I do not know of any good ground for believing the common report of treachery, either in the civil or military government of the country; but I know, that if the principle upon which our Government act in the prosecution of the war is not cordially felt here--if the greatness of those interests, which we think now at stake, is not to the same degree here considered as being of the very essence and existence of all regulated government, a Convention will not give them a livelier perception of this common danger, or teach them to see in it a crisis such as demands greater energy and exertions, than any other state of things could call for. But this common principle is not all that is wanting in the present case: we think, in England, that the preservation of the Austrian Netherlands is an object important to us as providing a defence for Holland, and important to the Court of Vienna as forming a rich and considerable possession to the House of Austria, and, therefore, making an object of common interest, though touching Austria still more sensibly than England. If this obvious view of the interests of both countries prevailed in the Governments of both--as one might rationally expect that it would--it would naturally furnish, by common consent, a very leading and governing motive, as well to the operations of the war, as to the ultimate issue of it. This, however, is not the view which is entertained here, or which I can persuade myself is really acted upon by those whose influence is decisive here. M. de Thugut, the efficient Minister of this Court, is personally very much disposed (and long has been so) to the old project of an exchange of the Netherlands; and though that project appears to be laid aside for the purpose of conciliating Great Britain and Holland, yet it is evident that M. de Thugut's opinions are such as lead him to set but little value upon the possession of the Netherlands, and, therefore, that every circumstance, either of expense or of military enterprise, which looks towards the acquisition and defence of those provinces, is as much discouraged by him as he can venture to do, without openly declaring the whole bias of his mind: and it is very remarkable that, much as we have made it our business to press this to him in all our conversations, we have never yet been able to draw from him even a cold assent to the idea of the Low Countries being of any real value in themselves to the Emperor; though he sometimes feebly admits that, with a considerable addition to them, they might be made so.