Camp, Weymouth, Aug. 31st, 1794.
MY DEAR BROTHER,

I have just received your letter of the 16th from Vienna, and am
glad to find from it that you are as well as I wish you to be, and
as sanguine as any one could wish who is less desponding than
myself. I fear that very much of your difficulty is insuperable,
for I have no idea that it is possible to induce the Imperial
Government to exert themselves more for the _recovery_ of Brabant
than they did for the _preservation_ of it. Various circumstances
(some of which you have stated) co-operated to the scandalous
dereliction of a country, which all former history proves to us
might have been defended (even for a losing campaign) with one half
of the allied force; and it is no part of my creed that the zeal or
activity of the Austrian Ministry (even if they act with good
faith) can replace us by the end of November where we were last
year. But if it is to be proposed to us to add Austria to the list
of powers subsidized, and to call upon Great Britain, the _ally_ of
the war, to consider herself as the only principal in it, I fear
that the proposition will meet with every difficulty, and (if
acceded to) with as little success as the subsidy paid to Prussia.
You will then ask me for my solution of this difficulty; and I will
fairly own that I see none, but in endeavouring to stimulate
Austria, by showing them clearly that we will not take the whole
upon our back; and that we can better keep the wolf out of our
house, than they can out of theirs, if the war is to be defensive.

As to the military operations of the Prince of Saxe Coburg, I make
no doubt that he has done very ill; indeed, it seems difficult to
conceive that his groom could have done worse. But I fear that the
ignorance or treachery of the German Generals goes much deeper than
you imagine, for I do not recollect one instance in the course of
this campaign--and perhaps not one in the last--in which they
answered the expectation formed of them. Again, if we imagined that
by protracting the war we might exhaust the enemy, though I might
not agree as to the prospect of success, I could understand it as a
system; but in that case, the war would have been defensive, and
co-operation settled to that object, instead of abandoning the Duke
o