y responsible
for it.

[215] "Dropmore P.," ii, 387.

[216] "F. O.," Austria, 33, Eden to Grenville, 27th and 28th March, 10th
April; Vivenot, ii, 541; Haeusser, i, 483.

[217] _Ibid._, Eden to Grenville, 15th April. This probably refers to
Alsace; but it may possibly hint at a partition of Venice which had been
mooted at Vienna before. A slice of Piedmont was also desired (Eden to
Grenville, 8th June).

[218] _Ibid._, Eden to Grenville, 30th March.

[219] The West India expedition was again and again deferred in favour
of that to la Vendee or Toulon (Vivenot, iii, 383).

[220] Sybel, iii, 38-40; Haeusser, i, 488, 489.

[221] Pretyman MSS. I have published the letter of 5th April 1793 almost
in full in the "Eng. Hist. Rev." for April 1910.

[222] "Dropmore P.," ii, 388-93, 399.

[223] "F. O.," France, 42. I cannot agree with Sorel (iii, 405) in
taking the French overtures seriously.

[224] "W. O.," 6 (10), Dundas to Murray (now secretary to the Duke of
York).

[225] Calvert, 80.

[226] Calvert, ch. iii; Fortescue, iv, 111.

[227] "Dropmore P.," iii, 493.

[228] "Dropmore P.," ii, 436.

[229] Sybel, iii, 136, 137.

[230] "Mems. of Sir G. Elliot (Earl of Minto)," ii, 159.

[231] "W. O.," 6 (10), 1st August, to Sir J. Murray, which corrects the
statement in Sybel (iii, 140), that England meant to keep Dunkirk.

[232] "Malmesbury Diaries," iii, 18.

[233] Calvert, 119-21.

[234] "Mems. of Sir G. Elliot," ii, 160.

[235] Pitt MSS., 196.

[236] Vivenot, iii, 352, 353.

[237] _Ibid._, 320, 321, 339, 379, 380; "Dropmore P.," ii, 470, 536. In
the last passage Yarmouth accuses the King of Prussia of deliberately
thwarting the action of the Austrian army under Wurmser.

CHAPTER VI

TOULON

Delay leads impotent and snail-paced beggary:
Then fiery expedition be my wing,
Jove's Mercury, and herald for a King.
--SHAKESPEARE, _King Richard III_, act iv, sc. 3.

The enterprise destined to develop into the occupation of Toulon arose
out of the negotiations for alliance with Austria, Sardinia, and Naples.
By the first of these England pledged herself to send a considerable
fleet into the Mediterranean, as an effective help to the military
operations then going on in the Maritime Alps and the Genoese Riviera.
Indeed, the Court of Vienna made this almost a _sine qua non_ of its
alliance. On its side the British Government gained assurances of
military aid fro