d have compensation in Germany.
There was some further futile talk about what both parties then as
before, and thereafter to the end, considered the very nerve of their
contention. Malmesbury went home toward the close of December, and
soon after, Hoche's fleet was wrecked in the Channel. The result of
the British mission was to clarify the issues, to consolidate British
patriotism once more, to reopen the war on a definite basis. Hoche was
assigned to the Army of the Sambre and Meuse, declaring he would first
thunder at the gates of Vienna and then return through Ireland to
London and command the peace of the world.

Meantime the Directory had noted the possibility of independent
negotiation with Austria. It did not intend, complaisant as it had
been hitherto, to leave Bonaparte unhampered in so momentous a
transaction. On the contrary, it selected a pliable and obedient agent
in the person of General Clarke, offspring of an Irish refugee family,
either a mild republican or a constitutional monarchist according to
circumstances, a lover of peace and order, a conciliatory spirit. To
him was given the directors' confidential, elaborate, and elastic plan
for territorial compensations as a basis for peace, the outcome of
which in any case would leave Prussia preponderant in Germany. Liberal
and well disposed to the Revolution as they believed, she could then
be wooed into a firm alliance. In Italy, France was to maintain her
new authority and retain what she had conquered for her own good
pleasure. Bonaparte intended to do as he found necessary in both these
cases. After Arcola, Thugut, the Austrian minister, expressed a sense
of the deepest humiliation that a youth commanding volunteers and
rapscallions should work his will with the fine troops and skilled
generals of the empire. But, undaunted, he applied to Russia for
succor. Catherine had dallied with Jacobinism in order to occupy both
Prussia and Austria while she consolidated and confirmed her strength
in Poland and the Orient. This she had accomplished and was now ready
to bridle the wild steed she had herself unloosed. Intervening at the
auspicious hour, she could deliver Italy, take control of central
Europe, subjugate the north, and sway the universe.

Accordingly she demanded from Pitt a subsidy of two and a half million
dollars, and ordered Suvoroff with sixty thousand troops to the
assistance of Austria. Just then, in September, 1796, Gustavus IV, of
Sweden,