sition, however, also proceeded from hatred to the
government.[240] Abhorred by the king and rejected by the country, he
resented his exclusion from office by opposing the government at a time
when Englishmen should have sunk all party differences in the face of
their country's peril. He ascribed the measures taken to repress
sedition and defeat the French propaganda as attempts at tyranny. While
he acknowledged that the opening of the Scheldt was a _casus belli_, he
spoke of it as a matter which England could well afford to overlook, and
he represented the action of the government as unfair to France and as
the result of monarchical prejudice. As the war went on his unpatriotic
feelings were constantly displayed in a most offensive manner. His
conduct broke up the whig party. England was entering on a period of
fearful conflict; happy at least in that the confidence of the nation
was given to a statesman whose one absorbing care was for the welfare of
his country.

FOOTNOTES:

[229] _Political Memoranda of the Duke of Leeds_, pp. 150-52; Lecky,
_Hist._, v., 222-99.

[230] Sorel, _L'Europe et la Revolution Francaise_, ii., 236.

[231] _Political Memoranda of the Duke of Leeds_, p. 194.

[232] Sorel, _u.s._, ii., 417-23.

[233] _Auckland Corr._, ii., 401-3.

[234] Sorel, _u.s._, iii., 214-15.

[235] _Ibid._, 221-22, 225, 229.

[236] Sorel, _u.s._, iii., 235-37, 259; Sybel, _Geschichte der
Revolutionzeit_, French trans. _Histoire de l'Europe pendant la
Revolution Francaise_, ii., 58-60.

[237] Correspondence between M. Chauvelin and Lord Grenville, _Parl.
Hist._, xxx., 250-56.

[238] Sorel, _u.s._, iii., 243.

[239] Pitt to Grenville, Jan. 23, 1793, and following letters, _Dropmore
Papers_, ii. 371-72, 378.

[240] _Memorials of C. J. Fox_, iii., 349.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE FIRST COALITION.

The nine years between Pitt's accession to office and the outbreak of
the war with France were a period of advance in constitutional freedom
and financial prosperity. All progress in these directions was arrested
by the war. The security of England, a matter of higher importance than
these, was at stake. The war demanded all the energies of the nation.
Questions which would have divided the country or weakened the
government were shelved, for it was not a time to debate reforms when
the state itself was in peril. Pitt defeated efforts for parliamentary