of insurrection in the Low Countries, where the republican troops can scarcely restrain the inhabitants, give good hopes on that side as soon as any solid force could be made to bear in that quarter. The zeal and enthusiasm of the Court of Petersburg increases every hour, and they will become very immediately principals in the war against France, both by word and deed.

In this immediate state of the negotiation, I am remaining here more because there is an inclination in London to think I can do good, than from any great good that is likely to be done. I am very much obliged to you for your offer of a loan, which, however, I hope will be unnecessary by the shortness of my stay. If that should unexpectedly be prolonged, I will then have recourse to you to assist by an advance the tardy payment of His Majesty's Envoys Extraordinary and Ministers Plenipotentiary, who are always left in arrears seven quarters for the better credit of the Court that employs them. I hope my loss by the 'Proserpine' will turn out not to exceed L600, as many things have been saved.

I trust you are now happy and well at Stowe. God bless you, dearest brother.

By this time, Lord Buckingham had returned to England, and the next despatch from Berlin is addressed to Stowe. The account of the vacillation of the Court, and the sketch Mr. Grenville gives of the King, are full of interest. Since he had last written, Suwaroff had taken the command of the Austro-Russian armies in Italy, and in a short time had expelled the French from the principal towns of the North, which forced Macdonald to evacuate Naples, and cross the Apennines.

MR. T. GRENVILLE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.

Berlin, May 25th, 1799. MY DEAREST BROTHER,

My last letters from Cleveland Row have, thank God, brought you back safe and sound to your own fireside and to the many who share the comforts of it with you; it cannot, I presume, be very long before I may reckon myself of that number, although as I do not like to do anything by halves, I consider myself as liable to duty as long there is any fair demand to be made upon me. You will have heard from William all that was to be heard of our hopes and of our disappointments, and you will know likewise from him that our stock of those articles is not yet exhausted, although the briskness of the market is a little affected by the absence of the King. The Berlin reviews being over, he has begun a military progress, which will carry him through Brunswick, Minden and Wesel to Cassel and to Anspach, and after various reviews in those places he will return to Potsdam in the first week of July.

Whether in the first of these places, or in the last, or in any of them, he will have determined to take his part with us, remains to be decided, and it will be less hazardous to abide the event than to pretend to foretel it. It is certain that the inclination to war has grown very much of late among all the thinking men in the country, and the regular Ministers have agreed in recommending it very strongly to the King; the disinclination to it is chiefly found in the confidential aides-de-camp and the subordinate characters, whose familiar habits with the King enable them to exercise a very governing influence upon him.

The King himself is, I believe, of a very well-disposed and honest character; his inclinations are English, and his personal respect for the King of England is very striking; his suspicion and dislike of the French is also beyond all question, and there are so many ingredients in his situation and character that should lead him to an open declaration against France, that it is not easy to account for the different line which he pursues; it must, however, be attributed to the influence of the very weak persons who are in familiar confidence with him, and to his being too diffident in himself to decide upon the important measure of engaging Prussia in war. I am, however, inclined to believe that such will at last be his decision, though there is too much hesitation in his own mind to give us any solid ground of reliance until he shall be completely embarked.

Meantime, all is going on prosperously under the active exertions of Suwaroff, who is daily hemming in and menacing Turin, and who has now advanced to Chivasso, and has detached Kaim with a considerable force to the Valais. The general opinion here is that the French will evacuate Switzerland whenever their line at Luceinsteig and Coire is forced, and some accounts to-day seem to announce that event as having happened.

Moreau, with seventeen thousand men, is at Alexandria, and I suppose the Naples army will try to join him, although Macdonald will find that junction rather difficult to accomplish.

We are all still waiting in anxious expectation for news of the fleet. The Ministers here think the Mediterranean is the object, and to me it seems not unlikely that they may pursue that object, and at the same time detach to Ireland.

God bless you, dearest brother.

The occupation which was given by the Austrians and Russians to the French troops in Italy and Germany, appearing to offer a favourable opportunity to rescue Holland from the hands of the republicans, an expedition, under the command of Sir Ralph Abercromby, set sail from England on the 13th of August, and disembarked off the Helder. On the 30th, the Dutch fleet surrendered, and hoisted the Orange flag. In order, probably, to give more weight and effect to a mission which had for its object the restoration of the Stadtholder, it was proposed that Lord Grenville should undertake an embassy to Holland, and that Mr. Thomas Grenville (who had in the interim returned home) should proceed to St. Petersburg.

LORD GRENVILLE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.

Dropmore, Sept. 5th, 1799. MY DEAREST BROTHER,

I was much obliged to you for your kindness to us in writing on the subject of Lady B. We earnestly hope that all cause of uneasiness to you on her account has ceased, and that both fever and cold are gone. If you would let anybody write us a line to say so, you would much oblige us.