THE RESULTS OF GRENVILLE’S VICTORY. 
73 
determination not to consent to a peace that did not permit the reten¬ 
tion by England of some of her conquests during the progress of the 
war. This was based on the theory that compensations were due for 
the continental acquisitions of France. The definite adoption of that 
policy, from which Pitt did not thereafter waver, was due in fully as 
great a degree to the long-continued insistence of Grenville as to the 
aggressions of France. Its maintenance was a victory for Grenville 
and constitutes the best general evidence of his later influence. Thus 
the conclusion of the negotiation at Lille furnishes a logical halting 
place in an examination of Grenville’s importance in English foreign 
policy, for with that event Grenville’s advice, hitherto alternately ac¬ 
cepted and discarded, became a permanent determining factor. Gren¬ 
ville’s war policy became Pitt’s policy, and as such has been regarded 
in history as the most distinguished feature of Pitt’s administration. 
Reviewing briefly the conditions of Grenville’s influence, it appears 
that the inception of his importance in foreign affairs was due to the 
opportunities of service that came to him from his intimacy and per¬ 
sonal friendship with Pitt. The ability and wisdom with which he 
conducted isolated diplomatic missions led Pitt to repose a large confi¬ 
dence in his general diplomatic intelligence and to respect his sugges¬ 
tions on broad questions of foreign policy. Until 1791, then, Gren¬ 
ville acted in the capacity of private adviser to his chief, but was in no 
sense determining the line of policy pursued. After that date—taking 
office on a sharp and distinct reversal of a former project, the armed 
intervention in the Turkish war—Grenville, who more than any other 
one person was responsible for the adoption of peaceful measures, 
assumed the control and directed the business of the Foreign Office. 
Thus the isolation of England from 1791 to 1793 was largely the result 
of Grenville’s influence. 
, Before the outbreak of war with France no difference of opinion 
arose within the English Cabinet, for both Pitt and Grenville believed 
in the possibility and in the wisdom of neutrality ; but as it became 
^ evident that war was inevitable, Grenville was less dismayed than Pitt 
at the prospect. In the conduct of the war itself several disagreements 
arose, in some of which, as in the wording of the manifesto of October, 
1793, the plan of recovering Prussian aid by territorial concessions in 
1796 and 1797, and the difficulties placed in the way of Malmesbury’s 
two negotiations, Grenville’s influence was predominant, while in others, 
as in the first Prussian subsidy of 1793 and the purpose to renew it in 
1794, as well as in the genuine offers of peace made to France, Pitt dis¬ 
played his personal desires and attempted to execute them in sp*' f 
