of her armies, though supported by English supplies, were paralyzed by political intrigues, and by the incapacity of the Aulic Council. Pitt was engaged in a hopeless struggle, but refused to recognize the fact. The disappearance of the French émigrés from the camp of the allies, should by itself have taught him that the object of the war was no longer, even nominally, the destruction of the French Republic, but the dismemberment of French territory. Ever since the Revolution of Thermidor, the Government in Paris had certainly lost that anarchical character, which, it was alleged, had made any diplomatic dealings with it impossible. It was idle to persist in asserting, that any difficulty on this score, even if it had previously existed, still remained; yet partly owing to this idea, and partly owing to the dread of French territorial aggrandisement in the Low Countries, the war was persisted in, and brought with it a heritage of military defeat abroad and financial distress at home, which not even the splendid naval victories of Nelson and Jervis, of Duncan and Collingwood, could compensate.
The expenditure of the country meanwhile continued to advance by leaps and bounds. Every possible device was resorted to to wring money from the already burdened tax-payer, devices described by Lord Lansdowne as "irksome, petty and unproductive exactions which fretted and disturbed men's minds."[1] At the close of the American war, the national debt amounted to £268,000,000. In 1798 it amounted to £462,000,000. In 1797 the Bank of England suspended cash payments. Lord Auckland is said to have observed that "this was the beginning of the throat cutting." The measure was intended to be temporary, but like many temporary measures, it lasted far longer than its original promoters had intended, and it was not till twenty-four years afterwards that cash payments were resumed. "Mark my prophecy," exclaimed Lord Lansdowne, "and do not disdain the counsel while yet in time. If you attempt to make bank notes a legal tender, their credit will perish. They may go on for a time; but
- ↑ Parliamentary History, xxxiii. 538.
