hat I should remain precisely as I am while the war continues,
provided the arrangement takes place respecting the Groom of the Stole
to Lord Chatham, together with all the consequent changes in other
offices. This in my judgment is by much the best for the public service,
and ought to supersede all other individual wishes." Failing this
patriotic arrangement, Dundas requested that he should have the first
claim for the Privy Seal for Scotland, provided that Lord Chatham did
not take the Stole. He (Dundas) would give up the latter but retain his
office at the India Board and the Navy. Or, thirdly, if he received the
Privy Seal for Scotland, he would give up his other offices except that
at the India Board. This last plan would involve a large reduction of
income, but he preferred it to the others except the two previously
named.[208]

Nevertheless no change of any importance took place. Dundas continued to
be a portly pluralist, utterly unable to overtake the work of three
important offices, with the conduct of the war often superadded; and
Chatham remained at the Admiralty until the close of 1794, to the
annoyance of all champions of efficiency. In the course of that year
Pitt urged the need of strengthening both the Admiralty and War
Departments; but, as we shall see, Dundas strongly objected to the
creation of a Secretary of State for War, because his duties would
overlap those of the other Departments, and important decisions must be
formed by the Cabinet as a whole.[209] I shall touch on this question
more fully in Chapter XII, but mention it here as a sign of the mental
cloudiness which led British Ministers for the first eighteen months of
the war to plod along with the most haphazard arrangements known even to
that age. The contrast between the boyish irresponsibility of military
management in England and the terrible concentration of power in the
hands of Carnot at Paris, after July 1793, goes far to explain the
disasters to the Union Jack after the first few months of the war.

The triumph of the French Republic and its transformation into a
military Empire cannot be understood until we probe the inner weakness
of the First Coalition and realize the unpreparedness of Great Britain.
Moreover, as the Allies believed that France would speedily succumb,
the allocation of the spoil claimed their attention more than
preparations for the hunt. The unexpected vigour of the French might
have undeceived them. While Cob