(Private.) Vienna, Sept. 1st, 1794.
MY DEAR BROTHER,
If M. de Thugut is waiting with impatience the result of M. de
Merey's negotiation, you will easily believe that we have no less
impatience to know your decisions upon that subject, though you
will have seen that Lord Spencer and I have not been able to teach
ourselves to wish that the pecuniary demands may, or ought to be,
gratified by us. If they had confined themselves to asking only
such a temporary assistance as might have given a more immediate
spring to the vigorous movement which we are urging them to make, I
should have been as little disposed as anybody could to withhold
any practicable facilities of that description; but to the extent
to which they steadily continue to point, I own I feel myself too
little satisfied as to the equity of their claim upon us, and as to
the probability of their acting fairly and manfully up to the great
exertions which they ask from us, to entertain much disposition
towards those demands.
They dwell certainly upon the difference which they state between
loan and subsidy, and wish to prove to us that their offer of
security upon the revenues of the Low Countries should, at least by
us (who always insist on those territories remaining in the House
of Austria), be accepted as a good and ample mortgage for the
repayment of the sums which they want for this year and the next;
but if it is true that they do not feel interested at heart in
these possessions, or if they think us so earnest in our wishes on
this subject, that they may safely throw the whole weight of it
upon us, their offer of a _hypotheque_ on those possessions takes a
much more suspicious character; nor is it, perhaps, an unreasonable
jealousy on my part to apprehend that they may wish you to have a
mortgage of two millions on the Netherlands, as an inducement to
you hereafter to give up some of your French acquisitions in the
West Indies, in order to recover for them a country, in which you
will have a larger pecuniary stake, added to the ordinary course of
political observations.
Much at least of Thugut's conversation would seem to tally with
this view of the matter. It is observable that he perpetually
recurs to its being a settled point, that _de facon ou d'autre_ the
Netherlands will be secured to Austria at the peace, and yet he
never seems (in his view of the military operations to be pursued)
to consider them as a main object of defence, and is so little
disposed to make them so, that he expresses much reluctance at the
idea proposed, of engaging Austria to furnish so large an army, _to
act in that country_, which he thinks might be better employed
elsewhere. Add to this, his remarking that England might be
satisfied by the irrecoverable detriment done to the navy and
commerce of France, and his contrasting the difference in point of
acquisitions made by Great Britain, with the total failure on the
side of Austria; and it is no great refinement to suspect the whole
of this to lead to an expectation that we may better buy back the
Netherlands for them, than put them to the expense of defending
them or regaining them; and that we should have an additional
motive for sacrificing some of our conquests to this object, if we
have two millions of money mortgaged upon it.
Of the advantage which may be expected at home from adopting this
shape of lending upon security, rather than of furnishing a direct
subsidy, I do not well know how to judge; but unless the security
could be shown to be in itself substantial, and of a nature to be
easily got at by those to whom it was due, I should doubt whether
the public at home would be better reconciled to it than to a
direct and acknowledged subsidy. The very small proportion of
effect produced by the large payments this year to the King of
Prussia, will create much indisposition to the incurring of a
similar expense again, unless it can be shown to promise, upon good
probable grounds, a much better return than we have had; and,
generally speaking, I cannot but fear that the mere difference in
point of exertion which we can hope from this country, may not turn
out to be worth the purchase-money in the estimation of the country
at large, though I should hope they might easily acquiesce in a
very considerable exertion, if a great manifest exertion of
strength, fairly disposable to the course of the war, could be
procured by pecuniary aids. What inducement there may be to this
measure, from any apprehension of the Emperor's withdrawing from
the war, is another part of the question, upon which I can form no
more correct judgment than belongs to the observation of a very
short residence here.
Lord Malmesbury hints to me a suspicion of a proposed concert
between the Emperor and the King of Prussia, to compel the Maritime
Powers to make peace, though he appears to give no great credit to
it. Certain it is, that in the month which we have past here, one
of the most striking features of the conversation, both of
Ministers and individuals, has been a hatred and aversion to
Prussia, by Thugut, too, particularly marked towards Lucchesini, of
whom he never scruples to speak to us in terms of the most
unqualified dislike; so that as far as can be collected from what
we hear, there ought to be no ground to suspect any plan of
intimate concert between his Court and Berlin.
It is possible, to be sure, that independently of any such concert,
the Government here, if unassisted by money from us, might
endeavour to withdraw from the prosecution of the war; but, as we
have had no reason to expect any ultimate success to the
propositions which _we_ brought here, we have endeavoured, as much
as possible, to learn what their conduct would be in failure of the
proposed Convention, and to consider them in all that we have said
as equally bound to continue in their co-operations with us
according to the existing agreement, whether any new arrangement
should succeed or not. To this view they have not only acceded
always in distinct terms, when urged by us, but they have
frequently stated this of their own accord, confining themselves
only to the observation, that their means are limited, and will no
longer allow of the exertions which they wish; but solemnly
protesting against any present idea of peace, and always expressing
their belief that Prussia is now desirous of peace being made,
because, in the present situation of things, it might probably be
made to the disadvantage of Austria. Unless, therefore, their
opinions should be disguised to a degree which I cannot well
believe, or should undergo an entire change, I do not see what
ground there is to suspect in them any intention of abandoning the
war, though I can entertain no great hopes of such a vigorous
prosecution of it as we might wish and expect from them.
