66 THE INFLUENCE OF GRENVILLE ON PITT’S FOREIGN POLICY. 
/ 
main points in question in the Negotiation my opinions remain unalter¬ 
ably what I stated to you in our last conversation ; that, on that line, X 
shall at all evc?its act, and that collateral difficulties may, I think, always 
be overcome by a mixture of firmness and temper.” * * * § And again on 
September 14 he wrote to Malmesbury : “ On all material points in the 
whole of your negotiation, my opinion will remain unaltered (though 
my hopes are rather more sanguine), and my ultimate determination 
will be what I think you know.”f These letters would constitute 
excellent evidence of Pitt’s firmness of determination, if it were not for 
the fact that between the probable date of the receipt of Malmesbury’s 
letters, September 3 or 4, and the date of Pitt’s first letter, September 
11, news had reached London of the conclusion of the struggle in Paris 
in the overthrow on September 4 of the peace faction, and the victory 
f Barras, Rewbell, and the war party. J If Maret’s analysis of the 
situation was correct, and of this neither Malmesbury nor Pitt had any 
doubt, all hope of peace through the negotiations at Lille was destroyed 
by the coup d" etat of the 18th Fructidor in Paris. Moreover, the hope 
expressed by Pitt in his letter of September 14 referred to a secret nego¬ 
tiation unknown to Malmesbury, in which Pitt believed the way open 
to the purchase of a favorable peace by the bribery of Barras, and not 
to any confidence felt in the probable outcome at Lille. In the light 
of Pitt’s failure to reply to Malmesbury until after the knowledge of 
events in Paris had reached him, his letters seem indeed the assertions 
of a man who, knowing his original plan defeated, was yet, owing to 
an event foreign to the ground upon which that defeat had been sus¬ 
tained, fortunately able to assert the fixity and integrity of his purpose. 
The new government in Paris quickly brought the negotiation at 
Lille to an end. Maret and his colleagues were at once recalled, and 
two new negotiators appeared in their stead with a demand so insolent 
and extreme that Malmesbury had no other option than to refuse it. 
Ignoring the results of all previous conferences, the new French diplo¬ 
mats insisted that as a preliminary to any negotiation whatever, Malmes¬ 
bury must state explicitly whether or not he was ‘ ‘ authorized to treat 
on the principle of a general restitution of every possession remaining in 
His Majesty"s hands , not only belonging to them [the French] , but to their 
Allies. ’ ’§ An immediate answer was required, and Malmesbury, recog- 
* Malmesbury, III, 554. 
\ Ibid., 560. 
j The news reached London by September 9, at least. See Malmesbury to Gren¬ 
ville, Sept. 9, 1797, and Grenville to Malmesbury, Sept. 11, 1797. Dropmore, III, 
37o, 372. 
§ Malmesbury to Grenville, Sept. 17, 1797. Malmesbury, 111,562. 
