ate was, as an object very useful to pursue,
and one which, if pursued with attention, we might probably succeed
in possessing ourselves of. How far we have already obtained this
information you will have seen by the communications which we have
made; and I much fear that our journey will not produce any
advantage of a more solid and substantial description. To say that
it might not be possible to procure from the Government here a
formal consent to such an arrangement as we have to propose, is
more than I would assert: although, the condition which they
positively insist upon of being paid for it by loan and subsidy, as
well as all the difficulties which they throw upon the subject of
the proposed barrier, and upon that of acting in the Netherlands,
might well seem to justify the opinion of its being improbable that
anything like the proposed arrangement would be consented to. But
the misfortune is, that--in my judgment, at least--the evil lies
much deeper, and is such as would leave me little hope of seeing
any effectual purpose served, even by the signature of a Convention
between the two Courts.

I do not know of any good ground for believing the common report of
treachery, either in the civil or military government of the
country; but I know, that if the principle upon which our
Government act in the prosecution of the war is not cordially felt
here--if the greatness of those interests, which we think now at
stake, is not to the same degree here considered as being of the
very essence and existence of all regulated government, a
Convention will not give them a livelier perception of this common
danger, or teach them to see in it a crisis such as demands greater
energy and exertions, than any other state of things could call
for. But this common principle is not all that is wanting in the
present case: we think, in England, that the preservation of the
Austrian Netherlands is an object important to us as providing a
defence for Holland, and important to the Court of Vienna as
forming a rich and considerable possession to the House of Austria,
and, therefore, making an object of common interest, though
touching Austria still more sensibly than England. If this obvious
view of the interests of both countries prevailed in the
Governments of b