There is but one opinion as to the Emperor's inclinations on this
subject, and if his personal character had steadiness enough to
influence the Government, his disposition to the true principles of
the war would be a great security to us; at present, however, it is
of little or no avail; and it is much to be lamented in times like
the present, that though there is no dislike entertained to him,
there is not either the respect or consideration which ought to be
attached to his situation, to make it tell with any of the effects
one wishes to derive from it. With respect to his Ministers, you
have seen too much of our remarks upon the striking features of
their conduct, to make it necessary for me in every letter to
repeat them. Thugut is certainly the only efficient Minister here:
very diligent and laborious in his office, he seems to have
acquired an influence here by being the only man of business about
the Court; and with this recommendation has reached a situation
which the nobility of the country are mortified to see him hold,
because he has no pretensions to hereditary rank, and because they
have been used to see that office for many years filled by Prince
Kavnitz. What _we_, however, miss in him is, either the disposition
or capacity to see the present great crisis of Europe upon the
large scale on which it should be looked at by the leading Minister
of this empire; instead of which, we see in all our discussions a
cold, narrow, and contracted view of this subject, infinitely too
languid and little for the object, and made peculiarly unfavourable
to our propositions, by the disinclination which he certainly feels
to concur heartily with us in the great interests attached to the
Austrian possession of the Low Countries. We have, it is true,
obtained from him assurances of concerting an immediate plan for
the relief of Valenciennes; but even this has not been obtained
without many discouraging tokens of that total want of manly energy
and direct dealing, without which all co-operation must necessarily
be languid and feeble: always taking merit for having sent the most
distinct orders to try the relief of Valenciennes, yet never taking
the obvious mode of satisfying us by communicating those orders to
us; maintaining as an argument for the loan, that without it the
army cannot move, yet at the same time resisting our objections of
the delay of waiting for answers from M. de Merey, by stating this
movement as being actually in great forwardness, and not depending
upon the loan for its execution; acquiescing in the change of
command urged by us, and yet ever since that event reminding us
that in his opinion this very change may defeat the operation which
we wished to assist by it; gratifying our impatience at one time by
counting up the days to the probable time of the desired movement,
and then again stating that Clairfayt's army may be weakened too
much to attempt it by his detaching, perhaps considerably, towards
the side of Treves; complaining that the Austrians had been
prevented from sending Blankenstein's corps towards Flanders, as
they wished, by the Prussians having engaged it in their line of
defence, and yet refusing to us a corps much more inconsiderable,
and not involved in the objection--I mean the corps of Conde--a
corps, too, which, as I have before observed, from their own
statement of their want of money, they should have been glad to
have seen transferred to the pay of another country.
These, and many other such traits of inconsistency, I advert to
only as being descriptive of the very unsatisfactory manner in
which our business is discussed, always providing on their side
apologies for future failures, instead of means of success, and
projects of vigour and enterprize. Yet though the shortness of our
possible residence here makes this inanimate character of the
Government a bar to that immediate spirit and alacrity which, for
the purposes of the present crisis, it was highly desirable to
create here, so as to act upon instantaneously; much, I should
suppose, may be done after our return, by any person of steadiness
and activity, in the course of an established residence here, there
being certainly fair grounds for the most intimate union between
the two countries, and appearances enough of general inclination
towards it, though traversed for the present by their hopes of
fighting at our cost, and by the unfavourable turn of M. Thugut's
mind upon the subject of the Netherlands. For this purpose, the
sooner a regular Minister is appointed here the better; because
though the opening of the subsequent campaign is at present distant
enough, the dilatory habits of this Government make every moment
more precious than it should be; and the points, both of the
barrier and the Dutch indemnity, may be found longer in discussion
than they were expected to be when I left London, particularly upon
the former of those two subjects, on which the future possession
of Dunkirk and Givet must, perhaps, be distinctly explained.
We have heard of Lord Malmesbury's intention to quit Frankfort on
the 10th of September, and we have read the formal acceptance,
signed by him, of the military concert of the 26th July; you will
already have seen, in our despatch No. 5, our apprehensions of the
inconvenience of placing Clairfayt's army in any state of
dependance upon the Prussian line, as we are always afraid that the
Prussians may, by a nominal concert upon this subject, become a
real hindrance, and throw difficulties in the way of the proposed
enterprise for the relief of Valenciennes. In this view, therefore,
we had certainly rather have seen Lord Malmesbury remaining at
least till the movement in question had actually been carried into
effect; and the more so, as we have always kept their fears a
little quiet here, by promising that Lord Malmesbury, at Frankfort,
should look to and strictly watch the operations of Marshal
Mollendorff's army. I take for granted, however, that you will
provide as well as you can against the inconveniences which in this
shape may arise, and we shall likewise mention it to Lord M.
Ever, my dear brother,
Most affectionately yours,
T. G.