Supposing that yes were decided, let me ask you whether your remaining some time longer at Vienna, so as finally to conclude, not the leading points only, but all the details of the arrangement now in question, and of the preparations for the active scene of next year, is wholly out of the question? It seems very clear that no arrangement will happen before that time which can change the Irish Government, and in the meanwhile you would be honourably and most usefully employed. I have, however, not hinted this idea to any individual, nor will I. If all this is wholly out of the question, I conclude that my reply to your answer to these despatches, will bring to Lord Spencer and you the King's permission to return to England.
It would be very satisfactory to you to see how well things are going on here, and how completely our hopes have been realized on the subject which employed so much of our time and thoughts this summer.
God bless you, my dearest brother.
At this time, the new changes in the Administration, already alluded to, were under discussion in the Cabinet; and, amongst the rest, it was proposed that the government of Ireland should be offered to Lord Fitzwilliam. As soon as this appointment was suggested, his Lordship wrote to Mr. Thomas Grenville to offer him the office of Secretary.
MR. THOMAS GRENVILLE TO EARL FITZWILLIAM.
(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 bonâ 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.