THE NEW PRUSSIAN PROPOSALS. 
31 
attitude on questions of foreign policy. Portland and his friends 
had joined Pitt because they believed in the necessity of the war and 
could no longer support the tactics of Fox in opposition to that policy. 
Gradually Grenville and Pitt grew apart, the former becoming morel 
warlike in his sentiments, the latter more pacific. In the end Gren 4 
ville was supported by the Portland Whigs as against Pitt, while itr 
general Pitt found that the addition of the Whigs tended to destroy 
that unanimity which had heretofore been so marked a characteristic 
of his ministry. This development was not yet foreseen, nor had it 
been fully accomplished when next a difference of opinion arose be¬ 
tween Pitt and Grenville. The failure of Grenville’s Austrian nego¬ 
tiations in November of 1794 had momentarily set aside the thought 
of a close military alliance with any power, but in December George III 
himself revived the Austrian project^*Ahe chief obstacle to which was 
Thugut’s demand for a substantial loan. The financial distress in 
England made it impossible for the ministry to promise such a loan 
until it had had the opportunity of laying the matter before Parlia¬ 
ment, but meanwhile an unsatisfactory arrangement w r as made by 
which temporary advances were given to Austria. While the whole 
question of a systematic alliance with Austria was thus being neces¬ 
sarily postponed, it daily became more evident that Prussia was fast 
turning toward peace with France. Pitt, vexed with Thugut’s stub¬ 
bornness in demanding a burdensome loan and convinced that Prussia 
was the only power able to render efficient aid in a proposed recon¬ 
quest of Holland, determined to bring forward again the plan of a 
Prussian subsidy. Already in December of 1794 Malmesbury, who 
was at Brunswick, deriving from an unpromising despatch by Paget a 
faint hope that Prussia might yet reenter the war, had written a final 
letter of appeal to Haugwitz,f though in explaining to Grenville 
this unauthorized communication he described his letter as one of 
indignant upbraiding.^ On February 3, 1795, Malmesbury informed 
Grenville that Prussia was vexed at the excessive demands of the 
French and was about to renew war.§ A few days after this letter 
should have been received in London, Pitt brought forward his plan 
of a new Prussian subsidy to infuse new energy into the war and to 
keep Prussia from making peace with France.|| Grenville’s opposition 
* George III to Grenville, Dec. 7, 1794. Dropmore, II, 650. 
| Diary, Dec., 1794, and Malmesbury to Paget, Dec. 25, 1794. Malmesbury, III, 
184-185, 228. 
JDec. 23, 1794. Dropmore, II, 653. 
$ Malmesbury, III, 240. 
|| This plan has been vaguely suspected by historians, but is customarily omitted 
in narratives of the period for lack of satisfactory proof. The fact that the details 
of this episode are for the first time brought out by the Dropmore MSS. seems to 
justify a more extended examination than the incident would otherwise require. 
