This implied a ministerial change; and on 21st April Leeds returned the seals to the King after the Drawing Room at St. James’s Palace. Thus disappeared from the forefront of history a personality whose sprightliness and charm earned him a high place among the wits and amateur playwrights of that age, and whose jealousy for the honour of England at this crisis won the regard even of those who differed from him. He was far from being a great Foreign Minister. At every crisis Pitt took the reins into his own hands, and at other times the business of the Foreign Office went on somewhat loosely, Keith complaining at Vienna that in the year 1788 he received only one reply to fifty-three despatches sent from that capital.[1012] The Duke’s tenure of office was marked by two of the greatest triumphs ever won by peaceful means, namely, over France in 1787 and Spain in 1790; but these, as we have seen, were essentially the work of Pitt. There could be but one successor to Leeds. Grenville, though a far from attractive personality, possessed qualities of shrewdness, good sense, and untiring assiduity. He was strong where Leeds was weak, namely, in system, thoroughness, and equability; but he was weak where Leeds was strong, namely, in managing men. George III certainly approved of the accession of Grenville to power, and sent to him the seals on the same day. After some delay, arising from Pitt’s desire that Cornwallis should succeed Grenville at the Home Office, Dundas took that appointment.[1013]
On 20th April, then, Ewart was instructed to return to Berlin for the purpose of explaining to Frederick William that the difficulties arising from the trend of public opinion and the opportunity afforded by the Danish proposals induced the British Government to seek for a peaceful compromise with Russia. Pitt also urged the desirability of Austria joining the Triple Alliance. As to the new Russo-Turkish boundary, it should be fixed if possible East of the Dniester, namely, at Lake Telegul, the lands eastward up to the River Bug being also left a desert.[1014]
Ewart arrived at Potsdam on 29th April (a remarkably quick journey), and found Frederick William in a gracious mood. The King agreed to Pitt’s new proposals, and highly approved of the overtures to Austria. While expressing mortification at the change of front towards Russia, he assured Ewart of his belief in the good intentions of the British Ministry. It is easy to see that Frederick William felt some relief at the prospect of avoiding a war, of which nearly all his counsellors expressed disapproval. Hertzberg on 24th April assured Lucchesini that a war with Russia would probably be the tomb of the Prussian monarchy.[1015] There was, indeed, every need for caution, owing to the doubtful attitude of Austria. Lord Elgin followed the Emperor Leopold to Florence for the purpose of urging him to join the Triple Alliance; but, while receiving the overture with Tuscan graciousness, he in effect waived it aside. In vain did our envoy follow the Emperor from city to city for some weeks, and urge him to join the Allies. Leopold, with his usual penetration, saw that the situation favoured the two Empires, provided that they held together; and Pitt’s offer appeared to him merely an ingenious means of separating them. Further, Kaunitz detected the rift in the Anglo-Prussian concert, and the hatred of England which pervaded the letters of Marie Antoinette to the Emperor may also have strengthened his resolve to dally with Pitt’s proposals, even while he took the most effective means of thwarting them. The Polish Revolution of 3rd May 1791, soon to be described, also led Leopold to draw closer to Russia. Thus, despite affable converse with Elgin in the towns of Lombardy, he instructed his envoys at Sistova to raise their demands and assume an arrogant tone. The Turks received this rebuff with oriental composure, and, having the support of Keith and Lucchesini, resisted this flagrant attempt of Austria to shuffle out of the Reichenbach compact. Accordingly the early days of June 1791 witnessed a break in the negotiations and a rapid increase of warlike preparations on the Danube—a turn of affairs highly favourable to Catharine.[1016]
The indignation of Pitt and Grenville at the double-dealing of Leopold finds expression in a note of the latter to Auckland (6th July): “If the Emperor does break faith with us at last, he does it in a manner so directly and personally disgraceful to himself, that it is hard to suppose he can make up his mind to hear all that he must hear in such a case.”[1017] In these words we see the cause of the distrust of the Emperor which clogged all attempts at an Anglo-Austrian compact directed against French democracy. Events, therefore, told heavily against Pitt’s efforts to bring about an honourable compromise with Russia. Nothing, however, is further from the truth than to represent his offers to Catharine as a humiliating surrender. The instructions to Fawkener, the special envoy to St. Petersburg, were as follows: Either the whole of the Oczakoff territory as far west as the River Dniester should be left neutral and uninhabited; or it should become Russian on condition of lying waste; or the Russian boundary should be drawn east of the Dniester, no fortress being constructed in the ceded territory.[1018] It is worth noting that the Turkish envoy at Berlin thought these terms satisfactory. Fawkener was to agree to the third and least desirable alternative only in case Austria proved obdurate. But in this respect he was allowed a certain latitude, provided that Turkey retained adequate means of defence on that side. In order to avoid any appearance of menace, the British fleet was not to enter the Baltic or the Black Sea, a resolve much resented at Berlin and Warsaw.[1019]
Frederick William received Fawkener most cordially at Sans Souci on 11th May. He showed some concern at the Manchester petition to Pitt, as it would stiffen the tone of the Czarina; he urged the sending of a British squadron to the Black Sea to ward off the threatened attack on Constantinople, and stated his preference for the third of the alternatives named by Grenville. Fawkener therefore felt bound to place it first in his proposals to the Czarina: and it is noteworthy that Prussian diplomacy once again favoured a concession to Catharine larger than Pitt was disposed to grant. Inward satisfaction at the course of events was, as usual, accompanied by many sneers at the weakness of British policy.[1020] Gustavus of Sweden adopted a similar tone. He assured Liston of his readiness to receive the British fleet and to arm against Russia, provided that the Allies would grant him the needful subsidies. Liston, knowing his shiftiness, received these offers with polite incredulity. Certainly they had no effect at Whitehall.
