Another explanation of Pitt's fury is possible. Grenville and he may have received news of the warlike preparations going on in the French seaports and on the Dutch borders. I have found no proof of this; but it is certain that by this time they must have had before them the inflammatory appeal of Monge to French and English Jacobins as well as the boastful tirade of Kersaint to the Convention. Having these proofs of the warlike ardour of the French and of their reliance on British reformers, how could Pitt and Grenville look on the philanthropic professions of Maret as anything but a snare, and Miles as his dupe? Miles had ever been officious. Clearly the time had come to stop his fussy advances to an unofficial agent, which Lebrun might once more ascribe to Pitt's secret fear of France.
It would be interesting to discover how far Pitt and Grenville were at this time aware of the secret designs of the French Executive Council. On this topic I have found no definite evidence. It is very unlikely that on 13th January they knew of the aggressive plans which the Executive Council had formed three days before. But it is certain that such plans were set on foot on 10th January. On that day the Executive Council drew up secret orders for Generals Dumouriez and Miranda. The former was then at Paris concerting plans for the next campaign, not for the purpose of saving Louis XVI, as he afterwards stated. Whether he fanned the warlike ardour of the Executive Council will perhaps never be known. But undoubtedly on 10th January the Executive Council bade him order his lieutenant, Miranda, to prepare for the invasion of Dutch Flanders and Walcheren within twelve days. Furnaces were to be supplied to the French gun-vessels in the Scheldt so as to beat off the frigates, whether English or Dutch is not stated.[175]
Why did not Miranda carry out this plan? Merely because he had neither stores nor food[176]--a fact which justifies the British Government in placing an embargo on the corn intended for France. Undoubtedly if he had had supplies, Miranda would have seized the lands at the mouth of the Scheldt, and cut off the retreat of the Stadholder to his place of refuge, Walcheren. It will further be observed that these orders were given at Paris three days after the despatch of Lebrun's and Maret's notes to London. The design apparently was to amuse England until a deadly blow could be struck at the Dutch. Auckland, writing on the 11th at The Hague, expressed to Grenville the hope that war might be avoided, or, if that were impossible, that the rupture should be postponed until the Austrians and Prussians had re-crossed the Rhine. The preparations of the Dutch were going on with the usual slowness.[177] Evidently the French Government counted on their traditional inertia and on the malcontents in Great Britain and Ireland. The private letters of Maret, that _soi-disant_ friend of peace, breathe full assurance of victory.[178]