St. James's Square, Sept. 17th, 1794.
MY DEAREST BROTHER,
I have forwarded your letter to Tom, who will, I think, probably
set out from Vienna soon after the receipt of it. I should have
been very glad if I could have engaged him to stay there, but that,
I think, seems out of the question. I am not more sanguine in his
success than he is himself; and if my conjecture is right, at least
you will have the satisfaction of knowing that a subsidy is not
given to Austria. I own myself that if the situation of affairs
there had been such that one could, with propriety, have been
given, with a reasonable hope of adequate exertion in return, I
should never have signed any other instrument with as much pleasure
as the warrant for ratifying that agreement, whatever had been the
consequences of it. I have no other view of the contest in which we
are engaged, nor ever have had, than that the existence of the two
systems of Government is fairly at stake, and in the words of St.
Just, whose curious speech I hope you have seen, that it is perfect
blindness not to see that in the establishment of the French
Republic is included the overthrow of all the other Governments of
Europe. If this view of the subject is just, there can be worse
economy than that which spares the expense of present exertion, and
incurs the probability of increased risk, and the necessity of
protracted efforts. I believe, however, that all this reasoning
applies, in this instance at least, to a case which will not exist.
Our letters from Holland yesterday announced the execution of
Barrere and Co.; but so many false reports have come from thence,
that I do not give much faith to this, except from the probability
of the thing itself. The weakness which this state of things at
Paris occasions, in their efforts in the Low Countries, is very
encouraging, and would be much more so, if we were but in a
situation to profit of it.
Mulgrave's expedition has, I believe, completely performed its
object, and averted all danger for the present from that quarter.
The corps will now be broken up. In that event, Nugent has been
thought of to go to the West Indies with the command of a brigade,
and the local rank of Brigadier-General. I have taken it for
granted that this will be a thing agreeable to him, and have
therefore promoted it as far as I could, because it gives him the
opportunities of showing himself both in service and in command. If
you see it in the same light, perhaps, you would prefer throwing
out the idea to him before it is formally proposed to him, as he
might have difficulty in declining any proposal of service, even if
for any reason that I do not foresee this destination was not
agreeable to him.
I rejoice to think that your King's guard is almost over, which I
imagine must have been a troublesome business enough.
God bless you, my dearest brother.
The straw was now beginning to move in the direction of Ireland. Mr.
Ponsonby and his friends made no concealment of the expectations they
founded upon the advent of Lord Fitzwilliam; and reports were creeping
out, that with the change of men would come an entire change of
measures.