Pitt’s change of front ruined his influence in the North;[1021] and in diplomacy prestige counts for so much that Catharine had virtually won her case by the end of May. Fawkener arrived at St. Petersburg on 24th May, and soon found himself involved in a series of gorgeous fêtes which proclaimed the wealth and power of the Empress and her entire indifference to all that England might do. For the irksome details of business he was referred to the Ministers and Prince Potemkin. The latter boasted in his lordly way of his resolve to seize Constantinople, wage eternal war on the miscreant Turks, and finally conquer Egypt. After a delay of three weeks the Empress received Fawkener graciously at a ball; she assured him of her admiration of Burke’s “Reflections” on the French Revolution, and expressed her horror of that event as well as her regret at the sympathy of Fox with it. She petted her grandson, Alexander, and ostentatiously avoided all reference to the subject of Fawkener’s mission, except that, when a dog chanced opportunely to bark, she said, “Dogs that bark do not always bite.” So matters dragged on, it being the aim of Catharine to gain another success on the Danube, to win over Leopold definitely to her side (as Fawkener found to be the case by 21st June), and to sow discord among Britons.[1022]
In this last she achieved a startling success. On 17th June there arrived at St. Petersburg Mr. (afterwards Sir) Robert Adair, who later on was to figure as a diplomatist under the Ministry of Fox and that of All the Talents. We may accept his solemn declaration, in a letter written in the year 1842, that Fox had no hand in sending him on this so-called “mission”;[1023] but we are able to correct Adair’s version in several respects, from documents in the “Pitt Papers,” which Bishop Tomline, when challenged by Adair, thought fit to withhold.[1024]
Adair asserted in 1842 that his object in going to Russia was not to oppose Pitt’s policy of recovering Oczakoff, because that Minister had already renounced it in obedience to the mandate of Parliament. This, as we have seen, is incorrect; for when Adair left England, in May 1791, warlike preparations were still going on.[1025] He admits that Fox said to him before starting, “Well: if you are determined to go, send us all the news”; and that Fox provided him with a cipher so that that news might elude the prying eyes of British diplomatists. It may be, as Adair says, that he and he alone was accountable for this odd attempt to direct the foreign policy of his country. But it is highly probable that Vorontzoff (Woronzow), the Russian ambassador in London, abetted the scheme. On 2nd May Whitworth wrote that Vorontzoff’s despatches had given great satisfaction at the Russian capital. “He assures his Court that Russia has many friends and partisans in England, and affirms pretty positively that His Majesty’s Ministry will have no small difficulty in carrying through their measures contrary to the interest of the country.”[1026] Further, the account of Adair’s “mission,” given by William Lindsay, Whitworth’s secretary, states that Adair came with strong letters of recommendation from Vorontzoff, while the Duchess of Devonshire commended him to Whitworth. He travelled viâ Vienna, where he stayed with the Russian ambassador. At St. Petersburg he at first received countenance from the British embassy, owing to the high recommendations which he brought with him, and he was presented at Court by Whitworth himself!
Thus Adair found his path everywhere strewn with flowers. Catharine smiled on him and plied him with important questions, ironically asking him whether the British fleet had set sail. Fawkener, on the other hand, she treated with marked coldness. The British embassy, however, had its revenge; for Lindsay opened the letters, which Adair trustfully asked him to take to London, and apparently was able to decipher the ciphered parts, which gave hints to Fox for an attack on Pitt. But Adair was more than a purveyor of hints for the Whig orators. It is clear that he stiffened the resistance of the Russian Government. “He shows,” so Whitworth wrote privately to Grenville, on 21st July, “the most virulent opposition to His Majesty’s measures, and takes great pains to counteract the negotiation.”[1027] In official documents Whitworth and Fawkener depict him as a vain, meddlesome, ignorant person, concerned with stockjobbing no less than with diplomacy. But it is certain that his presence at St. Petersburg, and the biassed information which he supplied, greatly harmed the cause of the Allies; and Pitt, after seeing copies of Adair’s letters, was justified in hinting that his action had prejudiced the success of Britain’s efforts at St. Petersburg. As for Fox, Catharine showed her regard for him by placing his bust between those of Demosthenes and Cicero in her palace; and Adair, on his departure, received from the hands of Potemkin a ring containing her miniature.[1028]
Such is the story of this singular “mission.” Even before its details were fully known at Whitehall, Ministers debated whether they should not take action against Adair. On 29th July Grenville wrote to Auckland, à propos also of a recent letter of Fox to Barnave: “Is not the idea of Ministers from Opposition to the different Courts of Europe a new one in this country? I never heard of it before, and should think that, if it can be proved, I mean legally proved, it would go very near to an impeachable misdemeanour.”[1029] Ministers, however, decided to treat Adair’s “mission” with the silence of contempt. Probably their judgement was correct; for the finesse of Vorontzoff and Catharine, if fully revealed to the world, would have covered the Opposition with obloquy, but the Cabinet with ridicule; and in politics the latter alternative is more to be feared. Apart, therefore, from one scornfully vague reference by Pitt to the damage done to the nation’s interests by a partisan intrigue at St. Petersburg, little was heard of the affair.