price of wheat was close on 116 shillings the quarter. But Pitt was
content to meet the almost equally acute crisis of 1795-6 by temporary
shifts, one of which exasperated the neutral States of the North and
prepared the way for the renewal of the hostile League of the Baltic.

FOOTNOTES:

[420] B.M. Add. MSS., 27808.

[421] "H. O.," Geo. III (Domestic), 36.

[422] "H. O.," (Departmental), Secs. of State.

[423] B.M. Add. MSS., 27808; "Hist. of the Two Acts," 330 _et seq._

[424] Pitt MSS., 190; "W. O.," 113.

[425] "H. O.," Geo. III (Domestic), 36.

[426] "Parl. Hist.," xxxii, 235-42, 687-700, 1156; Tooke, "Hist. of
Prices," i, 185 _et seq._; Porter, "Progress of the Nation," 147, 452.

[427] "Dropmore P.," iii, 87, 243, 526-30; "Report of the American Hist.
Assoc." (1903), ii, 67-9, 354, 375, 440 _et seq._, 552-8; E. Channing,
"United States," 148-50; Cunningham, 512, 694.

[428] "Mems. of Sir John Sinclair," i, ch. iv; ii, ch. i.

[429] "Mems. of Sir John Sinclair," ii, 60-4, 104; Sinclair,
"Address ... on the Cultivation of Waste Lands (1795)"; "Observations
on ... a Bill for facilitating the Division of Commons." He first urged
this on Pitt on 10th January 1795 (Pitt MSS., 175).

[430] Pitt MSS., 178.

[431] "Corresp. of Sir John Sinclair," i, 124.

[432] Pitt MSS., 193. Sinclair raised two corps of Fencibles. The list
of his works, pamphlets, etc., fills thirty-two pages at the end of his
Memoirs.

[433] "Mems. of Sir John Sinclair," ii, 106-9.

[434] "Pitt and Napoleon Miscellanies."

[435] "Lord Colchester's Diary," i, 82.

CHAPTER XIV

THE YEARS OF STRAIN (1796-7)

Torn as we are by faction, without an army, without money,
trusting entirely to a navy whom we may not be able to pay, and
on whose loyalty, even if we can, no firm reliance is to be
placed, how are we to get out of this cursed war without a
Revolution?--CORNWALLIS TO ROSS, _15th December 1797_.

The year 1797, which opened with events portending the overthrow of
Austria and the financial collapse of England, brought a passing gleam
of sunshine into the gray life of Pitt. For some time he had been a
frequent visitor at Eden Farm, Beckenham, the seat of Lord Auckland. It
was on the way to Holwood, and the cheerful society of that large family
afforded a relief from cares of state not to be found in his bachelor
household. His circle of friends, never large, had somewhat diminished
with th