is, we will not forget it.... We
ardently wish a Triple Alliance, not of crowned heads, but of the people
of America, France, and Great Britain will give liberty to Europe and
peace to the world." The address was signed by Margarot and Hardy. It
and other addresses were reported verbatim by our _charge d'affaires_,
Munro, to the Foreign Office.[103]

The democratic ferment in England speedily aroused a decided opposition.
Macaulay probably does not much exaggerate when he says that out of
twenty well-to-do persons nineteen were ardently loyal and firmly
anti-Jacobin. The month of November saw the formation of an "Ante
[_sic_]-Levelling Society, for supporting the Civil Power in suppressing
Tumults and maintaining the constitutional Government of this Country in
King, Lords, and Commons." Its programme leaves much to be desired in
the matter of style, but nothing in respect to loyalty.[104] The club
was founded by Reeves and others. Hardy notes in his memoirs that it
soon began to do much harm to the Corresponding Society.

Far aloof from this turmoil stands the solitary and inscrutable figure
of Pitt. At this time he was leading, almost with ostentation, the life
of a country gentleman, dividing his time between Holwood and Walmer
Castle. Very few of his letters of this period survive. Writing from
Walmer on 16th October to Grenville, he makes merely a verbal alteration
in an important despatch on which the latter consulted him. Indeed he
left the conduct of foreign affairs to Grenville far more fully than he
had done to the Duke of Leeds. I have found no draft of a despatch
written wholly by Pitt at the time, or indeed at the crisis that
followed. There is, however, a significant phrase in his letter to
Grenville, that, if the French retained Savoy, this would bring about a
new order of things.[105] For the most part Pitt at this time gave
himself up to rest and recreation at Walmer Castle. The charm of the sea
and of the Downs seems to have laid hold on him; for General Smith,
writing to Lord Auckland from Walmer, says that Pitt is soon in love
with the King's present and gladly spends there all the time he can
spare. Lord and Lady Chatham were with him and encouraged his passion
for that retired spot. A little later he had a flying visit from one who
was to become a devoted friend, the brilliant and versatile Earl of
Mornington. Coming over from Ramsgate and lunching at Walmer, he found
that Pitt had so far taken up