“. . . We understand that Government have positive information that we are to be invaded, and I am told that Pitt believes it. The experience of the last twelve months has taught me to place little confidence in the information or belief of Ministers, and as the undertaking seems to me so arduous, and offering so little prospect of success, I cannot persuade myself that Bonoparte will be mad enough to attempt it. He will continue to threaten, by which means alone he can do us harm. The invasion would, I am confident, end in our glory and in his disgrace.
“The newspapers continue to mention secret expeditions, and have sometimes named me as one of the Generals to be employed. I put these upon a par with the invasion. We have at present no disposeable force, and, if we had, I see no object worthy upon which to risk it. Thus, without belief in invasion or foreign expeditions, my situation here becomes daily more irksome, and I am almost reduced to wish for peace. I am tired of the confinement, without the occupation, of war.”
