74 the INFLUENCE OF GRENVILLE ON PITT’S FOREIGN POLICY. 
Grenville’s objections. But it is to be noted that, taken as a whole, 
Grenville’s war policy was that which England followed. This in¬ 
volved two main ideas / first, to maintain coalitions against France in 
order to reduce French influence and to restore the balance of power 
in Europe; second? to seek English colonial expansion as a compensa- 
tion for the continental aggrandizement of France. These two points 
are customarily stated as the essentials of Pitt’s own policy,’when in 
fact Pitt, in his desire to secure peace at almost any price, would in 
1796 have sacrificed the first entire, and in 1797 was ready to yield all but 
the shadow of the second. Canning’s estimate of the struggle between 
Cabinet factions and his statement of the ascendancy of Grenville * 
sustains the impression which is created by a study of the Dropmore 
manuscripts. PitE-^il£r^797^hea^rdlj ! ^ccej)ted Grenville’s war policy, 
but it was due to Grenville rather than to Pitt that in the earlier years 
of the conflict England assumed and persevered in that line of conduct 
which later rose to the dignity of a national principle. 
* See ante, p. 60. 
