Notwithstanding all his greatness, there was one weak point in Pitt’s line of policy. He made the mistake of constantly underestimating the power of the enthusiasm awakened by the revolutionary ideas in France. This was equivalent to attaching too low an estimate to the strength of the enemy. It was in consequence of this error that he formed coalition after coalition, only to see them all shattered by Napoleon and his enthusiastic followers. When his last great coalition was broken by the battle of Austerlitz the blow was too much for his declining health; and, worn out with toil and anxiety, he sank rapidly, and expired on the 26th of January, 1806. It is the judgment of Alison that “Considered with reference to the general principles by which his conduct was regulated, and the constancy with which he maintained them through adverse fortune, the history of Europe has not so great a statesman to exhibit.” WILLIAM PITT. ON HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. HOUSE OF COMMONS, FEBRUARY 3, 1800. On the day after Bonaparte was inaugurated as First Consul of France, December 25, 1799, he addressed a personal letter to the King of England, asking for peace. The English Government, however, entertained a keen resentment at what they regarded the evasive and insulting conduct of the French Directory during the last negotiations. Accordingly, the reply of Lord Grenville, then Minister of Foreign Affairs, rejected the proposed opening of negotiations for peace. The Government justified its attitude by referring to the course of the French during the war. It declared that its beginning had been an “unprovoked attack” on the part of the French, that the “system” which inspired the war “continued to prevail,” that England could present “no defence but that of open and steady hostility” to the system, that “the best and most natural pledge of the reality and permanence of peace” had been rejected by the French, that although the English “did not claim to prescribe to France what shall be her form of government” yet they desired security for future peace, and that “unhappily no such security hitherto exists, no sufficient evidence of the principles by which the new government will be directed, no reasonable ground by which to judge of its stability.” To this letter Talleyrand wrote a spirited reply; and Lord Grenville closed the correspondence with a reaffirmation of his Government’s former position.