Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 5.djvu/314

300 the same condition, and added, "You may rely upon it, that the patience and long-suffering of this army are almost exhausted, and that there never was so great a spirit of discontent as at this instant. It is high time for a peace." Yet at this moment the congress, careless of its army, or whether it dispersed or not, because the whig ministers of England had determined to fight no more, behaved to their old friends and eulogists with the most supreme scorn. A minister of genius would, at this moment, have mustered fresh troops and ships, were it by a gigantic effort, have quelled those starved and trouserless troops, and have dispelled the prospects of a peace, which might never arrive, except by submission; for at this moment the spirit of England was rising again on the ocean, and there needed only a great mind at the helm to humble all her enemies.

But Fox and his colleagues had not yet tasted all the humiliation which they had been preparing for themselves, by their years of inconsiderate language.



When they dreamt only of damaging their official opponents, they were in reality damaging and humbling themselves. Fox now had recourse to the mediations of Russia and Austria. The czarina and the emperor Joseph, equally with the Dutch convinced of the fallen fortunes of England, insulted her whilst pretending to serve her. At the same time. Fox dispatched to Paris Thomas Grenville, to propose, as the basis of a treaty, the concession of the independence of the United States, and the status quo ante bellum, for all other territories. Here again, however, the same haughty indifference encountered him; the French expected wonders from their mighty fleet in the West Indies, under De Grasse; nothing less than the capture of our few remaining islands; and the Spaniards were more than ever confident of the conquest of Gibraltar.

Whilst Fox was experiencing these unpleasant effects of