rts against the Ministry.[163]
Pitt and Grenville were not dazzled by these proposals. The latter
generously declared to Auckland that he did not believe the Opposition
to be influenced by unpatriotic motives; and he doubted the sincerity of
Catharine's offer.[164] Nevertheless, in view of the imminence of a
French attack on Holland, Grenville decided to encourage the Czarina to
form a league of the Powers; but the instructions which he sent on 29th
December to Whitworth set forth aims very different from hers. He
suggested that the Powers not yet at war should invite the French people
to accept the following terms:

The withdrawing of their arms within the limits of the French
territory: the abandoning their conquests; the rescinding any
acts injurious to the sovereignty or rights of any other
nations; and the giving, in some public and unequivocal manner,
a pledge of their intention no longer to foment troubles and to
excite disturbances against their own Governments. In return for
these stipulations the different Powers of Europe who should be
parties to this measure might engage to abandon all measures or
views of hostility against France or interference in their
internal affairs, and to maintain a correspondence or
intercourse of amity with the existing powers in that country
with whom such a treaty may be concluded. [If, however, France
refuses to give these pledges, then the Powers will take] active
measures to obtain the ends in view, and it may be considered
whether, in such a case, they might not reasonably look to some
indemnity for the expenses and hazards to which they would
necessarily be exposed.[165]

From this remarkable pronouncement it appears that Pitt and Grenville
harboured no hostility to the French Republic as such, provided that it
acted on the principles which it professed up to the end of October
1792. The ensuing acts of aggression and propagandism they unflinchingly
opposed, but in the hope that the combined remonstrances of all the
Powers would induce the French leaders to withdraw their untenable
claims. Above all, the British Cabinet did not refuse eventually to
recognize the new state of things at Paris, a point of view very far
removed from the flaming royalism of Catharine II and Burke. Whether a
concert of the Powers could have been formed on these moderate terms is
very doubtful. What is certain is that Pitt and Gr