THE INFLUENCE OF GRENVILLE ON PITTS 
FOREIGN POLICY, 1787-1798. 
INTRODUCTION. 
In discussing the course of the English government during the wars 
of the French Revolution it has been the custom of historians to credit 
Pitt with responsibility for the initiation and adoption of each specific 
point of English policy. Pitt, it is said, was the head of the English 
government and the English government was Pitt. In minor matters 
he might defer to his colleagues, but in greater questions of policy his 
will was supreme and his decision final. In short histories of the 
period such extreme statements may be excused by the necessity for 
concise writing, but the tendency to overestimate the importance of 
Pitt is found also in more extended accounts. It amounts very nearly 
to an assertion of despotic control by the chief minister and of an 
entire subordination of the other members of the Cabinet. 
In fact, however, Pitt’s Cabinet was so organized as to preclude the 
absolutism of one man. It consisted not of the chief supporters of 
one fixed line of policy, as is the case today, but of a variety of ele¬ 
ments, all of which it was necessary to harmonize by concession and 
j compromise. At least two of the members of the Cabinet, Dundas and 
Grenville, asserted their authority in their own departments, and. were 
in consequence rather the fellow-ministers of Pitt than his executive 
• agents. Contemporary opinion, indeed, credited Grenville with a 
greater influence upon the general policy of government and a more 
complete control of his own department than were exercised by any 
other of Pitt’s colleagues. Lord Muncaster* is authority for Gren¬ 
ville’s independence in outlining foreign policy ; Lord Sheflield con¬ 
sidered Grenville’s “ head as a statesman * * * * to be at least as 
good as that of any of His Majesty’s ministers,” f and Count Woron- 
zow, the Russian ambassador, told Gouverneur Morris that Grenville 
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* Stanhope, III, 4. f Auckland, III, 371. 
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