48 THE INFLUENCE OF GRENVILLE ON PITT’S FOREIGN POLICY. 
conclude * but was allowed no latitude to treat.” * More¬ 
over, Grenville particularly emphasized the point that ‘ < by the conven¬ 
tion signed wfith the Court of Vienna in the beginning of the war, the 
King is bound not to make peace without the consent of Austria, except 
on the terms of procuring for that power the restitution of all it may 
have lost in the war.” f No mention was made in these instructions 
of the possibility of a Bavarian-Netherlands exchange. 
The conditions which still determined Pitt to bring the war to an 
end, if possible, were the difficulty of raising further loans in England, 
the coolness which existed between England and Austria, and the 
threatened revolution in Ireland. A financial crisis in England, due, 
according to Fox and Sheridan, to the repeated advances made to 
Austria,^ greatly hampered the government. Austria demanded an 
increased loan and was irritated at receiving the answer that it must be 
postponed for a time. § Thugut also thoroughly disapproved of the 
sending of Malmesbury to Paris and refused either to despatch any 
Austrian diplomats to treat for peace or to commission Malmesbury to 
act for Austria. Although he was compelled to acknowledge that 
Austria could not refuse a peace that fulfilled the terms of the alliance 
with England, he was sincere and earnest in arguing in favor of the 
continuance of war. || In Ireland the effect of the recall of Earl Fitz- 
william had been to arouse a serious discontent, and there was real 
danger of a widespread rebellion. Pitt knew also of Roche’s projected 
invasion for the purpose of assisting the disaffected Irish. These con¬ 
ditions, then, were operative at the moment when Malmesbury, on 
October 18, left Dover for France. 
The impression received from Malmesbury’s correspondence and 
diary is that he undertook his mission in the full conviction that Pitt 
seriously desired peace,If and also in the belief that such a peace was 
possible if France would but listen to reason. Grenville had instructed 
him to insist on the customary forms of diplomacy, but Malmesbury, 
fearing that insistence on such forms would lead to a sudden rupture, 
passed over in silence various slights put upon him. Thus the answer 
of Delacroix, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, to the first note 
presented by Malmesbury was couched in terms of recrimination, but 
Malmesbury ignored this, choosing to consider it as due to unfamiliarity 
* Pari. Hist., XXXII, 1476. 
t Grenville to Malmesbury, Oct. 16, 1796. Dropmore, III, 260. 
%Parl. Hist., XXXII, 1518-1524. 
§ Grenville to Stahremberg, Nov. 13, 1796. Dropmore, III, 267. 
|j Morton Eden to Auckland, Nov. 16, 1796. Auckland, III, 362 ; Sybel, IV, 
3 1 8-333. Malmesbury to Pitt, Oct. 17, 1796. Malmesbury, III, 266. 
If Malmesbury to Pitt, Oct. 17, 1796. Ibid. 
