(Private.) Vienna, Aug. 30th, 1794,
DEAR LORD FITZWILLIAM,
You will already have heard enough of our proceedings here to give
you no considerable expectations of any great good to be done here;
and if you happen to have been in London, and to have read a very
tedious and long letter which I wrote on the 24th to the Duke of
Portland, you will have seen there, more at large than it is
necessary to repeat, the general view and impression of our minds
as to the business with which we are charged; and the little ground
which there appears to us for hoping that even by satisfying their
pecuniary demands, we could depend upon such exertions being made
in consequence, as the country would expect in return for expense
of so great and heavy a scale. It is very true, to be sure, that in
this as well as in many other cases, the difficulties present
themselves something more readily than the remedies to them, yet
upon the question of the subsidy, if we are right in our
conception that it would not probably produce, either in degree or
in shape, that energy and cordial co-operation which we are looking
for, perhaps no difficulty could be much more serious than that of
engaging ourselves at home in an expense, the disappointment of
which might produce in the minds of the public an effect, both with
respect to the war itself and with respect to the Government which
supports it, of the most perilous description. It is very true that
great objects must sometimes be pursued at great hazards, and
nobody is more ready than I to acknowledge that a greater object
cannot be found than the successful prosecution of this war; but
the peculiar question of subsidy seems to me to apply chiefly to
the mode of carrying on the war, and, I would hope, not to the
entire decision of pursuing or abandoning it.
I will not again go over the same detail which I pursued in my
letter to the Duke of Portland, but satisfy myself with recalling
to your observation, that the Government here, in speaking of the
exertions which they should be driven to the necessity of making,
if the French should threaten the German empire, plainly admitted
that they do still possess resources capable of being applied to
such critical exigencies, and in this confession show pretty
plainly that nothing but the necessity of the case will drive them
to the use of those means. Is it not then probable that a much
greater exertion may be made by that necessity existing in our
refusal of subsidy, than will be made by such pecuniary assistance
being given, as may relieve them from the necessity of making any
exertion of their own?
If the immediate alarm on the side of Holland seems to be a
considerable inducement to the grant of the subsidy, in order to
interest Austria in that very important defence of which the
Netherlands make so essential a part, it should not, on the other
hand, escape notice, that all our observation on their language and
views would lead us very much to doubt how far they would
cordially concur in the defence of the Netherlands, even though
they might consent to do so in the words of their contract;
whatever value they may or may not themselves put upon the
possession of the Low Countries, they always argue and act under
the manifest persuasion, that the Maritime Powers are alone
interested enough in this point to secure its being ultimately
carried, and they give it pretty plainly to be understood, that
they mean to depend upon us for that object. Under this view, they
seem to me always disposed to consider the operations of the
Austrian army in another campaign as likely to be concentered for
efforts from the German frontier, by which means they will have a
more collected force more immediately applying to the Imperial
dominions, and better suited to the jealousies which they entertain
of the King of Prussia, but certainly not best adapted to the
defence of Holland, and the recovery of Brabant.
Perhaps I may be considered as carrying these suspicions too far,
but I own I cannot help fearing too, that the suggestion made by
them of mortgaging the Low Countries to us, is not as security for
the money in question in this and the next campaign, is not a _bona
fide_ offer of their best security, but is considered by them as a
fresh motive for interesting us in their possession of those
territories, and as contributing the more to make that object our
business, by either taking upon ourselves the whole defence of
them, or, what they rather look to, by our purchasing the cession
of them at the peace, by some of the acquisitions which Great
Britain has made in the war: a measure which they may have the more
hope for our concurrence in, if we have two millions lent out upon
the security only of the Austrians regaining those territories at
the peace.
