56 THE INFLUENCE OF GRENVILLE ON PITT’S FOREIGN POLICY. 
The reply of the French Directory to the opening made by England, 
received on June n, seemed to Grenville extremely insolent and its 
terms such as should have precluded any further negotiations. The 
Directory sent a passport for an English diplomat who should be ‘ ‘ fur¬ 
nished with the full powers of his Britannic Majesty for the purpose of 
negotiating, concluding, and signing a definitive and separate treaty of 
peace with the French Republic * * * ' * Thus the very conditions 
upon which negotiations were to be begun involved the recognition 
by England of the existence of the Republic—a point Grenville would 
have deferred until the formal conclusion of a definitive peace. But 
■ y Grenville objected still more to the humiliation of England in accept¬ 
ing the arbitrary conditions imposed, and, though in a minority in the 
Cabinet, earnestly combated Pitt’s purpose to send a negotiator. He 
was outvoted, and on June 16 he wrote to George III in regard to the 
proposed reply to France : 
“ Lord Grenville would not discharge his duty to your Majesty as 
an honest man or as an attached and dutiful servant if, with the opin¬ 
ion which he cannot help entertaining on the subject of that paper, he 
omitted to declare to your Majesty without reserve how it appears to 
him to fall both in tone and substance below what the present situa¬ 
tion of your Majesty’s kingdoms, even under all the pressure of the 
moment,might have entitled your Majesty’s Government to assume when 
speaking in your Majesty’s name ; and how much even the object of 
peace itself is endangered by a line of so much apparent weakness.” 
Under ordinary circumstances, Grenville stated, he would have re¬ 
signed at once, but the mutiny in the fleet deterred him : “the crisis 
of the present hour is such that the withdrawing even of the most in¬ 
significant member of the Government might weaken it in the public 
\ 
opinion at a moment when every good man must wish it strengthened. ”f 
Grenville maj^ have been honest in withholding his resignation while 
the mutiny in the fleet was under way ; he certainly was not sincere in 
the fear that the line taken by Pitt would endanger peace itself. Un¬ 
questionably the most influential motives that actuated him were the 
hope of so conducting negotiations as to render difficult a final agree¬ 
ment with France and the belief that time would restore his influence 
over the mind of his chief. George III, who was in entire sympathy 
with Grenville’s opposition to peace, perfectly understood the situation. 
In reply to Grenville’s letter, he wrote on June 17 : 
‘ ‘ However it may be irksome to Lord Grenville to hold the pen on 
* Pari. Hist., XXXIII, 911. 
f Dropmore, III, 329. 
