On 2nd October the Allies compelled the enemy to retreat from Bergen; but the success was of little service. The defenders, now strongly reinforced, held several good positions between Alkmaar and Amsterdam. Meanwhile the Orange party did not stir. Torrents of rain day after day impaired the health of the troops and filled the dykes. An advance being impossible in these circumstances, the Duke of York retreated to the line of the Zuype (8th to 9th October). There he could have held his own; but, in view of the disasters in Switzerland, Ministers decided to evacuate Holland (15th October). Accordingly, by the Convention of Alkmaar, on the 18th, the Duke of York agreed to evacuate the Dutch Netherlands by the end of November, 8,000 of the prisoners of war then in England being restored. Most questionable was the decision of Ministers to evacuate the Helder and the Texel. Grenville desired to hold those posts as bases for a second attempt in 1800; but this was not done. The only result, then, was the capture of the Dutch fleet, a prize gained without loss by the end of September.
The censures bestowed on this undertaking are very natural. Success was scarcely possible in the narrow, marshy strip of land north of Amsterdam. In such a district victory must be costly, while defeat spelt disaster. The whole enterprise was unwarrantable, unless the Orange party was about to rise; but on this subject Ministers were deceived. The Prince of Orange and his son assured them that it was necessary even to hold back the loyalists until armed help appeared, so eager were they to expel the French.[524] Not a sign of this eagerness appeared.
Undaunted by this failure, which Sheridan wittily called nibbling at the French rind, Pitt sought to utilize the Russian force withdrawn from Holland for the projected blow at Brest. It was therefore taken to the Channel Islands, greatly to the hurt of the inhabitants. Pitt and Grenville also concerted plans with the Austrian Court, which, chastened by the disasters in Switzerland, now displayed less truculence. It agreed to repay the loan of May 1797, to restore Piedmont to the House of Savoy, and to give back to France any provinces conquered in the war, on condition of the re-establishment of monarchy. Thus, a friendly understanding was at last arrived at; and on 24th December 1799 Grenville empowered Minto to prepare a treaty, adding that on the first opportunity the French Government should be informed of this engagement.
The occasion occurred at once. Bonaparte, having become master of France by the coup d'état of Brumaire (10th November), wrote on Christmas Day to Francis II and George III proposing terms of peace. The statesmanlike tone of that offer has been deservedly admired; but his motives in making it do not concern us here.[525] Suffice it to say that Pitt and Thugut saw in it a clever device for sundering the Anglo-Austrian compact. As appears from a letter of Canning, Pitt looked on the new Consular Government as a make-shift. Writing early in December to Canning, Pitt stated that the new French constitution might prove to be of a moderate American kind. To this Canning answered on the 7th that it might perhaps last long enough to admit of Bonaparte sending off a courier to London and receiving the reply if he were kicked back. Or more probably, France would fall under a military despotism, "of the actual and manifest instability of which you seem to entertain no doubt." In answer to Pitt's statement "that we ought not to commit ourselves by any declaration that the restoration of royalty is the sine qua non condition of peace," Canning advised him to issue a declaration "that you would treat with a monarchy; that to the monarchy restored to its rightful owner you would give not only peace, but peace on the most liberal terms."
Clearly, then, Pitt was less royalist than Canning; but he decided to repel all overtures from Paris (so he wrote to Dundas on 31st December), because the condition of France did not provide a solid security for a peace. He added that he desired "to express strongly the eagerness with which we should embrace any opening for general peace whenever such solid security should be attainable. This may, I think, be so expressed as to convey to the people of France that the shortest road to peace is by effecting the restoration of Royalty, and thereby to increase the chance of that most desirable of all issues to the war." As Grenville and Dundas concurred in this view, the Foreign Office sent off a reply stating that the usual diplomatic forms would be observed; that His Majesty sought only to maintain the rights of his subjects against a war of aggression; and that the present time was unsuitable for negotiations with persons recently placed in power by a Revolution, until they should disclaim the restless and subversive schemes which threatened the framework of society. His Majesty, however, would welcome peace when it could be attained with security, the best pledge of which would be the restoration of Royalty.
This reply ranks among the greatest mistakes of the time. It made the name of the Bourbons odious and that of Bonaparte popular throughout France; and the scornful references to the First Consul's insecurity must have re-doubled the zeal of Frenchmen for the erection of a truly national and monarchical system under his auspices. In truth, it is difficult to see why Pitt, who held out the olive-branch to the newly-established Directory in the autumn of 1795, should have repelled the proffered hand of Bonaparte. The probable explanation is that he thought more of the effect of the reply at Vienna than at Paris. On 6th January Grenville forwarded a copy to Minto, expressing also the hope that it would be regarded as a sign of the fidelity of England to the Emperor. Further, Pitt's oration on 3rd February 1800 on this topic was marked by extreme acerbity against Bonaparte. He descanted on his perfidy and rapacity at the expense of Venice and the Sultan's dominions, and deprecated a compact with "this last adventurer in the lottery of Revolutions.... As a sincere lover of peace," he added, "I will not sacrifice it by grasping at the shadow, when the reality is not substantially within my reach. Cur igitur pacem nolo? Quia infida est, quia periculosa, quia esse non potest."[526] In reply to a verbal challenge from Tierney a fortnight later, he fired off an harangue which ranks among the ablest and most fervid of improvisations. The Whig leader having defied him to state in one sentence without ifs and buts the object of the war, Pitt flung back the retort:
... I know not whether I can do it in one sentence, but in one word I can tell him that it is security; security against a danger the greatest that ever threatened the world; ... against a danger which has been resisted by all the nations of Europe, and resisted by none with so much success as by this nation, because by none has it been resisted so uniformly and with so much energy.... How or where did the honourable gentleman discover that the Jacobinism of Robespierre, of Barère, of the Triumvirate, of the Five Directors, which he acknowledged to be real, has vanished and disappeared because it has all been centred and condensed into one man, who was reared and nursed in its bosom, whose celebrity was gained under its auspices, who was at once the child and champion of all its atrocities and horrors? Our security in negotiation is to be this Buonaparte, who is now the sole organ of all that was formerly dangerous and pestiferous in the Revolution.... If peace afford no prospect of security; if it threaten all the evils which we have been struggling to avert; if the prosecution of the war afford the prospect of attaining complete security; and if it may be prosecuted with increasing commerce, with increasing means, and with increasing prosperity, except what may result from the visitations of the seasons; then I say it is prudent in us not to negotiate at the present moment. These are my buts and my ifs. This is my plea, and on no other do I wish to be tried by God and my country.
One who heard that spirited retort left on record the profound impression which it produced on the House.[527]
Seeing that Bonaparte was then known merely as an able condottiere, not as the re-organizer of French society, Pitt's haughty attitude, though deplorable, is intelligible. The prospects of the war were not unfavourable. He hoped that Austria, now about to invade Nice and Savoy, would be able by her own efforts to reduce France within her old limits, England's duty being to offer help on the Riviera, to make a dash at Brest, and to seize Belleisle as a base of supplies for the Breton royalists, now once more in revolt. It is significant that Dundas wrote to Pitt on 4th January expressing his belief that Bonaparte must be serious in his desire for peace because he had no other game to play.[528]