Do not believe that these impressions are taken from any starving
principle of economy, or from a too timid apprehension of the
unpopularity of a subsidy in England; but be assured, that even if
there should be no difficulty at home as to this demand being
acquiesced in, I should retain the same doubts as to any
expectation of proportionate advantages resulting from it, and
should be inclined to believe that even if the whole amount of the
subsidy was to be expended, it might be more advantageously used in
the purchase of Hessians, Swiss, or any other such troops
absolutely at our disposal, in addition to the Austrians, than in
the proposed purchase of increased vigour and activity in the
government and army of this country: you cannot buy what they have
not to sell.
Sept. 14th, 1791.
The former part of this letter had already been written before I
received yours of the 11th of August, which did not reach me till
the 2nd instant. I am very sincerely rejoiced to find by it that
you have made your decision for Ireland, because I believe that
much good may be done there, by your taking that heavy load upon
your shoulders; and although you are wanted enough both in London
and Yorkshire, I am persuaded that for public objects you are still
most wanted at Dublin. I am not enough acquainted with the interior
there, to judge how far the means (as Government now stands) are
competent to the end, or to what degree you may be able to supply
all those links of connection between the two countries, which have
latterly appeared to be very much worn away and broken through. I
presume that it will be found easy enough to continue the same
negative course of administration, and that it will be a work of
great difficulty and delicacy for you to do all that you will think
should be done; I am, therefore, from a strong persuasion of the
arduousness of the task, well pleased to know that it is in such
good hands.
With respect to my undertaking the office of Secretary, I am very
far from being confident that I should be able to make myself, in
that situation, as useful to you as it undoubtedly should be made.
You know it is not the first moment in which I have expressed my
doubts as to that employment, since it is twelve years ago that the
same objections presented themselves to me; and if I still feel the
weight of them, it is not from any disinclination to pull at my oar
in the galley, or from any reluctance to take part in public
measures at a time when I think, as you do, that everything is at
stake; on the contrary, I confess that, all other considerations
put apart, I shall be gratified in making myself actively one of a
system with which the prosperity of the country will, I am
persuaded, be to stand or fall; and I shall be best gratified by
doing this in whatever shape it could be hoped that I should be
serviceable. To foreign mission, I own I know not how to reconcile
myself; and for Ireland, besides my own disinclination to it, I
should have thought Pelham better suited, as I have often told you.
But my own opinion upon this, as upon all other subjects, gives way
to the better judgment of my friends; and if the Duke of Portland
and you think, that in the present state of things, I should do
best to go to Ireland, I cannot say that I will not try it; sure I
am that your going there gives to the situation every advantage
which I can receive in it, and that if my engaging in it could
succeed, it is on every account as promising and gratifying to me
with you, as the situation itself can be made. Thus, therefore, it
stands, that my own inclination, if no difficulties stood in the
way, would rather lead me to any such employment at home as I might
be fit for, when any such offered itself; but no such destination
being easily found, if the Duke of Portland and you think it any
way desirable that I should go to Ireland, I will certainly
undertake it, and do the best I can in it; trusting always, that if
hereafter, when you are settled on your Irish throne, the chance of
events should make any home-situation of business practicable for
me, you would not object to any such arrangement if it could be
found.
The long delay which has prevented my sending a messenger when I
wrote the first sheet of this letter, has now so altered the events
of the negotiation that it is hardly worth sending to you, except
as a proof that want of opportunity, and not want of punctuality,
has prevented my letter reaching you at an earlier period.
The loss of the fortresses, at a moment when they had been
reluctantly induced here to make an effort to save them, is
vexatious in the extreme. They threaten the vengeance of a
court-martial on the officers who surrendered Valenciennes; but
what will that avail towards recovering these great objects, which
were equally material, both to the regaining of the Netherlands,
and to their security when reconquered?
The hopeless inactivity of this Court is too long a theme to write
upon, and will continue, I fear, to be a fertile source of
uneasiness. It is shocking to foresee that their assistance may be
as much wanted to save Holland as it was to save Valenciennes, and
may likewise be retarded till it is equally ineffectual.