INTRODUCTION.

THE Confidential letters and documents composing Volume IV. of the Dropmore Correspondence relate chiefly to two subjects, one foreign and one domestic, of great historical interest. Those belonging to the series which comes first in point of date are concerned with the political and military projects and the secret negotiations that led up to the third coalition against France in 1799. The second series deals with the outbreak of civil war in Ireland in 1798, and the abortive attempt of Pitt's Government to pass an Act of Legislative Union through the Irish Parliament in January, 1799. The correspondence on both subjects is so voluminous that the volume embraces a period of little more than sixteen months; extending from the middle of November. 1797, to the renewal of hostilities between Austria and France towards the end of March, 1799.

The close of Volume III. left the British monarchy in a situation as dangerous as it was humiliating. Strenuous national efforts continued without intermission for five years, to maintain European settlements of vital importance to Great Britain, had resulted in military defeat, an enormous burden of debt, financial embarrassment, impaired credit, political isolation, and popular discontent. The coalition of all the great monarchical powers, formed at the beginning of 1793 to dismember France, had been itself dismembered. Catherine II. of Russia gave little help from the beginning, and her successor Paul I. had hitherto, in this respect, followed in her footsteps. Frederick William II., King of Prussia, made peace with the French Republic in April, 1795, on terms which saved Northern Germany from the ravages of war, but surrendered the Netherlands and the left bank of the Rhine to the common enemy. His defection set the seal of failure on the coalition. A Prussian alliance was that in which Pitt put his chief trust for the accomplishing of British

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objects on the Continent; that which he had made the greatest pecuniary sacrifices to retain, and showed himself most solicitous to recover. But repeated appeals to his fears and his cupidity had failed to draw the Prussian monarch from the attitude of neutrality to which he bound himself by the treaty of Basle.

Austria struggled on for two years more with the help of British loans, supplied by Pitt in the confident belief that financial ruin would compel the French Government to sue for peace. Unfortunately British credit collapsed at the end of 1796. And Austria, beaten in the field and unable to pay her armies, accepted terms dictated by Bonaparte at Leoben in April, 1797. This preliminary treaty provided for the meeting of two congresses within three months; one at Berne, to which England and Russia were invited, to settle the conditions of a general pacification; the other at Rastadt for the conclusion of peace between France and the German Confederation. But the British Government, dissatisfied with the conduct of Austria, sent Lord Malmesbury to Lille to treat on its own account with the French Directory. If France was everywhere victorious on land, Great Britain was mistress of the seas, and had enlarged her colonial empire, and her commerce. It seemed, therefore, that agreement, ardently desired by both nations, might easily be obtained by mutual concessions. But while negotiation still proceeded, a successful coup d'état at Paris lodged dictational powers in the hands of three Directors representing a small but ruling Jacobin faction, that owed its supremacy to war, and the support of armies living on the plunder of conquered countries. These Directors broke up the Conference at Lille in September, 1797, by putting forward extravagant demands. Bonaparte dissociating himself from Jacobin policy, in disregard of instructions from Paris signed the definite treaty of Campo Formio with Count Cobentzl on behalf of the Emperor, in the following October. The Directory did not venture to repudiate an act which nearly all France applauded. But they announced for the coming year the assembling of a great armament for the invasion of England, under the command of the conqueror of Austria. During the course of 1797, British Consols had fallen to 48; and public confidence had sunk to a point unknown in England since the end of the War of American Independence. Pitt's Budget at the

opening of the Session of Parliament in November showed a deficit of 22,000,000l. He trebled the assessed taxes; an unproductive measure which deepened the ill-humour of the people. But national spirit rose to repel invasion. Voluntary subscriptions, initiated by the King and his ministers, flowed in freely from all ranks and parties to supply the wants of the Exchequer, and arm the country for defence.

The political situation wore its gloomiest aspect when news reached George III. in October, 1797 of the approaching death of Frederick William II., King of Prussia. The Prince Royal, heir to the Prussian throne, had been carefully educated in orthodox principles. His wife, a beautiful and talented princess of Mecklinburg Strelitz, who exercised great influence over him, was a niece of Queen Charlotte. He had always listened with great deference to the political counsels of George's brother-inlaw, the Duke of Brunswick, who saw with unconcealed dismay the progress of French arms and opinions in Germany. On these circumstances the English monarch founded a belief, which Pitt and Grenville seem to have shared, that if Brunswick could be persuaded to exert his influence at Berlin at the opening of a new reign for the overthrow of Count de Haugwitz, to whose ascendency the treaty of Basle and the subsequent inaction of Prussia were ascribed, the young sovereign might be made the chief instrument in forming a Quadruple Alliance of Russia, Austria, Great Britain and Prussia, to accomplish aims for the salvation of Europe, which the defection of his father in 1795 had, in their opinion, done so much to wreck. In the beginning of November they sent M. de Luc, a trusted member of Queen Charlotte's household, on a secret mission to Brunswick, to lay the scheme before the Duke, and enlist his aid.1

De Luc was the son of a leading citizen of Geneva, a member of the governing Council of that city. He had, himself, in early life, been engaged in public affairs. But, following the natural bent of his genius, he abandoned diplomacy in order to devote his whole time to scientific research. His labours and discoveries in various branches of natural philosophy won for him high rank in the world of science. And he distinguished himself also in the arena of letters, by the zeal and ability with which he defended Christian revelation and monarchy Page 8.

against the assaults of the Encyclopædists and the Jacobin propagandism. His controversial His controversial essays commended him, during a sojourn in London, to the favour of George III., who conferred on him the post of reader to Queen Charlotte. In the opportunities of familiar intercourse thus opened to him he seems to have acquired the regard and entire confidence of the whole royal family. The King, in order more effectually to cloak his political mission to Germany, appointed him Professor of Natural History in the University of Gottingen. Travelling in this capacity, but accredited by a letter from his royal master, and instructions from Lord Grenville, he reached Brunswick late in November, a few days after the arrival of news of the King of Prussia's death; and took counsel with General de Stamfort, a soldier and politician of merit, closely bound to him by private friendship and unity of political purpose, who played a still more prominent part than his own in the negotiations now set on foot.1

De Stamfort, although of uncertain parentage, seems to have been a Frenchman by birth. In early youth he served through the Seven Years' War as Lieutenant in the army of Brunswick; and during the years of peace that followed he rose to some degree of celebrity in Germany as a poet, a writer of military treatises, and a teacher of science. Frederick the Great called him to Potsdam and made him Major in a Prussian Corps of Engineers. After that monarch's death the Prince of Orange invited him to the Hague to take charge of the military education of his sons. He served with the Dutch army in the campaigns of 1793 and 1794 and rose to the rank of Lieutenant-General. When the French conquered Holland, he followed Orange to England, but, after a little, took up his abode at Brunswick as confidential adviser of the Duke. The anxiety shown by statesmen of all nations to avail themselves of his services in the conflict of interests and opinions recorded in this correspondence, testify to a general sense of his uncommon

merit.

The friends joined in urging the Duke of Brunswick to go at once to Berlin and rescue from the malign guidance of Count Haugwitz a young prince of good principles indeed, but utterly without experience in the business of government. The Duke

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