St. James's Square, June 29th, 1791.
MY DEAR BROTHER,
Lord Gower's courier arrived this morning, with an account of the
King and Queen being brought back to Paris. Everything passed with
a black and sullen silence; no mark of respect whatever was allowed
to be shown them. Biron and Lafayette were in the carriage with
them. The mob followed the carriage into the garden of Tuileries;
and on alighting, these wretched captives heard every species of
abuse and insult, that even a Paris mob is capable of.
They talk of sending the Queen to the Convent of Val de Grace for
the present; and the report is, they mean to try her. The King is
to undergo an interrogatory on Tuesday; and on the result of that,
it is supposed he is to be deposed, and the Dauphin declared King,
with a Council of Regency. These, as you will see, are all reports;
but the melancholy certainty is, that neither in Paris, nor in any
part of the country which we have heard of, does there seem the
least disposition to pity, and much less to assist them.
We have the bad news, that the Austrian Plenipotentiaries have
left Sistovo; but, as they express it, without breaking up the
Congress. The armistice is not renewed; but it seems as if it would
be continued by a sort of tacit consent. You will have seen in the
papers the further demands made by the Emperor, on which the
business has stopped.
Ever yours,
G.
The Queen's behaviour is said to have been admirable.
Early in this year, Ministers had moved and carried an Address from His
Majesty, reporting the failure of his negotiations to bring about a
peace between Russia and Turkey, and desiring to augment his naval
forces for the sake of giving more weight to his interposition. This
Address was vehemently, but unsuccessfully, opposed in both Houses, on
the ground that such a course was calculated to lead to hostilities, and
plunge the nation into an unnecessary expenditure. Advantage was taken
of the occasion to make it appear that Mr. Pitt wanted to involve the
country in the war, and that his policy was essentially injurious to the
industry and material welfare of the people. The following interesting
passage from a letter of Lord Grenville's, dated the 17th of August, not
only disproves the imputation, but shows how anxious Ministers were to
secure peace, how much they were relieved and gratified by its
accomplishment, and to what a height of prosperity they had succeeded in
bringing the commerce and revenue of the kingdom.
We received this morning the account that the negotiations at
Sistovo are at last satisfactorily concluded. A definitive treaty
of peace, on the grounds of the _status quo_ strict, was to be
signed on the 4th of this month, under the mediation of the Allies;
and at the same time a separate Act, by which the Austrians and
Turks treat as powers between whom peace is already concluded (and
consequently without mediation) for some such arrangements of
frontier, and the settlement of a dispute about Old Orsova, which
town is to remain in the hands of Austria. You may suppose this
event gives me no small satisfaction; and I hope I shall now begin
to breathe a little, which I have hardly done since April last. You
can hardly form to yourself an idea of the labour I have gone
through; but I am repaid by the maintenance of peace, which is all
this country has to desire. We shall now, I hope, for a very long
period indeed enjoy this blessing, and cultivate a situation of
prosperity unexampled in our history. The state of our commerce,
our revenue, and, above all, that of our public funds, is such as
to hold out ideas which but a few years ago would indeed have
appeared visionary, and which there is now every hope of realizing.
The next letter refers to a matter of personal interest. A Rangership
had fallen vacant by the death of Lord Orford, and it appeared desirable
to Lord Grenville to effect an exchange between that office and the
reversion he held of the Chief Remembrancership in Ireland. Upon all
questions of this nature, as indeed on all questions that directly
affected himself and his own objects, Lord Grenville was always
reluctant to decide until he had first consulted Lord Buckingham, in
whose judgment and affection he reposed unbounded confidence.