Among the many causes that broke that unbending spirit, the news of the miserable result of the Hanoverian Expedition was the last and severest.

The files of our Foreign Office papers yield touching proof of the hopes which the Cabinet cherished, even after Vienna was in Napoleon's hands.

Harrowby was urged to do everything in his power--short of conceding Hanover--to bring Prussia into the field, in which case "nearly 300,000 men will be available in North Germany at the beginning of the next campaign, which will include 70,000 British and Hanoverian troops employed there or in maritime enterprises."[59] To this hope Pitt clung, even after hearing the news of Austerlitz, and it was doubtless this which enabled him to bear that last journey from Bath to Putney Heath, with less fatigue and far more quickly than had been expected.

He arrived home on Saturday night, January 11th.

On the following Wednesday his friend, George Rose, called on him and found that a serious change for the worse had set in.
"On the Sunday he was better, and continued improving till Monday in the afternoon, when Lord Castlereagh insisted on seeing him, and, having obtained access to him, entered (Lord Hawkesbury being also present) on points of public business of the most serious importance (principally respecting the bringing home the British troops from the Continent), which affected him visibly that evening and the next day, and this morning the effect was more plainly observed: ...