Nevertheless the British Ministers persevered with their scheme; but whether they at first aimed at Corsica or Toulon is uncertain.[239] Certain it is that Pitt on 19th July proposed to detach three line regiments from the Duke of York's force in Flanders and send them to the Mediterranean along with one brigade of the Hessian corps and a body of Wuertembergers. He pointed out that the naval superiority of Hood and the Spanish fleet in that sea would enable us to strike a telling blow at Provence if we were helped by Sardinians, Neapolitans, and Austrians from the Milanese. He admitted the strength of the arguments in favour of our land forces acting together on one point; but he added: "What I now mention seems to offer a fair chance of doing something material in the South [of France], and, if we distress the enemy on more sides than one, while their internal distraction continues, it seems hardly possible that they can long oppose any effectual resistance."[240] Pitt wrote thus at the time when Mainz and Valenciennes were on the point of surrender, and the Bretons, together with nearly the whole of the South of France, were in open revolt against the regicide Republic. Equally characteristic of his sanguine temperament is his Memorandum of 23rd August 1793 as to the allied forces which ought to be available for service against France in June 1794, namely, 30,000 in Flanders, while 50,000 marched thence on Paris; 50,000 to attack Brest, and as many more to attack Toulon.[241]