Page:British campaigns in Flanders, 1690-1794; being extracts from "A history of the British army," (IA britishcampaigns00fort).pdf/207

 Bouillé, knowing that the heart of the Revolution could be pierced at Paris, had suggested a descent upon Havre with thirty thousand men; and there was by this time another vulnerable point—namely, La Vendée—in the west of France. But why it should have been necessary to seek out a new point of attack, when troops were already massed or massing on the French frontier within twelve days' march of the capital, and with only a demoralised enemy before them, was a question which seems never to have occurred either to Pitt or to Dundas. There can be no doubt that they fell into a common pitfall of the British politician. They gave so much thought to the treaty which they should lay before Parliament at the close of the war, that they omitted to consider the means of bringing the war itself to a close.

It was in such inauspicious circumstances that the representatives of the various powers met in conference at Antwerp. Coburg, who loathed the war and had hoped to end it by an agreement with Dumouriez,

had issued a proclamation declaring himself to be the ally of all friends of order, and abjuring all projects of conquest in the Emperor's name. Instantly Austrians, Prussians, and English with one voice required him to withdraw it, and to publish a new declaration that he would prosecute the war vigorously. He did so, but with great reluctance; indeed, so bitter was his opposition to the new policy that he tried to open further negotiations with the Convention, and even furnished it with information which he ought to have kept to himself. Meanwhile Lord Auckland