e now had to deal; and yet
circumstances were of so pressing a nature, that he dared not, while the
smallest chance of success remained, abandon the progress of the
negotiation. The sentiments of the King of Prussia with regard to his
nearest neighbour, may be understood from the following entry in Lord
Malmesbury's diary:--"_Dec. 28, 1793._ Supper at Prince-Royal's. King told
me of bad news from Wurmser's army--that he had lost two battalions and
twenty-one pieces of cannon. _He seemed rather pleased with this bad
news_; but admitted that it would do harm by raising the spirits of the
Jacobins." In a note appended to this passage, it is added, that "this
feeling of hatred towards Austria was shared by every minister at Berlin,
and every officer in the Prussian army, and rendered all our efforts to
combine effectually the two nations against the French unavailing."

The prospects of the Allies became daily more gloomy. Wurmser, the
Austrian general, was driven back, the blockade of Landau raised, and this
moment was selected by the Prussian king and his ministers to force a
subsidy under the significant threat of an entire withdrawal of his army,
which for the present remained in a state of suspicious inactivity. Russia
at this juncture came forward to interfere. The Prince de Nassau, a
spurious dignitary and favourite of Catharine, arrived at Berlin with a
communication for Frederick William, urging him in the strongest manner to
act in concert with his allies, and representing very forcibly that the
partition of Poland, and the engagements he contracted for his share,
obliged him to continue the war, and that his own declarations and
manifestoes from the first, by his own confession, made him a principal in
it. Notwithstanding this good advice, the Empress cautiously abstained on
hinting at pecuniary succours, being probably aware that a Russian subsidy
would answer his majesty's purpose as well as one from England. Early in
the year 1794, the Duke of Brunswick resigned the command of the Prussian
forces. He was succeeded by Marshal Moellendorff--a soldier of some
reputation, but old, testy, and pragmatical.

After much time wasted in preliminaries, and continued threats on the part
of Prussia to withdraw immediately from the alliance unless subsidies were
forthcoming, Lord Malmesbury was empowered to make the following
proposals: Two millions sterling were to be given to the King of Prussia
to bring 100,000 men into