nd further it refutes the oft-repeated assertion that Maret came
charged with offers of peace to which Pitt and Grenville paid no heed.

It will be well to examine this latter question somewhat closely. In
order to understand the situation at Paris, we must remember that
Dumouriez was at that time hesitating between an attack on Holland and a
pacific mission to England. On 23rd January, while at Paris, he wrote
two very significant letters, one to Miranda, the other to Auckland. In
the former he states: "The Executive Council ... has thought of sending
me as special ambassador to England to make that country decide
definitely for peace or war. Consequently _an order has been given for
our ambassador, Chauvelin, to return_. To-morrow they will send a secret
agent [Maret], very well known to Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox, to ask the two
parties (that is to say the whole nation) for a safe-conduct for me and
an assurance that I shall be welcome. As I have to ask for _yes_ or
_no_, like Cato at Carthage, this mission will not last more than eight
days." Pending the reply to the first question (says Dumouriez) he will
set out for Dunkirk, Bruges, and Antwerp. His second letter, of the same
date, is to Auckland at The Hague, stating that he knows him to be
desirous of peace, as he himself is. Can they not have an interview on
the Dutch frontier, near Antwerp, where he will be on 30th January?[182]

Now it is clear from Grenville's and Auckland's correspondence that
Ministers paid some heed to the offer of Dumouriez. Nothing came of it
owing to the arrival of news of the French declaration of war; but the
proposal was at least considered.[183] There is not a line to show that
Pitt and Grenville took Maret's so-called "mission" at all seriously.
For, in the first place, he had no powers, no authority to do anything
more than collect the papers of the embassy. He himself gave out to
Miles that he came on a "pacific mission," but he carefully refrained
from telling even him what it was.[184] His biographer, Ernouf, has
invested his journey to London with some importance by declaring that on
22nd January he (Maret) drew up and sent off a "despatch" to Chauvelin,
stating that the French Executive Council desired peace, and that he was
coming as _charge d'affaires_ to the French Embassy in London. This
missive (whether signed by Lebrun is not stated) met Chauvelin on his
way from London to Dover; but it produced no change whatever in his
pla