PREFACE. I FIRST became acquainted with the despatches of Lord Gower, which are printed in this volume, some years ago, when I was working in the Record Office on the foreign policy of the younger Pitt. They appeared to me, as soon as I read them, of great historical interest, and well fitted to be published. I therefore informed two leading London publishers of their existence and asked them whether they would undertake to print them, offering to see them through the press. The first publisher to whom I applied refused at once, saying that correspondences were a glut in the market; the second took a little time to consider, but eventually declined. Shortly after this, when I was pursuing my researches in the French Foreign Office, I was informed by two of the best authorities on the French Revolution, M. Henri Taine and M. Albert Sorel, that Lord Gower's despatches had been read by competent Frenchmen and had been declared to be of high value; and that their publication would be an important contribution to historical study. Armed with this testimony I applied to a third London publisher, sending him a specimen of the letters. After a courteous delay he also refused to have anything to do with the papers, giving as his reason that he had compared Lord Gower's account of the flight to Varennes with that given by Carlyle, and while there was nothing in Lord G. C. b Gower's description which was not in Carlyle, there was a great deal in Carlyle which was not in Lord Gower. Undaunted by these refusals, I applied to a fourth publisher of well-known liberality. He went so far as to have the correspondence copied at his expense, but after having read it he came to the conclusion that it could not be published without heavy loss. After these experiences it required great courage on the part of the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press to undertake a work so little likely to prove remunerative, and by doing it they deserve the gratitude of all serious students of history. The publication of documents such as are contained in this volume should not be left to private enterprise, but should be carried out by the State. The State has published a number of volumes under the superintendence of the Master of the Rolls which have been of the greatest service to English History, and without them the works of Stubbs, of Freeman, and of Green could not have been written. Similarly the collection of calendars of state papers have supplied Mr Gardiner and Mr Brewer with their best materials. But the Rolls series ends with Henry VII., just at the time when English history begins to be interesting to the student of modern international politics, while the calendars of foreign papers are at present confined to the reigns of Henry VIII. and Queen Elizabeth. Surely if there is any period of history which was vital for the existence of the English nation and for its position in Europe, it is the period of the French Revolution and of Napoleon the First. During this epoch we followed an independent line of conduct based on the inherent |