440 HOME AND FOREIGN POLITICS. [1809. 



are still making a push for the former, although Lord 

 Chatham is certainly acting as if he were the man, 

 and nobody can imagine how the report of Burrard 

 arose. Indeed it is universally disbelieved. Brown- 

 rigg's going as quarter-master-general certainly looks 

 very like the Duke of York ; but is there any expe- 

 dition so certain of succeeding as to make it even 

 tolerably safe for the present ministers to send him ? 

 To be sure, Lord Chatham is much worse, but his fail- 

 ure would not hurt them so irretrievably. Lord G. 

 Leveson is in the cabinet, and this is perhaps a dou- 

 ceur to Canning for giving up his opposition to Lord 

 Chatham or the Duke of York. I have it from un- 

 doubted authority that he prevented them last year. 



"The destination of the force is as uncertain as 

 when I wrote last. I still think it must be liable to 

 alteration from the next news of the Austrian opera- 

 tions ; but it is probably calculated in the mean time 

 for some specific object ; perhaps Flushing and Ant- 

 werp. There are two battering-trains. Such a thing 

 is surely most absurd, unless all possibility of making 

 a diversion in Germany is at an end. 



" Peace between Austria and France is much talked 

 of, and certainly Stahremberg has been expressing 

 great apprehensions of this. One should infer from 

 such an extraordinary step (if it really is taken), that 

 the late victory was much less considerable than it 

 appears to have been. Charles Stuart (who is at 

 JUida) writes the account which he had from the 

 Primate of Hungary, who was in the battle. This 

 mnkcs it 35,000. 20 generals disabled, 7 killed, &c. 



