Powers will march hand in hand and "become the arbiters of peace or war for the whole world." This remarkable pronouncement claims attention for several reasons. Firstly, it proves that Dumouriez and Talleyrand believed their sole chance of safety to lie in the conquest of Austria's Belgic provinces, where a cognate people would receive them with open arms. That is to say, they desired war with Austria, and they did not dread the prospect of war with Prussia, provided that England remained neutral and friendly. Pitt and Grenville were well aware of this from Gower's despatches. Our ambassador had warned them that France recked little of a war with the whole of Europe, provided that England held aloof. Secondly, this fact disposes of the subsequent charge of Fox against Pitt, that he ought to have sided with France in 1792 and thereby to have prevented the attack of the German Powers. For, as we have seen, it was she who took the irrevocable step of declaring war on Austria; and further, the details given above prove that all that Frenchmen expected from Pitt was neutrality. By remaining neutral, while the French overran Belgium, Pitt was favouring the French plans more than any British statesman had done since the time of James II. Thirdly, we notice in the closing sentences of these Reflections signs of that extraordinary self-confidence which led Girondins and Jacobins to face without flinching even the prospect of war with England. What was Pitt's conduct at this crisis? He knew enough of the politics of Berlin and Vienna to see that those Courts would almost certainly make war on France. He adopted therefore the line of conduct which prudence and love of peace dictated, a strict neutrality. But he refused to proclaim it to the world, as it would encourage France to attack Austria. At the same time Grenville let it be known that Austria must not be deprived of her Belgic lands, which England had assured to her, firstly by the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), and quite recently by the Reichenbach Convention. As Grenville phrased it--"The Pays Bas form the chain which unites England to the Continent, and the central knot of our relations to Austria and Russia. It would be broken if they belonged to France." Talleyrand and Dumouriez knew this perfectly well, and prudently declared that France had no intention of keeping those lands. Would that the Jacobins and Napoleon had shown the same wise self-restraint! It was their resolve to dominate the Netherlands which brought them into irreconcilable opposition to Pitt and his successors down to the year 1814.