have been matured.

Still more luckless were the dealings of the British Cabinet with
Prussia. In the hope of winning over Frederick William III, Grenville in
November 1798 despatched his brother Thomas on a mission to Berlin. His
journey thither was one of the longest and most eventful on record. At
Yarmouth he was detained by easterly gales; and when at last the packet
boat made the mouth of the Elbe it was wrecked. The passengers and crew
succeeded in making their way to shore over the pack-ice, Grenville
saving his papers, except the "full-power" needful for signing a treaty.
He reached Cuxhaven in great exhaustion; and arrived at Berlin on 17th
March, only to find that the French by daring and intrigue had cowed the
North German States into subservience. The terrible winter of 1798-9
largely accounts for the delays which ruined the subsequent campaign.
Whitworth remained long without news from Downing Street; and at last,
on 12th February, announced that he had received nine posts at once.
Meanwhile France, controlling all the coasts from Bremen to Genoa, not
only excluded British messengers, but carried on her diplomatic
bargaining in Germany without let or hindrance. For all his trouble,
Thomas Grenville could get no firm footing amidst the shifting sands of
Prussian diplomacy. So nervous were the Austrian Ministers as to
Prussia's future conduct that they seemed about to come to terms with
France and join in the plunder of the smaller German States. This might
have been the upshot had not French armies crossed the Rhine (1st March
1799), and shortly afterwards invaded the Grisons Canton.[512] Goaded to
action, Francis II declared war eleven days later. On 28th April
Austrian hussars seized the French envoys withdrawing from Rastatt,
murdering two of the four and seizing the papers of all.

Thus began the war of the Second Coalition. Bonaparte's seizure of Malta
and Egypt without a declaration of war, and the unbearable aggressions
of the French in Switzerland, Italy, and on the Rhine, stirred to action
States which the diplomatic efforts of Pitt and Grenville had left
unmoved. For none of the wars of that period was France so largely
responsible. Even now, when the inroad of the French into Germany
threatened the ascendancy of Prussia, Frederick William declined to join
the Allies; and his unstatesmanlike refusal thwarted the plans of Pitt
for the march of the subsidized Muscovite force through Prussia for the