6 - ‘Going Full Gallop, with our Swords Drawn’: Wickham's Second European Mission, 1799–1801

Summary

An Old Mission Revived

During the eighteen months that Wickham oversaw the security service from London he had remained the key advisor to Grenville on foreign affairs. Indeed, Wickham had involved his own wife in secret foreign correspondence, for one of the addressees to whom, ‘for greater security’, overseas agents’ letters were sent was a Madame Bertrand, of 17 Duke Street, Westminster. He had been heavily involved in the discussions that took place before James Talbot was sent back to Swabia in 1798 and continued to monitor the mission thereafter as the threat from the French armies led to internal upheaval, the dissolution of the ancient Swiss Confederacy and its replacement with the Helvetic Republic. Talbot's mission that Grenville and Wickham decided upon had two interlocking objectives: a primary aim, secretly to assist those in Switzerland, especially in the canton of Berne, who were prepared to resist French incursions and the elevation of Swiss Jacobins to power; and a secondary aim, financially to support the exiled French deputies, who had moved to Swabia from Switzerland, so that they might strengthen their clandestine links with the French interior and continue to act as a conduit for political intelligence. In the event, the first part of his mission was aborted almost as soon as he arrived, for there was to be no internal resistance to the revolutionizing of the Swiss cantons. This left Talbot to focus almost entirely on the French side of his mission, which in theory was confined to intelligence gathering.

The mission was be more difficult than Wickham's had been, for Talbot had no diplomatic credentials to hide behind and needed to live under cover (he used the name Tindal). Certainly, he required a cool head and the resolution to withstand both the wiles and the wilder schemes of the French émigrés. Although Talbot had many of the necessary operational skills and some experience of dealing with the deputies, his temperament made him a hazardous choice. He was too impetuous and too credulous.