Current events served to strengthen this opinion. France had hitherto won all the points of the game by sheer audacity. Everywhere she had attacked, and everywhere she had found unexpected weakness. Custine's army had extorted a forced loan from Frankfurt. Dumouriez was threatening Aix-la-Chapelle on the east, and the Dutch on the north. The spirit which animated the French Foreign Office appears in the letter which Lebrun, its chief, wrote to Dumouriez on 22nd November: "To the glory of having freed the Belgian Catholics, I hope you will join that of delivering their Batavian brothers from the yoke of the Stadholder."[118] There can be no doubt that the general laid his plans for that purpose, though he also sent pacific overtures to Auckland at The Hague.[119] To crown the indignation of royalists, there came the tidings that on 3rd December the French Convention decreed the trial of Louis XVI for high treason against the nation. The news aroused furious resentment; but it is noteworthy that Pitt and Grenville rarely, if ever, referred to this event; and that, before it was known, they had declared the impossibility of avoiding a rupture with the French Government if it persisted in adhering to the November decrees. On this question the final court of appeal is the despatches and letters of our Ministers. An examination of them discloses the reasons for their firmness. On 13th November, when the evacuation of Brussels by the Austrians was known, Ministers assured the Dutch Government that they would oppose a French invasion of Holland. They charged Auckland to declare that His Majesty had "no hesitation as to the propriety of his assisting the Dutch Republic as circumstances might require, against any attempt on the part of any other Power to invade its dominions or to disturb its Government." This declaration was to be published in order to discourage the plots of the Dutch "Patriots," and to warn the French Government and its general of the danger of a hostile advance. Auckland replied on 16th November: "It is impossible to convey to Your Lordships an adequate sense of the impression made by this voluntary declaration of His Majesty's sentiments and intentions respecting the Republic on the occasion of the present crisis. The generosity of this measure, which in a few hours was generally known, and which to-morrow will be circulated on the Continent in the newspapers of the Republic, is acknowledged by everyone." The Prince of Orange at once wrote to thank the King for this proof of his friendship, and added the suggestion that the anchoring of a British squadron in the Downs would, more than anything else, tend to "hold in check our enemies."[120]