ition," 155-64.

[723] _Ibid._, 232; Ulmann, "Russisch-preussische Politik"; Hansing,
"Hardenberg und die dritte Coalition."

[724] "Paget Papers," ii, 186; Sir G. Jackson, "Diaries," i, 304,
458-60; Rose, "Third Coalition," 180.

[725] "Lettres inedites de Napoleon," i, 50.

[726] Rose, "Third Coalition," 279-82. On 9th August Austria allied
herself to Russia.

[727] For a time her action was unknown at London; and Pitt and Mulgrave
outlined a plan of campaign turning largely on the liberation of South
and Central Italy. See Mr. Corbett, "Trafalgar Campaign," App. B.

[728] G. Rose, "Diaries," ii, 198-200.

[729] Pretyman MSS.

[730] "Lady Hester Stanhope's Mems.," ii, 63.

[731] Chevening MSS. See, too, G. Rose, "Diaries," ii, 235, as to Pitt's
reliance on "cordial medicines."

[732] By Mr. Julian Corbett, "The Campaign of Trafalgar." Mr. Corbett
has kindly helped me to fix the probable date of Castlereagh's letter.

[733] Pitt MSS., 121. In Pitt MSS., 111, is a hasty and undated note of
Pitt to Middleton (probably of February 1805) asking him to consider
"whether it might not be expedient to direct Sir John Warren to proceed
to Cape de Verde, and if he there found that Sir James Duckworth was
gone to the West Indies, but not upon certain information of the enemy
having preceded him, that Sir J. Warren should be ordered on to the
Cape, unless he received intelligence that the enemy had taken another
course." He adds that this suggestion arises out of the news received
from the Cape, where French troops were expected. In that case the
operations would be protracted. Pitt hoped that Warren would be back in
five months, that is by 1st June, before which time the French
preparations for the invasion of England would not be far advanced.
Evidently, then, Pitt sought Middleton's advice direct on the complex
problem of defending England and guarding the overland and the sea
routes to India at the same time. On this see Corbett, "Trafalgar
Campaign," 236-8.

[734] Wellington in 1834 told Croker that they met in the anteroom of
the Secretary of State, Castlereagh (Croker, "Diaries," ii, 234).

CHAPTER XXIV

THE LAST STRUGGLE

Heavens! What has Prussia to answer for! For nothing less, in my
mind, than every calamity which has befallen Europe for more
than ten years.--GENERAL PAGET TO SIR ARTHUR PAGET, _24th
January 1806_.

The opening moves in the great game between Pitt and