THE NEGOTIATIONS AT EIEEE. 
65 
office. ’ * * ' I hope, after all, I may be wrong in my misgivings, 
and that the war party in the Cabinet have not surprised the religio?i of 
the pacific one.” * 
Malmesbury was in a state of excited distrust not customary with 
him, for on the same day, August 29, he wrote still a third letter to 
Canning : ” For Heaven’s sake, do not let the only person in England, 
perhaps in Europe, who seeing right can act with effect, be seduced 
to wander from the principle he laid down two months ago.” That 
these letters were intended for Pitt’s eye is shown by the concluding 
sentence : “I never object to anything being shewn to Pitt ' * ' ' 
I do not write to him, because I could say nothing I have not said to 
you. ’ ’ f Three days later Malmesbury talked the matter over with Ellis 
and noted in his diary Pitt’s ” weakness in regard to Lord Grenville.” X 
Although the policy of the war party in the English Cabinet was not 
yet predominant to the extent feared by Malmesbury, it was at least so 
far victorious as to render Pitt unwilling to risk a direct challenge of 
authority. On August 29 Canning informed Malmesbury that an offi¬ 
cial approval of his violation of instructions in not handing in a formal 
note of complaint to the French negotiators would have been sent to 
him ” if I had been quite sure mj^self, or if the one person with whom 
I consulted upon the subject could have answered it to me, that a 
thorough approbation of this omission would be given * I 
vehemently feared, and so did n^ opposite neighbour [Pitt] ,§ that the 
warlike spirit was too strong in that quarter [Grenville’s] to expect a 
perfect acquiescence.”|| It is thus evident that though Grenville was 
still hampered by the controversy with Austria as to the payment of the 
loans,fl he had succeeded in forming a party in the Cabinet stoutly an¬ 
tagonistic to peace, and one whose strength was daily increasing. The S 
temper of the country was also steadily rising, and there is some reason 
for thinking that Pitt, recognizing his weakness in the Cabinet, had 
already determined to sacrifice his opinion to Grenville’s. Malmesbury’s 
three letters of August 29 must have reached London by September 4, at 
the latest,** and, had Pitt now been in earnest to fulfil his first instruc¬ 
tions to Malmesbury, it is certainly presumable that either he or Can¬ 
ning would have hastened to relieve Malmesbury’s uncertainty and agita¬ 
tion. Pitt did finally write to Malmesbury on September 11 that ‘ ‘ on the 
* Malmesbury, III, 517. 
f Ibid., 518. 
i Ibid. , 521. 
§ Pitt and Canning lived in opposite houses on the same street. 
|| Malmesbury, III, 520. 
f Grenville to Morton Eden, Sept. 8, 1797. Dropmore, III, 369. 
**The time usually required in transit was from two to four days. 
5 
