For England there could be no doubt. Pitt and Grenville had decided that the only chance of peace lay in offering a firm front to every act of aggression. In this they had general support. Fox might choose to distort facts by declaring that Ministers were about to plunge the country into war on a matter of form[147] (the refusal to treat officially with the French Republic); but everyone knew that the first aggressive action was that of France, directed against the Anglo-Dutch alliance. The firmness of Ministers gained them support in unexpected quarters. On 20th December, when they asked for a vote for 25,000 seamen, including 5,000 marines, Sheridan heartily declared that he would have supported a vote for 40,000 seamen if that number had been deemed necessary. He also made a suggestion that the British Parliament or people should appeal to the generous instincts of Frenchmen to spare the life of Louis XVI. The proposal came somewhat oddly in a debate for increasing our forces against France; and it brought up Burke in one of his most acrid moods. Such an appeal, he said, was futile, for Louis was in the custody of assassins who were both accusers and judges: his death was inevitable. Sheridan and Fox heartily reprobated this recklessly vindictive language. Pitt then pointed out that on 17th August George III had expressed an earnest desire for the safety of Louis and the Royal Family of France in terms which were then read out. The same was the desire of every Briton; and the sentiments now expressed in that House would be heard and noted at Paris. If any more formal measure were to be adopted, he suggested the entering a protest in the Journals of the House; but any public representation, he said, must be couched in terms of indignation which must tend to defeat its own object. With this method of procedure Fox and Sheridan expressed their entire concurrence.[148] It is therefore a malicious falsehood to say that Pitt opposed their suggestion.[149] Burke certainly did so, and in the worst possible taste; but Pitt carried it out so far as was deemed desirable. If Sheridan and Fox wished for a public appeal, it was for them to set it on foot. I must here notice the vague and misleading statements in Godoy's Memoirs (written a generation later) that Spain made strenuous efforts to save the life of Louis XVI and opened "an unlimited credit" at Paris with the view of bribing members of the Convention to secure his acquittal. Further, that he, Godoy, secretly approached Pitt in order to secure his financial aid, which that statesman obstinately refused.[150] The story does not hang well together; for if Spain had already opened an unlimited credit at Paris, why did she want pecuniary help from Pitt? Further, the opening of unlimited credit, presumably with a Parisian bank, did not consort well with the secret methods which were essential to the success of the plan.