der-in-Chief, Amherst, to the head clerk of the War Office, Yonge,
and to the overworked pluralist, Dundas, we discern the causes of
disaster. The war with France being unforeseen, Pitt had to put up with
these quaint arrangements; but the reverses in Flanders and the incoming
of the Portland Whigs now enabled him to reduce chaos to order. He
insisted that the Secretary of State for Home Affairs should cease to
direct the course of the war, but consented that colonial business
should fall to his lot. On the other hand he greatly enlarged the
functions of the War Office. His will prevailed. On 7th July Portland
agreed to become Home Secretary, while his supporter, Windham, came into
the re-organized War Office as Secretary at War, Dundas becoming
Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. Despite the obvious need of
specializing and strengthening these Departments, the resistance of
Dundas was not easily overcome. His letter to Pitt on this subject
betrays a curious cloudiness of vision on a subject where clearness is
essential:

Wimbledon, _July 9, 1794_.[415]

... The idea of a War Minister as a separate Department you must
on recollection be sensible cannot exist in this country. The
operations of war are canvassed and adjusted in the Cabinet, and
become the joint act of His Majesty's servants; and the Secy of
State who holds the pen does no more than transmit their
sentiments. I do not mean to say that there is not at all times
in H. M.'s Councils some particular person who has, and ought to
have, a leading and even an overruling ascendency in the conduct
of public affairs; and that ascendency extends to war as it does
to every other subject. Such you are at present as the Minister
of the King. Such your father was as Secretary of State. Such
you would be if you was Secretary of State, and such Mr. Fox
would be if he was Secretary of State and the Duke of Bedford
First Lord of the Treasury. In short it depends, and must ever
depend, on other circumstances than the particular name by which
a person is called; and if you was to have a Secretary of State
for the War Department tomorrow, not a person living would ever
look upon him, or any other person but you, as the War Minister.
All modern wars are a contention of purse, and unless some very
peculiar circumstance occurs to direct the lead into another