seek aid in a
national rising.

[Sidenote: France and Ireland.]

It is probable that Tone's errand was known to Pitt; it is certain that
Lord Edward Fitzgerald, another of the patriot leaders, who had been
summoned to carry on more definite negotiations in Basle, revealed
inadvertently as he returned the secret of his hopes to an agent of the
English Cabinet. Vague as were the offers of the United Irishmen, they
had been warmly welcomed by the French Government. Masters at home, the
Directory were anxious to draw off the revolutionary enthusiasm which
the French party of order dreaded as much as Burke himself to the
channels of foreign conquest. They were already planning that descent of
their army in the Alps upon Lombardy which was to give a fatal blow to
one of their enemies, Austria; and they welcomed the notion of a French
descent upon Ireland and an Irish revolt, which would give as fatal a
blow to their other enemy, England. An army of 25,000 men under General
Hoche was promised, a fleet was manned, and preparations were being made
for the expedition during the summer. But the secret was ill kept, and
the news of such an attempt was, we can hardly doubt, the ground of the
obstinacy with which Pitt persisted in the teeth of the national feeling
and of Burke's invectives in clinging to his purpose of concluding a
peace. In October 1796 Lord Malmesbury was despatched to Paris and
negotiations were finally opened for that purpose. The terms which Pitt
offered were terms of mutual restitution. France was to evacuate
Holland and to restore Belgium to the Emperor. England on the other hand
was to restore the colonies she had won to France, Holland, and Spain.
As the English Minister had no power of dealing with the territories
already ceded by Prussia and other states, such a treaty would have left
France, as her eastern border, the line of the Rhine. But even had they
desired peace at all, the Directors would have scorned it on terms such
as these. While Malmesbury was negotiating indeed France was roused to
new dreams of conquest by the victories of Napoleon Buonaparte. The
genius of Carnot, the French Minister of War, had planned a joint
advance upon Vienna by the French armies of Italy and the Rhine, the one
under Buonaparte, the other under Moreau. The plan was only partly
successful. Moreau, though he pushed forward through every obstacle to
Bavaria, was compelled to fall back by the defeat of a lieutenant; and