Personal questions played a baneful part in embittering the feud. Pitt and Grenville shrouded themselves in their insular and innate austerity. They judged the English Radical clubs too harshly; they ascribed to those who congratulated the Convention on 28th November treasonable aims which can scarcely have arisen in England when the addresses were drawn up. Apart from frothy republican talk, which should have been treated with quiet contempt, those congratulations contained no sign of consciousness that France was about to challenge us to conflict. We may admit that Frost and Barlow showed great tactlessness in presenting those addresses when friction between the two nations had already begun; for the incident, besides stiffening the necks of Frenchmen, gave the Reform movement an appearance of disloyalty to England which worked infinite harm. Nevertheless, on reviewing these questions, we see that Pitt treated the foolish ebullitions of youth as though they implied malice.
Surely, too, he, and still more Grenville, were unwise in placing Chauvelin under a political and social ban, which naturally led him to consort with the bitterest enemies of Government in order to annoy Ministers here and please his employers at Paris. A touchy and sensitive nature like Chauvelin's is usually open to the soothing influences of flattery. Grenville, however, drove him to open enmity, which finally wreaked its revenge;[193] for it was Chauvelin's report on the readiness of Britons to revolt which finally decided the Convention to declare war on 1st February. We may also inquire why the Court of St. James's did not make clear the course of conduct which it proposed to take in the future respecting France.[194] As outlined in the despatch of 29th December to Whitworth, it formed the basis of a practicable compromise. If it could be stated confidentially to Russia, Austria, and Prussia, why not to France? Probably the objections of George III to the faintest sign of recognition of the French Republic[195] account for the fact that these enlightened intentions remained, down to the year 1800, secret except to those Powers. But statesmen err when they bury their good intentions in the secrecy of archives and allow public opinion to sympathize with the enemy. Here was Pitt's most serious blunder. At the outset of the struggle, and throughout its course, he scorned those tactful arts and melodramatic ways which win over waverers and inspire the fainthearted. Here he showed himself not a son of Chatham, but a Grenville. The results of this frigidity were disastrous. All Frenchmen and many Britons believed that he went out of his way to assail a peaceful Republic in order to crush liberty abroad and at home. History has exposed the falseness of the slander; but a statesman ought not to owe his vindication to research in archives. He needs whole-hearted support in the present more than justification by students.