e constitution. Nor did the safety of the state, which would
outweigh all such considerations, require the step. But the matter was
of no practical importance and the action of the government was approved
by parliament.

As Frederick William was evidently withdrawing from the war, Malmesbury
was sent to Berlin, late in 1793, to persuade him to continue it. He
would not do so at his own expense, and it was proposed that the allies
should pay him to keep 100,000 men in the field. Thugut objected;
Austria could not pay her share and it would be better for Europe and
for Austria that the king should stay in Prussia than lead so large an
army to the Rhine.[248] This upset the arrangement. England wanted a
strong force on the frontier of the Austrian Netherlands, and at last,
on April 19, a treaty was signed by which Frederick William agreed to
furnish 62,400 men to act with the armies of Great Britain and Holland
"wherever it shall be judged most suitable to the interests of the two
maritime powers," all conquests being at their disposal, on
consideration of L50,000 a month, and L300,000 at the beginning, and
L100,000 at the end of the campaign, with bread and forage money. Of
these sums L400,000 was to be paid by Holland and the rest by England.
Mack, the Austrian quartermaster-general, came to London and laid a plan
of campaign before the ministers. It was decided that the Austrian and
British armies should widen the breach made in the line of French
fortresses, should march on Cambrai and then perhaps on Paris, supported
by an advance of the Prussians from the Moselle, under Mollendorf, who
had succeeded Brunswick in command. Prompted by Mack, who was then
generally believed to be a strategist of supreme skill, the ministers
expressed dissatisfaction with Coburg, and as difficulties arose with
respect to the command,[249] the emperor took the ostensible command
himself and came to Brussels on April 2.

[Sidenote: _ENGLAND'S ALLIES._]

The campaign opened well. The allies invested Landrecies, and an attempt
to turn the British position at Cateau was repulsed by a brilliant
charge of the 15th light dragoons; a more serious effort to raise the
siege failed, and Landrecies capitulated on the 30th. The Austrians
under Clairfait, however, were defeated at Mouscron. York marched to
Tournai and the allies attempted by a series of combined movements to
cut off the French in West Flanders from their communications with
Lille. Th