Meantime, all is going on prosperously under the active exertions of Suwaroff, who is daily hemming in and menacing Turin, and who has now advanced to Chivasso, and has detached Kaim with a considerable force to the Valais. The general opinion here is that the French will evacuate Switzerland whenever their line at Luceinsteig and Coire is forced, and some accounts to-day seem to announce that event as having happened.
Moreau, with seventeen thousand men, is at Alexandria, and I suppose the Naples army will try to join him, although Macdonald will find that junction rather difficult to accomplish.
We are all still waiting in anxious expectation for news of the fleet. The Ministers here think the Mediterranean is the object, and to me it seems not unlikely that they may pursue that object, and at the same time detach to Ireland.
God bless you, dearest brother.
The occupation which was given by the Austrians and Russians to the French troops in Italy and Germany, appearing to offer a favourable opportunity to rescue Holland from the hands of the republicans, an expedition, under the command of Sir Ralph Abercromby, set sail from England on the 13th of August, and disembarked off the Helder. On the 30th, the Dutch fleet surrendered, and hoisted the Orange flag. In order, probably, to give more weight and effect to a mission which had for its object the restoration of the Stadtholder, it was proposed that Lord Grenville should undertake an embassy to Holland, and that Mr. Thomas Grenville (who had in the interim returned home) should proceed to St. Petersburg.
LORD GRENVILLE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.
Dropmore, Sept. 5th, 1799.
My dearest Brother,
I was much obliged to you for your kindness to us in writing on the subject of Lady B. We earnestly hope that all cause of uneasiness to you on her account has ceased, and that both fever and cold are gone. If you would let anybody write us a line to say so, you would much oblige us.
You will have seen that, in spite of wind, we have succeeded at the Texel. The Lieutenant says that the Dutch fleet had cut the buoys, and run up into the Zuyder Zee. Lord D. was preparing to lay the buoys down again, and to follow them, but it was not expected that Storey would make any further resistance, more than half his fleet being Stadtholderians.
The wind is now changed to the N.E., as if to bring our Russians. The Dutch reported that they were to have had nine thousand French at the Helder by the Wednesday night, but that is doubted. I have not learnt what their actual force is, but it appears that there were some Trench there. We have now about seventeen thousand men there, and when the transports return, we can, if necessary, send ten thousand more, besides our eighteen thousand Russians. I trust, therefore, I am not very sanguine in thinking the business as nearly certain as one can allow oneself to call anything in these times.