Grey was to make the motion for reform in the House of Commons, and was weak and sanguine enough to imagine he was to have the same success; but the times were different. Ye Administration was strong and popular, and the extravagance of French patriots had alarmed all English ones, and Pitt became as popular in resisting Grey’s motion for reform as he had been some years before in proposing one himself. Pitt, who knows what is called the people of England--a very different thing from knowing mankind--better than anybody, did not rest here, but determined to crush his rival by sounding a general alarm and issuing a proclamation, which indirectly was levelled at Grey and the _Friends of the People_. Grey was alarmed and vexed at the failure of this scheme and the loss of popularity. Fox was professedly kept out of all concern in this wild project, under a false and foolish idea, that if it failed he would not be involved in any disgrace that might attend its failure. However, when the motion was made and the discussion upon the Proclamation was brought forward, Grey and his friends were so over-powered in the House, that they were obliged to fly to Fox for protection, and some of them, particularly Erskine and Sheridan, excused themselves from any bad intention by saying they had professed no more than Fox had done on other occasions, and were unfair enough to say that though he had not signed his name with them, he had done more, for he had pledged himself to the public to support their principles. These debates and those which followed upon the progress of the French Revolution and its effects on the minds of men in England, increased the schism in the Whig party, which Pitt endeavoured to take advantage of by proposing a coalition. Ld. Loughborough and Dundas were the principal negotiators. [Sidenote: LEAVES ENGLAND] William Wyndham, by dint of frequent applications to Ld. Egremont to get him a foreign employment, is named to Florence, in lieu of Ld. Hervey. Frederick Hervey[106] is very unhappy at the suddenness and mystery of the proceedings, and has set off to travel by day and night to Florence. He is with us at this moment, and to the full as impatient for a change of wind. I left town on the 29th of November, on Friday. Although I was going to my children, yet I own I felt some severe pangs at leaving behind me many to whom I am most sincerely attached. _30th._--Dined at Canterbury; Captain Thomas dined with us. Got late to Dover. We hear so much of French privateers that we have sent off an express to Admiral Peyton for a cutter to protect us. Sailed on Monday, 2nd December, bad wind and bad day. Towards night the sea grew rough and I grew frightened. After a blowing passage, we got safe to Ostend in fifteen hours. _Tuesday, 3rd December._--Tormented by the impertinence and exactions of the people at the _Douane_. Set off at five in the evening, a _winter night_, for Bruges, which we reached with difficulty very late at night.