Bad news also came in from The Hague, to the effect that the French were demanding a passage through the Dutch fortress of Maestricht. These tidings caused the worst impression. Grenville wrote in reply to Auckland on 4th December. "The conduct of the French in all their late proceedings appears to His Majesty's servants to indicate a fixed and settled design of hostility against this country and the [Dutch] Republic." Equally threatening were "their almost undisguised attempts now making to excite insurrection here and in Holland." Consequently His Majesty had decided to arm in self defence, and he hoped that the Dutch would firmly repel all attempts derogatory to their neutrality. The King (he added), while taking these precautionary measures, would not omit such steps as might lead to friendly explanations with France through the private agents of that Government; but no ambassador would be received.[132] Pitt and Grenville set little store by the soothing explanations of Dumouriez and his friend, Maulde, who had made overtures to Auckland which met with a guarded but not unfavourable response. On their renewal, Auckland received them coldly, remarking that the whole situation was changed by the late violent decrees of the French Convention. At that time, too, the friendly Maulde was recalled and replaced by Tainville, "a professed Jacobin with brutal manners and evident indiscretion,"[133] Thus faded away the last faint hopes in that quarter.
Equally sombre was the outlook at Paris. The pacific reports sent by Maret and Maulde from London and The Hague were before the French Ministers at their meeting on 5th December. They had also the benefit of a lucid and suggestive _Mémoire_ sent by Talleyrand from London a week earlier, setting forth the desirability of a friendly understanding between the two free peoples, who, advancing hand in hand, might give liberty to backward peoples (especially Spanish America), and draw thence boundless benefits. It was the plan which Dumouriez and he had drawn up in the spring of that year. Probably the Executive Council took no notice of it; for certain papers found in the iron chest at the Tuileries cast doubts on the purity of Talleyrand's patriotism. Further, as Pache, Minister at War, hated Dumouriez, personal bias told strongly against the moderate proposals coming from London and The Hague. Nevertheless the Executive Council now decided to defer for the present the invasion of Holland, meanwhile chasing the Austrians beyond the Rhine, and fortifying Antwerp. The last step was declared not to infringe the principles of the Republic, "which oppose the spirit of conquest."