channel, the Minister of Finance must be the Minister of War.
Your father for obvious reasons was an exception to the rule.

It is impossible for any person to controvert the position I now
state; and therefore, when you talk of a War Minister, you must
mean a person to superintend the detail of the execution of the
operations which are determined upon. But do you think it
possible to persuade the public that such a separate Department
can be necessary? Yourself, so far as a general superintendence
is necessary, must take that into your own hands. If it was in
the hands of any other, it would lead to a constant wrangling
between him and the various Executive Boards.

The illogicality of this letter would be amusing if it had not been so
disastrous. Because war depends ultimately on money, therefore (said
Dundas) the Chancellor of the Exchequer ought to control its operations
and act virtually as Secretary of State for War. Then why not also as
First Lord of the Admiralty? No sooner is the question formulated than
we see that Dundas is confusing two very different things, namely,
general financial control and the administration of military affairs. In
fact, Dundas still clung to the old customs which allotted to the
Secretaries of State wide and often overlapping duties. He did not see
the need of a specialized and authoritative War Office, though the
triumphs achieved by Carnot and the Committee of Public Safety during
the past twelvemonth might have opened his eyes. Fortunately, Pitt
discerned the necessity of strengthening that Department; and, as we
have seen, he made Dundas and Windham War Ministers, with seats in the
Cabinet. Thus from July 1794 military affairs had a chance of adequate
treatment in that body; and Pitt deserves great credit for remodelling
the Cabinet in a way suited to the exigencies of modern warfare.

Why did he not appoint that experienced soldier, the Marquis Cornwallis,
Secretary of State for War? The answer is that he designed him as
successor to the Duke of York in Flanders. As has already appeared, Pitt
framed this resolve in February 1794, on the return of Cornwallis from
India; and, though rebuffed then, he continued to revolve the matter
until the beginning of the autumn, when the opposition of George III and
of Francis II of Austria prevented the appointment of that experienced
soldier to the supreme command of the Allies. As for the accessi