PITT’S SECOND PEACE PROPOSAL. 
47 
was assured that England had no intention of concluding peace with¬ 
out the full concurrence of her ally.* 
The French answer to the English overture seemed “ insolent” to 
George III,f but the ministry determined to make another effort, and 
sent a direct message to France, under a flag of truce, with the result 
that a negotiation was arranged to be held at Paris. Grenville’s atti¬ 
tude was distinctly changed. While no definite declaration of his 
determination to oppose a treaty of peace is to be found, the entire 
tenor of his letter to the King in explanation of the renewed offer under 
flag of truce J and of his private correspondence with his brother is 
indicative that he regarded the continuance of negotiations as of value 
solely for the benefit to be derived from them in their influence on the 
political situation in England. He wrote to Buckingham that to his 
view the peace proposals were justifiable, since ‘ ‘ in the present moment, 
the object of unanimity here in the great body of the country, with 
respect to the large sacrifices they will be called upon to make, is para¬ 
mount to every other consideration. ” § Yet Pitt was still sincere in 
his offer to France || and was still supported by the majority of his col¬ 
leagues. Grenville therefore directed his energies toward drafting the 
instructions of Malmesbury, the English negotiator, in such a fashion 
as to preclude the hasty conclusion of a treaty and to prevent any, 
sacrifice of English interests. Malmesbury, as Fox pertinently stated 
in a later discussion of the negotiations, was given ‘ ‘ full powers to 
- ---——- . — -—— -7— 
*The English ministry sent an order on August 31, 1796, for the evacuation of 
Corsica. The resolution to offer Corsica to Russia was taken on October 19, but 
the new orders did not reach Jervis and Elliot in time. Corsica was evacuated 
October 26. Elliot, II, 355-361. 
f George III to Grenville, Sept. 23, 1796. Dropmore, III, 255. 
t Grenville to George III, Sept. 23, 1796. Ibid., 256. 
§ Sept. 24, 1796. Court and Cabinets , II, 350. 
|| Pitt’s sincerity is generally asserted by English historians and denied by French 
Writers. The impression received from this study is that he was certainly sincere 
pp to November 7, but that after that date, as will be shown, he permitted Gren¬ 
ville to resume his ascendancy in foreign affairs. Sybel thinks Pitt sincere, or at 
least that he saw equally the advantages of peace and the benefits of a refusal by 
France of the opening made. Sybel, IV, 322. Mr. Dorman, in the first volume 
of his recent History of the British Empire in the Nineteenth Century (pp. 31-36), 
maintains the thesis that the sole object of Malmesbury’s mission was to secure in¬ 
formation about France, but this conclusion is based on a superficial study of but 
a small part of the available English sources. Sorel, in his fifth volume, asserts 
that the English government, in both 1796, at Paris, and 1797, at Lille, was deter¬ 
mined that peace, if signed, must include the separation of the Netherlands from 
France. This is certainly a great error for 1797, and probably so also for 1796, and 
inasmuch as it is upon this thesis that Sorel rests his whole conception of the rela¬ 
tions of France and England, the error becomes a vital one. Sorel in fact knows \ 
nothing of English sources for this period, as has been very clearly shown by R. 
Guyot and P. Muret, in their critical examination of the documentation of Sorel’s fifth 
volume, Revue d'Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine , XV, Janvier, 1904, p. 255. 
