remained on the Rhine until he could receive further instructions from London. This brought the impecunious King to reason, for without English money he was lost. Shortly afterwards the parley was, with Pitt's sanction, resumed; and there was much haggling over the sphere wherein the Prussian troops should be employed, Frederick William declaring that for operations on the Rhine he would furnish eighty thousand men, but for Belgium not more than fifty thousand. Finally, Malmesbury succeeded in compromising matters; and a treaty was signed at the Hague on
April 19. the 19th of April, whereby Prussia, in consideration of a lump sum of £300,000 and a subsidy of £50,000 a month, engaged herself to provide sixty-two thousand men, to be employed wherever Great Britain and Holland, their paymasters, should think fit. Ten days
April 30. later Fox in the House of Commons predicted that this would be a useless waste of money; and it will be seen that he was a true prophet.[1]
Meanwhile Coburg was doing his utmost to prepare his army for the heavy work that lay before it; but the Austrian forces had not improved since the previous year. Heavy losses had brought many young soldiers into the ranks; and, owing to the extreme extension of his line of cantonments, the troops had gained little rest during the winter. The French delivered as many as forty-five petty attacks between the 6th of January and the 26th of March, each one of which meant the setting of many detachments in motion for long and harassing matches. Moreover, owing to the decay of the Emperor's popularity in Belgium, the people would do little or nothing for the troops; and, Coburg being unwilling to take from the inhabitants what they re-*
- ↑ Sybel, iii. 49-65; York to Dundas, 22nd March, 3rd April 1794; Witzleben, iii. 70-84.
