unfolded themselves in Flanders and the Rhineland, at Toulon
and Quiberon, in Hayti, Corsica, and Egypt. As these in their turn were
potently influenced by the policy pursued at Paris, Vienna, Berlin, and
Madrid, we must take a survey, wide but minute, sometimes to all
appearance diffuse, yet in reality vitally related to the main theme. In
order to simplify the narrative, I have sought to disentangle the
strands of war policy and to follow them severally, connecting them,
however, in the chapter entitled "Pitt as War Minister," which will sum
up the results of these studies on the period 1793-8.

If proof be needed that Pitt entered upon the French war with regret, it
may be found in the fact that on 5th February he and Grenville empowered
Auckland to discuss the pacific overtures of Dumouriez. Grenville, it is
true, saw in this move merely a device to gain time;[196] and we may
detect in the British reply the sanguine nature of the Prime Minister.
But his hopes ended on 8th February, when news arrived of the
declaration of war by the French Convention against Great Britain and
Holland. Thereupon Pitt entered into the struggle without a shadow of
doubt.[197] For him it was always a struggle to prevent the domination
of the Netherlands by France; and we may note, as a sign of the
continuity of that policy, that on it largely depended the rupture with
Napoleon in 1803. Pitt summed up the object of the war in the word
"security." In his view, as in that of his successor, Castlereagh,
national security was wholly incompatible with the possession of
Holland, or even the Belgic Provinces, by France.

In taking this practical view of the crisis Pitt differed sharply from
George III and Burke. They looked on the struggle as one for the
restoration of monarchy. The King on 9th February wrote to Grenville
that he hoped the war would be the "means of restoring some degree of
order to that unprincipled country," and Burke flung into an unquotable
phrase his anger that the war should turn on the question of the
Scheldt.[198] For the present the aggressive conduct of France welded
together these two wings of the royalist party; but events were soon to
reveal the fundamental difference of view. Indeed, it coloured all their
opinions about the struggle. Wilberforce reports Pitt as saying that the
war would be a short war, and certainly ended in one or two campaigns.
"No, Sir," retorted Burke, "it will be a long war and a dangerous war