[230] A large number of troops were assembled at Bagshot Camp on July 23, and were reviewed by the king on July 26, and engaged in sham-fights on July 27, 30, 31.
[231] On May 21, 1792, the king issued a proclamation against tumultuous meetings and seditious writings. Both Houses concurred in an address of thanks to the king for the proclamation (June 1). The question divided the Whig party, the majority of which from this time supported Pitt. Fox for the next few years scarcely mustered fifty followers.
[232] Lord Sheffield expressed an opinion which at the time was common. The sympathy which was avowed by leading Nonconformists with some of the objects of the Revolution was not unnaturally misinterpreted at a period of public excitement. Dr. Price was chairman of the Revolution Society, which corresponded with various societies in France. Their correspondence with French clubs was published in 1792; but it is significant that the letters on the king's escape and subsequent arrest, sent to the Jacobin Club in 1791, the existence of which was revealed by the answer of the Jacobins, were omitted from the publication. Dr. Priestley, subsequently elected to the National Convention, presided at the meeting of the Unitarian Society at the King's Head Tavern, in February, 1791, when, among other toasts, "Thomas Paine and the Rights of Man," and "The National Assembly of France, and may every tyrannical government undergo a similar revolution," were drunk with enthusiasm. Such distinguished Nonconformists as Dr. Kippis, Dr. Rees, and Dr. Towers were also prominent members of these or similar societies. The Society of Constitutional Whigs, who addressed the National Assembly in the autumn of 1792, declaring that, if any attempt were made to enslave the French people, they would die in their defence, also appealed to Dissenters. In A Few Queries to the Methodists in General occurs the following:—"Query: Does not both reason and revelation teach us, that in order to lay the axe at the root of the tree of wickedness, we must begin with kings and princes, and bishops and priests?"
[233] Lord Chancellor Thurlow, whose influence with the king was immense, and whose intrigues with Fox at the time of the Regency Bill were well known, opposed Pitt's Sinking Fund and the Bill for the encouragement of the growth of timber in the New Forest, and denounced his colleagues as traitors to the interest of their sovereign. He was dismissed from the Lord Chancellorship in June, 1792.
[234] The actual fusion of parties did not take place till July, 1794, when Lord Camden had died and Lord Stafford retired, and Dundas, retaining the Colonies, resigned the Secretaryship at War to Windham. It was delayed by the indecision of the Duke of Portland, of whom Lady Malmesbury said, "The Duke of Portland is our Duke of Brunswick—no party will be led to victory by either" (Life and Letters of Sir G. Elliot, vol. ii. p. 72).
[235] Lord Loughborough, Lord Malmesbury, the Duke of Portland, and Dundas attempted to effect a coalition between Pitt and Fox in the summer and autumn of 1792. The negotiations failed. "Fox," says Lord Malmesbury (July 30, 1792), "made Pitt's quitting the Treasury a sine quâ non, and was so opinionative and fixed about it, that it was impossible even to reason with him on the subject." "You see how it is," said Burke; "Mr. Fox's coach stops the way."
[236] Lord Guilford, better known as Lord North, died August 5, 1792.
[237] Sir Joshua Reynolds died February 23, 1792.
[238] The Duke of Brunswick, as commander-in-chief of the combined armies of Austria and Prussia, issued his manifesto on July 25, 1792, before crossing the French frontier and directing his march on Paris.
[239] Lally left France for Switzerland after October, 1789, and thence passed to England. Realizing the dangerous position of the king and royal family, he returned to Paris in May, 1792, and with Bertrand-Molleville, Malouet, La Fayette, and others, endeavoured to effect the escape of the king and queen. On August 10, 1792, he was arrested and imprisoned in the Abbaye. On August 22, 1792, ten days before the September massacres, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs informed the National Assembly that Lally Tollendal demanded a passport for England, of which country he had become a naturalized subject. He also produced a letter from Lord Gower claiming Lally as a British subject. According to Madame de Staël he owed his escape to Condorcet.