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.
I expect to be in England towards the 12th or 15th of November.
Ever very faithfully and affectionately yours,
T. G.
THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM TO MR. T. GRENVILLE.