told him I had a message to deliver to him from his. friend Cherin, and that I was to receive 30,000 livres for putting him into the hands of the republicans. He replied undauntedly, If the fellows ever take me, it shall not be before I am dead?

6

“The major lent me a horse of his own, and sent an orderly hussar with me to the British head-quarters, where, as soon as I arrived, I got a small box, into which I put the money I received from Custine, the papers he gave me for my instructions, the Républicain Français,' which he desired me to give the Duke of York from him-all these articles, with a letter from myself explanatory of the whole, I caused to be delivered into the hands of Colonel Calvert, for the inspection of His Royal Highness, who testified his full approbation of my conduct, and mentioned me with distinction to the Prince of Coburg, and two days afterwards Colonel Calvert took down in writing the various observations I had made during my captivity, in consequence of what I could collect at table from the very communicative company whose society I enjoyed. These observations were at that time deemed of high importance."

The foregoing record of the services of this spy were drawn up in consequence of a misunderstanding which he had in the sequel with Colonel Calvert and His Royal Highness the Duke of York on the subject of

remuneration for his services. In addition to his loyalty, evinced in the instance just narrated, he asserts that it was through his correspondence with the French generals, Custine and his successor Hochard,* that the enemy never once interrupted the blockade of Condé, or attempted to raise the siege of Valenciennes, and he contrasts his own conduct with that of other people employed on secret service for the British army, who were, he states, Frenchmen, who abhorred the English name, who gave to the enemy every information they could wish to obtain against the allied army, and concealed every important object from the British.

Upon the merits of this case it is impossible to form an opinion at the present date, but the statement of the impediments which the British encountered in obtaining correct information seems to accord very well with the observations in various passages of Colonel Calvert's correspondence.

There is a discrepancy between the narrative of the Spy and Colonel Calvert's memoirs, in relation to the circumstances under which the French General Chapuy fell into the hands of the Allies. In Calvert he is stated to have been taken prisoner; in the other narrative it is stated that he deserted to the English on 26th April 1794.

* Appendix E.

CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH.

Campaign in Holland continued.*

AT the end of September General Clairfayt found himself obliged to abandon his position behind the Roer. This movement rendered the position of the British and

* Mr. THOMAS GRENVILLE to Lord GRENVILLE.

VIENNA, Sept. 1, 1794.

From this letter it would appear that Austria wished to obtain a loan of two millions, secured upon the revenues of the low countries.

The following is a curious picture of the tortuous policy of Austria and Prussia :

"They (the Austrians) dwell certainly upon the difference which they state between loan and subsidy, and wish to prove to us that their offer of security upon the revenues of the Low Countries should, at least by us (who always insist on those territories remaining in the House of Austria), be accepted as a good and ample mortgage for the repayment of the sums which they want for this year and the next; but if it is true that they do not feel interested at heart in these possessions, or if they think us so earnest in our wishes on this subject that thay may safely throw the whole weight of it upon us, their offer of a hypothéque on those possessions takes a much more suspicious character; nor is it perhaps an unreasonable jealousy on my part to apprehend that they may wish you to have a mortgage of two millions on the Netherlands, as an inducement to you hereafter to give up

EXPOSED SITUATION OF LEFT FLANK.

193

Hanoverians no longer tenable, their left being uncovered, while the enemy appeared also in considerable

some of your French acquisitions in the West Indies, in order to recover for them a country in which you will have a large pecuniary stake, added to the ordinary course of political observations.

“Much, at least, of M. Thugut's conversations would seem to tally with this view of the matter. It is observable that he perpetually recurs to its being a settled point that, de façon ou d'autre, the Netherlands will be secured to Austria at the peace, and yet he never seems (in his view of the military operations to be pursued) to consider them as a main object of defence, and is so little disposed to make them so, that he expresses much reluctance at the idea proposed of engaging Austria to furnish so large an army to act in that country, which he thinks might be better employed elsewhere. Add to this his remarking that England might be satisfied by the irrevocable detriment done to the navy and commerce of France; and his contrasting the difference in point of acquisitions made by Great Britain with the total failure on the side of Austria; and it is no great refinement to suspect the whole of this to lead to an expectation that we may better buy back the Netherlands for them than put them to the expense of defending them or regaining them; and that we should have an additional motive for sacrificing some of our conquests to this object, if we have two millions of money mortgaged upon it.

"If the Emperor's personal character had steadiness enough to influence the Government, his disposition to the true principles of the war would be a great security to us; at present, however, it is of little or no avail.

"With respect to the ministers, Thugut is certainly the most efficient minister here; very diligent and laborious in his office. What we, however, miss in him is either the disposition or the capacity to see the present great crisis of Europe upon the large scale on which it should be looked at by the leading Minister of

K

force on their left. Accordingly, the Duke found it advisable to prepare to pass the Waal. With this object in view, he placed the reserve on the right bank this empire; instead of which we see a cold, narrow, and contracted view of this subject-many discouraging tokens of that total want of manly energy and direct dealing, without which all co-operation must necessarily be languid or feeble; always taking merit for having sent the most distinct orders to try the relief of Valenciennes, yet never taking the obvious mode of satisfying us by communicating these orders to us; maintaining as an argument for the loan, that without it the army cannot move, yet, at the same time, resisting our objections of the delay of waiting for answers from M. de Marcy, by stating this movement as being actually in great forwardness, and not depending on the loan for its execution; acquiescing in the change of command urged by us, and yet, ever since that event, reminding us that, in his opinion, this very change may defeat the operation which we wished to assist by it; gratifying our impatience at one time by counting up the days to the probable time of the desired movement, and then again stating that Clairfayt's army may be weakened too much to attempt it by his detaching, perhaps considerably, towards the side of Treves; complaining that the Austrians had been prevented from sending Blankenstein's corps towards Flanders, as they wished, by the Prussians having engaged it in their line of defence, and yet refusing to us a corps much more inconsiderable and not involved in the objection-I mean the corps of Condé-a corps, too, which, as I have before observed, from their own statement of their want of money, they should have been glad to have seen transferred to the pay of another country.

"These and many other such traits of inconsistency I advert to only as being descriptive of the very unsatisfactory manner in which our business is discussed, always providing, on their side, apologies for future failures, instead of means of success and projects of vigour and enterprise."