Walmer Castle, Oct. 1st, 1793.
MY DEAR BROTHER,
Your letter of the 27th followed me here yesterday, and I have just
received that of the 29th. With respect to the first, I can only
say that I have by this post sent your letters to Pitt, and am very
sure that if it depends on him, what you wish will be done.
Lord Amherst's answer of the reduced state of the regiments at home
is, however, surely not quite so much out of the way as you state
it. It is a great pity that your _protege_ is in Canada, where no
promotion can be going forward, and from whence, I conclude, he
cannot be brought into regiments upon actual service. Sir C. Grey
conveyed to me the other day a wish to know whether there was any
officer in his army that I felt interested about; but I know of
none that I should think it worth laying myself under an obligation
for. If Talbot had happened to be in one of the regiments in Nova
Scotia, he would probably have been in this predicament; but I
suppose the force in Canada is little likely to be weakened, in the
present state of America.
I am delighted to find that you are so well pleased with the
manifesto. I have hardly had time yet to consider your observations
on the particular passages you have marked, but I will do so, and
am much obliged to you for the trouble.
The Duke of Richmond will, I am persuaded, not resign in the
present moment, though he has been talking and doing foolishly. As
far as I can learn, there is no sort of ground for the accusation
of delay on his part relative to Dunkirk. When I see you, I can
_say_ on that subject what for many reasons I do not choose to
write. _Au reste_, the Duke of Richmond's campaign seems completely
to have annihilated the little popularity he ever had; and though I
am satisfied he will not resign till after the meeting of
Parliament, and perhaps till after the session is over, I am
equally persuaded he will not continue another year in the Cabinet.
We are sending Hessians to Toulon, and shall soon have there a
really respectable force; the interval is the only thing to be
feared; but Mulgrave's being there is a great comfort to me; as
great, indeed, _entre nous_, as if I knew the new Governor was
actually arrived there. We have nothing like force enough for all
the objects that present themselves, and you know my settled
aversion to undertaking little points of detail; some of which
might succeed, but the result of the whole must be to cut to pieces
the small force we have, without adequate success. Besides this,
the reliance on the dispositions of the country, with the single
exception of Toulon, pressed as it was by famine at one door, and
the guillotine at the other, has always failed us.
I believe it is true, that almost in every part of France they
detest the Convention, but that they are quite incapable of giving
any solid footing in the country.
Ever yours most affectionately,
G.