THE LIFE AND TIMES OF CHARLES JAMES FOX. CHAPTER XXXVII. POSITION OF PITT, AND CONDUCT OF THE WAR. THE commencement of the year 1794 found Great Britain, in conjunction with Austria, Prussia, Germany, Spain, and Sardinia, at war with France. Holland had been forced from her neutrality, and constrained to join the Alliance by the menaces of England. Similar threats were applied to Switzerland; but, safe in her mountain bulwarks, she resisted them. The Empress of Russia shared nominally in the alliance against France, and uttered the loudest antiJacobin protestations; but, in reality, she directed all her energies to the conquest, subjugation, and partition of Poland. Pitt having declined the office of a mediator, which he might have assumed with great credit and possibly with success, had indulged the animosities of the Tories of England, and of the Girondin party in France, by rushing impetuously into the war. It is now to be seen how he conducted that great contest ; with how much judgment he estimated the means and resources of the French Republic, with what foresight he |