That was all his lordship had to say about it, but, as Worth had correctly surmised, he was too busy to have any time to waste on the love affairs of his staff.
He had got his Army together, but spoke of it in the most disparaging terms, and was continually being chafed by the want of horses and equipment. General Decken's demands were rapacious: he could do nothing with the fellow, and would be obliged to refer the whole question of the Hanoverian subsidy to the Government. King William had taken some nonsense into his head over the junction of the Nassau contingent, under General Kruse, with the Dutch-Belgian troops, and was in one of his huffs. It was very difficult to know what went on in that froggish head, but his lordship believed the trouble to have arisen largely out of the Duke of Nassau's failure to write formally to His Majesty on the subject of these troops. Well, if the King could not have them his lordship would be obliged to make some other arrangement.
He had had an exasperating letter from his Royal highness the Duke of Cambridge, putting a scheme before him for the augmentation of the German Legion by volunteers from the Hanoverian line regiments. If the Royal Dukes would be a little less busy his lordship would be the better pleased. A nice feeling of dissatisfaction there would be if any such measures were put into action!
"Both the Legion and the line would be disorganised exactly at the moment I should require their services," he wrote, and enclosed for his Royal Highness's digestion a copy of the objections to the precious scheme which he had sent to Lord Bathurst.
In polite circles he was still being flippant about the chances of war, but occasionally he dropped the pretence now. When Georgiana Lennox mentioned a pleasure party to Lille, or Tournay, which some officer had projected, he said decidedly: "No, better let that drop."
He gratified Mr Creevey by talking to him in the most natural way, joining him in the Park one day where Mr Creevey was walking with his stepdaughter . He spoke quite frankly of the debates in Parliament on the war, and Mr Creevey, finding him so accessibly asked with one of his twinkling, penetrating glance "Now then, will you let me ask you, Duke, what you-think you will make of it?"
"By God!" said his lordship, standing still. "I think Blucher and myself can do the thing!"
"Do you calculate upon any desertion in Bonaparte's army?" enquired Creevey.
No, his lordship did not reckon upon a man. We may pick up a marshal or two," he added, "but not worth a damn."
Mr Creevey mentioned the French King's troops at Alost, but that made his lordship give one of his whoops of laughter. "Oh! Don't mention such fellows!" he said. "No, no! I think Blucher and I can do the business!" He saw a British soldier strolling along at some little distance, and pointed to him. "There," he said. "It all depends on that article whether we do the business or not. Give me enough of it, and I am sure."