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The Duc de Choiseul and the Invasion of England, 1768–1770
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 February 2009
Extract
When the Seven Years' War was brought to a close in February 1763, France was too exhausted by a long series of defeats to do otherwise than acquiesce in the terms proposed by England. Those terms would undoubtedly have been harder had Pitt still remained in the Cabinet to direct the negotiations; and Lord Bute and his colleagues incurred much abuse in England for not turning the recent brilliant victories to greater profit. Yet in France, though peace itself was welcome, the terms of the Treaty of Paris were looked upon as a deep national humiliation, and perhaps no one felt this more bitterly than the man who helped to negotiate it, viz. the Duc de Choiseul, for it meant the frustration of the hopes he had founded on the recently renewed Family Compact with Spain. Since his accession to power at the close of the year 1758, Choiseul had laboured with great patience and diplomacy to bring Spain into close union with France; this, after three years, he finally succeeded in doing by the famous Family Compact of August 1761, which was intended to unite the several houses of Bourbon in the closest alliance for mutual defence. In this treaty was a clause specially levelled against England (Article 8), and when that fact became known in this country, the English ministers, who in October 1761 had driven Pitt from office rather than allow him to declare war on Spain, were compelled to do so themselves in the following January 1762. It is well known that the results of that war were everywhere disastrous to Spain and brought fresh losses to France, so that by the autumn of 1762 both countries were earnest in desiring peace, and a treaty was ratified at Paris in February 1763.
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- Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1910
References
page 84 note 1 Mémoires of the Duc de Choiseul, printed at Chanteloup.
page 85 note 1 Mémoire justificatif présenté au Roi par Choiseul en 1765.Google Scholar
page 87 note 1 The existence of these memoirs has of course long been known to historians, probably owing to the mention made by them, so far back as 1840, by Lord Stanhope, who had access to the Chatham collection.
page 89 note 1 Sheldon, Norburn, Upper Deal, Mongeham, Ripple, Walmer, Sutton, Ringswould, Oxney.
page 102 note 1 Archives de la Min. des Aff. Etrang. Correspondance. Angleterre. No. 494, f. 2 et seq.
page 103 note 1 Foreign, S. P.. France. 281. 10 17.Google Scholar
page 104 note 1 (S. P. For. France, , 281, 11 and 12)Google Scholar One explanation of the conduct of France and Spain at this juncture which should not be overlooked is that neither country found it possible to believe that England was sincere hi her professions of peace; they thought she was simply making use of the occasion as a pretext for war. Only at the eleventh hour were they convinced of this error, and that by an incident which throws a curious light on the manners of the day. Frances, in a confidential letter to Choiseul of December 22, 1770, relates how Lord North had given him an appointment at nine o'clock at night, to receive his answer to an important despatch. There had been a dinner party to Lord Sandwich and other members of the Cabinet, where the wine had been circulating freely. ‘In fact, Monseigneur,’ Frances writes, ‘I found Lord North at nine o'clock at night as drunk as an owl (ivre comme un fiacre), and I presume that all the members of the British cabinet were in as good condition as their chief. This circumstance in a little affair in which only the fate of three kingdoms was at stake, was hi itself sufficiently interesting.’
Not having drunk so much as his Excellency (Francès continues), he profited by the occasion and the communicative disposition in which he found Lord North, to sound him on every point of interest, and was surprised to find the English Prime Minister uttering precisely the same sentiments in a state of complete drunkenness, as he had always done previously. Now when men, who are very drunk, Francès observes, preserve the same logic and sequence of ideas as they had when sober, it may be deduced that they are doing so from acquired habit, and that therefore they are speaking the truth. It was a fact, he added, that he had often experienced, though in circumstances a little less important than the present. (Archives des Affaires Étrangères. Correspondance. Angleterre, . 494, f. 440.)Google Scholar
page 106 note 1 Cal. Papers, H. O., 1773–1775, No. 250.Google Scholar
page 112 note 1 The place-names in the above lists are printed here as given in the MSS. and their identification has not been attempted to avoid undue expansion of the Text and Index. With a few exceptions these names can be easily identified in the Ordnance Maps and this identification will suggest the following conclusions: (1) That whilst the many forms are more or less correctly given, others (e.g. ‘Howling Lane’ for Hollicondane, Battleham for Bethlehem, Clayfostle for Clare's Forstal) are less intelligent. (2) That these names were taken down from verbal information. (3) That the order of the places indicates revision at different times. (4) That hamlets and farms figure here as well as ‘villages.’