18 THE INFLUENCE OF GRENVILLE ON PITT’S FOREIGN POLICY. 
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new and unaccustomed combinations, saved England from the fruits 
of his errors. But neither Grenville nor any other English diplomat 
with whom he corresponded foresaw this change or counted upon it. 
The humiliation resulting from the negotiations at St. Petersburg 
would seem to have been sufficient ground for Pitt’s resuming that 
direct control of foreign policy which he had been accustomed to exer¬ 
cise while Leeds was in office. There is no evidence, however, that he 
was in anyway distrustful of Grenville’s ability or inclined to exercise 
his authority. On the contrary, such indirect evidence as exists tends 
to show a complete control by Grenville of his special department. 
Under Leeds’s administration Pitt had been in constant personal com¬ 
munication with English diplomats at foreign courts, receiving letters 
from them that should have been written to Leeds, and returning pri¬ 
vate answers that should have gone through the Foreign Office. On 
one occasion, when Leeds had offered Keith the choice between with¬ 
drawing what he considered an insulting letter or being recalled from 
Vienna, Pitt had forced Leeds to retract this threat and had gratified 
Keith with marks of honor and increased pay.* Under Grenville, 
Pitt in general ceased to write directly to the English diplomats, and 
in but one notable instance, to be considered later, did he attempt to 
conduct an indirect correspondence with an English agent who was 
nominally acting under instructions from the department of foreign 
affairs. 
In his relations with his subordinates Grenville knew his rights and 
assumed them without opposition. The recall of Ewart well illus¬ 
trates this; for Ewart, more than any other, had created the English 
influence at Berlin which permitted the realization of Pitt’s most bril¬ 
liant stroke of diplomacy, the formation of the Triple Alliance. Yet 
Grenville recalled Ewart in October, 1791, unjustly, though not openly, 
making him responsible for the failure of the Russian negotiation, retired 
him on a pension, and after his death sent an agent to seize his papers, 
fearing disclosures embarrassing to the government and to the prestige 
of the foreign department if these papers became public. When Ewart 
was recalled Pitt did not try to prevent the unmerited disgrace of 
a faithful servant, and Ewart himself recognized the futility of an 
1 \ 
*A series of letters from Keith to Leeds and to Pitt from April, 1788, to Novem¬ 
ber, 1789, discloses a conflict between Keith and Leeds illustrative both of Pitt’s 
control and of Leeds’s carelessness. Keith complained in an official letter to the 
Foreign Office of having been kept in ignorance of the project of the Triple Alli¬ 
ance, and even of having received instructions from Leeds which, if carried out, 
would have been directly opposed to that project. He demanded that his letter be 
placed on file. Leeds returned it, and gave Keith the option of withdrawing the 
letter or resigning. Keith sent the letter back again, and traveled to London to 
appeal to Pitt, who sustained him in the controversy. Keith, II, 225-248. 
