Firstly, the position of absolute neutrality which Pitt took up from the beginning of the troubles in France was extremely difficult to maintain amidst the rising passions of the year 1792. The Franco-Austrian war soon led to a situation in which the future conduct of the neutral aroused far more suspicion, and scarcely less hatred, than that of the enemy himself. When brains reeled with rage against tyrants; when cheeks flushed at the thought of the woes of Marie Antoinette, correct neutrality seemed inhuman. In an age that vibrated to the appeals of Madame Roland and Burke, cold passivity aroused doubt or contempt. Yet it is certain that Pitt and Grenville clung to that position, even when its difficulties increased tenfold with the fall of the monarchy and the September massacres. Lebrun, on coming into office after the former of those events, was careful to inform his countrymen that the withdrawal of the British ambassador was not an unfriendly act, and that England was making no preparations for war. Later on he chose to represent Pitt's conduct as persistently unfriendly; but his earlier words prove the contrary.
Again, was it practicable (as Fox claimed) for Pitt to forbid Austria and Prussia to coalesce against France? Probably it was not possible, without bringing Russia and Sweden into the field on the royalist side. In the excited state of men's minds, an act so annoying as that of armed mediation would have widened the circle of war; and, as we have seen, it was the belief of Pitt and Grenville, in August-September 1792, that the continental war might probably end from the inability of the combatants to continue it. No one at that time foresaw the easy conquest of Savoy and the Low Countries by the French troops. In one of the few references to foreign affairs in Pitt's letters of the month following, we find him stating that if France conquers and keeps Savoy, a new situation will arise.[190] But he remained passive while the French drove the Sardinian troops from Savoy; and his whole conduct at this time moved Burke to indignation, if not despair. So late as 6th November Grenville expressed to Auckland his firm belief in the policy of strict neutrality.[191]